Social Criticism in Blake's Chimney Sweeper and Hayden's Monet's Waterlilies

“Holy Thursday” wherein he bluntly, yet poetically says, “Is this a holy thing to see/ In a rich

Early in the poem, Jarman points out the “sermon’s trenchant commentary on the world’s ills” (2-3), illustrating a mutilation of the connectedness of the congregation focusing instead on the very real but nonetheless generic ills of the world. Furthermore, the phrase “hand-wringing” (4) seems to describe the shaking of hands as the congregation members greet each other with the peace of Christ, again listing the routine of the congregation. Although, it appears to be more inclined towards a description of a helpless, passive anxiety that corresponds well with a sermon designed to impose guilt without inspiring action. Jarman goes on to compare the persistent nature of sin even in moments of peace with “motes of dust ride, clinging” (8). In this line, Jarman suggests that the congregation is sinful even after all the doctrinal procedure done to become clean from sin. Even the structure of the octave suggests a conventional and never changing sonnet form with 14 lines, a perfect Italian rhyming scheme, and a fascinating iambic pentameter alone, that inspires nothing more than an

Since it does, when reading each line, there is a resilient connection that allows the reader to put together and feel for what the narrator is speaking of. As each line is metrically linked, the words are further recited in a durable voice and the poem is virtually put together, musically. In the first and second lines of the third stanza, an apostrophe, a figure of speech that directly addresses an absent person or entity, is presented, “We smile, but O great Christ, our cries to thee from tortured souls arise.”

In the second stanza, the child tells the lamb who created him. In lyrics 13 and 14, he says “He is called by thy name/For he calls himself a Lamb. In Christianity, this is Jesus Christ, the son of God. In explaining the trinity earlier, this is another reference to God. Lyrics 15 and 16 say “He is meek, and he is mild/He became a little child. Jesus Christ was sent down to bare people’s sin. This could only happen if a child was born of purity (from a virgin).

The goodness of the “angel” in this story is often overlooked and misused by the townsfolk, yet he represents many of the good qualities associated with God or a godly figure. This irony comes into play by the fact that the townspeople were actually correct in calling him an angel (of sorts), while most of the time people are incorrect when first naming or labeling something, and there is certainly a lot of incorrect information associated with religion in general. “‘He's an angel,’ she told them. ‘He must have been coming for the child, but the poor fellow is so old that the rain knocked him down’” (1).

Allusion is also an important part of this poem because of the way the author uses it to connect to the outside works that may also encourage the reader to think in a certain way that goes along with the themes of the poem. The first allusion, found in lines 7 and 8, are to the Greek gods Icarus and Prometheus. This allusion requires the readers to think about gods and religion, which is a major part of the theme of this poem. Another allusion I see is in line 20, which refers to another one of Blake’s poems, “The Lamb.” This allusion is significant because the speaker asks, “Did he who made the Lamb make thee?” (20) And he wonders whether or not the same creator who made something so gentle and pure could also make such an evil animal. The allusion itself brings the reader to think about the other poems and to contrast the two completely

William Blake's The Chimney Sweeper, written in 1789, tells the story of what happened to many young boys during this time period. Often, boys as young as four and five were sold for the soul purpose of cleaning chimneys because of their small size. These children were exploited and lived a meager existence that was socially acceptable at the time. Blake voices the evils of this acceptance through point of view, symbolism, and his startling irony.

Some of these words evoke very strong emotions. The word "reverence" makes me imagine a crowd of worshipping masses, as it means "feelings of deep respect or devotion" ("Reverence"). This is a rather obvious conclusion to draw, as the poem at its heart is very much about God's stature. One can assume that the preacher is probably not one to criticize God, given his profession, and thus the praise heaped upon God by the narrator is appropriate.

First of all, The Chimney Sweeper that was published in 1789.In this poem it describes how a child sticks to himself because that’s all he has, his dad sold him to become a slave in sweeping chimneys and his mother died from sweeping also. This describes that the boy only sweeps to survive but just like it’s keeping him alive it’s also killing him. The mom had died from that too and it seemed like it was dangerous and even more for a child.

Blake begins the poem by stating that it is not possible to love another as much as yourself, and that thought is the highest of all human functions. This sets the stage for Blake's attack on religion's ideas of hierarchy and condemnation of rational thought. The next stanza describes the boy asking God, indicated by the capitalized "Father," how he could love him or another human more than a little bird picking up crumbs. The boy states that he loves God in and as much as a little bird. This echoes the naturalist ideas supported in the aforementioned poems. Blake seems to be saying that the proper way to worship and commune with God is by loving all natural beings, human and non-human. The priest, a symbol of organized religion that Blake so sharply critiques, overhears what the boy is saying and is infuriated by the idea that a person could worship God through nature, without ritual, politics, or human involvement, and that the boy dares use his mind to question what he has been taught. The priest makes the boy a martyr, preaching from his high pedestal of pomposity, and burns the boy, despite the cries of his family. The boy's curiosity and natural thinking have been squelched, and his imagination bound in iron chains. Blake closes the poem by asking if such

Then in lines 7-8, “Reason, your viceroy in me, me should defend, But is captived, and proves weak or untrue.” This is where the speaker of the poem is having trouble showing his faith in God and incapable of warding off evil. The speaker starts to blame God for not helping him ward off evil, and is being very self-centered. Having the repetition of “me” shows that this is self-centered and the speaker overall is self-centered. Also contradiction is seen here, because reason did the opposite

Judas and the mariner can be seen as the typical, universal sinner who betrays God by transgressing against Him. In this poem’s case,

The poem has many different hidden meanings but they are all based around a common theme of faith.

One of the most popular themes for Romantic poetry in England was nature and an appreciation for natural beauty. The English Romantic poets were generally concerned with the human imagination as a counter to the rise of science. The growing intellectual movement of the 18th and 19th centuries placed scientific thought in the forefront of all knowledge, basing reality in material objects. The Romantics found this form of world view to be restrictive. They felt that imagination was crucial to individual happiness. The imagination also provides a common human bond; a means of sympathy, of identification. However, the absence of imagination, the Romantics felt, would lead

"Please, sir," replied Oliver, "I want some more." No one will ever forget the simple plea made by the poor hungry little orphan named Oliver Twist. Nobody will be able to omit from his mind the painful blows that Oliver suffered. Nor will anyone cease to recall what it felt like to be young and helpless in a much bigger and stronger world. In an effort to bring the ostracized poverty situation of so many children to the public's attention, Charles Dickens wrote an unforgettable book to touch the hearts of millions. Whether he knew it then or not, he was also bringing a new connotation and worldwide innuendo to the term "child labor".