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The Chimney Sweeper By William Blake

Decent Essays

The end of the eighteenth century was a dangerous time to be a child living in England; common folk everywhere were struggling to get by. Parents could not afford to feed and care for their children, so mothers and fathers had no choice but to sell their sons and daughters. Unfortunately, the career that children were forced into was chimney sweeping, which had a terrifyingly high mortality rate. The poem, “The Chimney Sweeper”, written by William Blake, tells the heartbreaking story of a child who is sold into chimney sweeping at a young age and leads a devastating life. After reading Blake’s poem about the sweepers, one may begin to wonder how it was possible for children to be treated so poorly, and how the king of that time could allow conditions for his people to get so bad. Thomas Paine shared his opinion on the caste system in his work Rights of Man. Paine explains that there are plenty of people that have lived undesirable lives for the king who are not acknowledged in politics, like the common folk who have been let down by the flawed caste system, including the chimney sweepers and other laborers. Because of the immense inequality taking place during this time, simply through birthrights, it becomes an important topic to focus in on. The works of Blake and Paine together give the audiences a new point of view on England’s political system at the end of the eighteenth century. These works protest the push away from the establishment and a push towards representing

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