Rob, Sistine, and others hold a funeral for the tiger

The tiger’s funeral brings Rob, Sistine, Willie May, and Rob’s father together after the tiger’s death, turning a burial into an act of mourning and recognition. The animal had been kept in a cage and then released; after Rob’s father shot him, the group faces the consequences of that release directly. At the grave, the tiger is remembered not simply as a danger or possession but as a living creature Rob loved, whose death must be marked with words, shared grief, and care.

From the tiger’s death to a burial

Rob stands over the dead tiger and sees the small bullet hole in his head. Sistine, beside him with her dress twisted and wrinkled and her eyes red, tells him he can touch the tiger. Rob kneels and places a hand on the tiger’s head; as tears rise in him again, Sistine crouches and puts her own hand on the animal. She calls him one of the prettiest things she has ever seen and insists that he deserves a funeral as a fallen warrior. Her words give the group a purpose: rather than leave the tiger’s death unmarked, they will bury him properly.

Rob and his father dig a grave large and deep enough to hold the tiger. Rain falls throughout the work. When the tiger is in the hole, Willie May says that they must speak before covering him, establishing a small communal rite in which each person’s words or gesture can acknowledge the loss. The practical labor of digging and filling the grave is shared by father and son, even as the burial requires them to confront what has happened to the animal.

Words, poem, and offering

Sistine offers to recite the poem she remembers. She begins with the lines “Tiger, tiger, burning bright / in the forests of the night,” then continues with questions about the tiger’s fearful symmetry, the fire of his eyes, and the wings on which his maker might aspire. Rob closes his eyes; to him, the poem sounds like music, and hearing it brings tears again. Sistine cannot recall the whole poem, but she turns the ceremony toward Rob and asks him to say something.

Rob says that he has nothing to say except that he loved the tiger. His plain declaration supplies what the poem cannot: a direct account of his attachment to this particular animal. Willie May, in turn, says that she has not had good experiences with animals in cages. She takes the wooden bird from her dress pocket, lays it on the tiger, and offers it as company. The bird links the burial to her own history of releasing a caged bird, but here it also serves as a concrete gift placed with the dead tiger.

The family’s grief and the aftermath

Rob’s father clears his throat and hums softly before saying that he had to shoot the tiger, that he is sorry, and that he did it for Rob. The explanation does not undo the death, but it makes his protective reason part of the funeral’s shared record. Rob leans into his father and feels, for a moment, that his father leans back. The exchange marks an easing between them: the father’s action is acknowledged alongside Rob’s grief, rather than left unspoken.

Rob then takes up his shovel and covers the grave. As he works, sunlight appears on his arm; he recognizes it as the sun showing up in time for another funeral. The light follows the rain and darkness of the burial without removing its sorrow. Afterward, Sistine apologizes to Rob, saying that the tiger would not be dead if she had not made him release it. Rob answers that he is not sorry about what he did. His response distinguishes grief over the outcome from regret over the decision to let the tiger go.

Significance

The funeral holds together the competing meanings of the tiger’s release. Sistine had urged that he be freed, while Willie May had warned that freedom would not guarantee his survival; Rob’s father ultimately intervened because he feared for Rob. The tiger’s death therefore does not resolve the conflict between captivity, care, and freedom. Instead, the burial gives the group a way to acknowledge the costs of their choices without reducing the tiger to a mere symbol: he is mourned as an animal they saw, touched, and loved.

The scene also makes grief something the characters do together. Rob’s tears, Sistine’s poem, Willie May’s wooden bird, his father’s apology, and the shared work of burying the tiger each contribute a different form of remembrance. Most consequentially, Rob is able to name his love and lean toward his father, while his father answers with a moment of physical reciprocity. The funeral does not restore the tiger, but it allows sorrow to be expressed and leaves Rob and his father closer than before.