The role of non-normality and nonlinearity in thermoacoustic interaction in a Rijke tube is investigated in this paper. The heat release rate of the heating element is modeled by a modified form of King's law. This fluctuating heat release from the heating element is treated as a compact source in the one-dimensional linear model of the acoustic field. The temporal evolution of the acoustic perturbations is studied using the Galerkin technique. It is shown that any thermoacoustic system is non-normal. Non-normality can cause algebraic growth of oscillations for a short time even though the eigenvectors of the system could be decaying exponentially with time. This feature of non-normality combined with the effect of nonlinearity causes the occurrence of triggering, i.e., the thermoacoustic oscillations decay for some initial conditions whereas they grow for some other initial conditions. If a system is non-normal, then there can be large amplification of oscillations even if the excited frequency is far from the natural frequency of the system. The dependence of transient growth on time lag and heater positions is studied. Such amplifications (pseudoresonance) can be studied using pseudospectra, as eigenvalues alone are not sufficient to predict the behavior of the system. The geometry of pseudospectra can be used to obtain upper and lower bounds on the growth factor, which provide both necessary and sufficient conditions for the stability of a thermoacoustic system. © 2008 American Institute of Physics.