Explication On 'The Chimney Sweeper'

In this poem the poet and speaker are two totally people. The poet is Dudley Randall and the speaker is a spectator. I can tell that the speaker is a speaker because he/she is telling a story for example, "She clawed trough bits of glass and brick." This shows us that the speaker is a spectator since he/she is telling us what is happening as if he/she were there.

“The Chimney Sweeper” (128): This version of the Chimney Sweeper is very upfront and saddening. The version that is presented in the songs of innocence is much more of a calm town and is not as straightforward, while this version is very short and to the point. In this version its very deep as the narrator basically just calls out the parents/church for doing these horrible things to the children. I really love all three stanzas of this poem because they all have a really deep meaning and Blake transitions through them very well. Reading this poem over and over I don’t know what to make of it other than it is an absolute horrible situation. I think it can be tied in to

The speaker is the voice of the poem, since “I” is used alot in this poem, it is in first person. I imagined the speaker’s

The poem that stood out to me the most from the speaker, and narrative vs lyric unit was “Lorena” by Lucille Clifton. I really enjoyed this poem and it made it easy for me to understand the concept of speakers. Lucille Clifton wrote the poem, but wrote it about a experience Lorena Bobbit went through. It was hard for me to understand how a poem could have a speaker other then the author but this one made me see how sometimes the author is not necessarily the speaker. “I thought about/authority and how it always insisted/on itself” (pg. 57, 2-4). These lines contain the phrase “I”, but when Clifton uses the phrase “I”, she herself is not the individual, Lorena Bobbit is meant to be the speaker. This poem was a narrative, it told a story about the even Lorena actually lived through. It really stood out to me a lot and helped me understand the concept on a deeper level.

The little child “she”who is in vague identity runs through this poem. From the poem “but I was talking

The speaker of the poem is a character who is retelling a story that they have heard from someone else. As for the story, the characters are the ten surviving crew members of the Nancy Bell ship which include the man, the cook, the captain, a shipmate, a boatswain, a midshipman, and the captain’s gig crew. The setting took place on the shore from Deal to Ramsgate in the beginning with the narrator and then in the Indian Sea for the rest of the story where the characters were stranded. The story is fictional since it is not based on

Both “The Chimney Sweepers” poems were written during the industrial revolution. During the industrial revolution families were living in poverty, and times were challenging. Often times for families to survive they would sell their children to master sweeps, or master sweeps would welcome orphans and homeless children into the industry of menial labour. They used children between the ages of five to ten depending on their size. Parents would often sell their children younger, because their small frames were more desirable. Even though “The Chimney Sweeper” (1789) and “The Chimney Sweeper” (1794) were written five years apart they show many similarities and differences.

     Blake expresses his poem in first person, as a young chimney sweeper. This gives his poetic voice creditability because the subject of the poem is chimney sweepers. In addition, using first person creates a deeper sense of sympathy in the reader.

The Chimney Sweepers was published in 1789 and 1794. William Blake was the author of both poems that are named the same thing but are honestly completely different.

Using imagery Hayden brings a clear setting of the poem by describing the features of his/her father after working long hours and lighting the fireplace for warmth in the cold winters without ever receiving the slightest bit of gratitude. Using firm diction Hayden creates tone for the speaker describing the environment and ambience in a dismal way giving the reader an idea of the family relationships, and provides more detail by describing the speaker’s father in pitiful aspects such as being hated by the whole household and the indifferent personality the speaker presents toward his/her father. However, by using symbolism Hayden brings the essence of the poem together by writing how the speaker of the poem does not understand the lonely offices of austere and strict forms of love, Using the previous literary devices to describe the warmth of the fireplace every sunday, and the pitiful description of the speaker’s father, and giving slight implications to the reader of the poor background Hayden connects the speaker comes from, but only through hard work the daughter/son realizes how his/her father is showing a disciplined form of

The narrator speaks of what could symbolise the lower or working class "the Chimney-sweeper", crying out against the system, and the upper class "Church" subduing them. Both the chimney and church are personified to symbolise the people they represent. This dominance is also related in the personification of "Soldier" and "Palace". The soldiers fight the wars that the monarchy decides, their blood on the King and Queen's hands. They sigh as to their shared plight, but their sighs only end in their deaths. This stanza's rhythm is different in that it follows a heptameter meter. Its pace is faster, which might reflect an increase in excitement by the narrator in what might be anger.

1. I could see the speaker of this poem to be a man telling his son a folklore about the "Jabberwock" around a campfire. I think this because of the intensity of the speaker and how he says, "Beware the Jabberwock, my son!"

     William Blake’s “The Chimney Sweeper” was mainly about the possibilities of both hope and faith. Although the poem’s connotation is that of a very dark and depressed nature, the religious imagery Blake uses indicates that the sweeps will have a brighter future in eternity.

He uses regular rhyme scheme (aa,bb,cc,….) , but the last stanza has no perfectly rhymed end words or scheme which provides a hard sound to create emphasis on Tom’s conditions that the author does not want us to forget. Blake uses sound devices like Alliteration in “cry” (3) and “chimneys” (4) to show the miserable conditions of the chimney sweepers and he uses another Alliteration in “sweep” (4) and “soot” (4) to show the suffering of the boy who sweeps chimneys and sleeps in soot. There is Alliteration in “sleeping” and “sight” (10) which conveys Tom’s strange dream or sight. The poet connects the two words “bare” (7) and “hair” (8) as assonance to show that having a shaved head means Tom's hair won't get messed up by all that black soot. That means something black and dark would mess up and corrupt something white and innocent. There is Another Assonance in “dark” (21) and “harm” (24) to describe how he (Tom) awoke and the two of them grabbed their chimney-sweeping equipment and went off to work really early in the morning. The poet connects the two words “sweep” (4) and “sleep” (4) as consonance to reflect children abuse and the suffering of the labour child who sweeps chimneys and sleeps in soot. There is also a consonance in “night” (9) and “sight” (10) to show how Tom is soothed by the speaker and goes to sleep then he sees his strange dream or

"The Chimney Sweeper" is a quintessential Blake poem as it embodies his belief in looking towards the future for hope and comfort. Additionally, the poem is a perfect example of a child's movement from innocence to