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
William Blake published “The Chimney Sweeper” in 1789 in the first phase of his collection of poems entitled “Songs of Innocence”. A later poem under the same name was published five years later in his follow up collection, “Songs of Experience”. The chimney sweeper’s tale begins in Songs of Innocence with the introduction of a young boy who was sold by his father after the death of his mother; the poem then shifts in the next stanza to describe the speaker’s friend Tom Dacre, another chimney sweeper
The Chimney Sweepers William Blake has written two poems with the same title of Chimney Sweeper, however each poem was written to portray a different perspective of similar situations. The poem Chimney Sweep (Songs of Experience) is written in a bleaker scope compared to Chimney Sweep (Songs of Innocence) which happens to be much more optimistic.Willaim Blake had written these stories as foils of one another and which has helped readers compare and contrast the messages that the poems are trying
William Blake proved himself as one of the most influential artists to spring from the Romantic Era without a doubt. What made Blake so popular may have been his ability to portray his time period in works of art that were beautifully crafted. Blake’s poetry was not appreciated during his lifetime because people were living the lives his works vicariously told, but once his time period ended, a historical book was left behind. The theme of a struggle is most prominently showcased in Blake’s poetry
William Blake, author of The Chimney Sweeper, gives the reader an uncomfortable feeling of the acceptance, and cruelty of child labor. With the use of anecdote, biblical allusions and a very sympathetic and retributive tone—Blake is able to transform the surreal idea of child labor into a visual reality. The poem revolves around a little boy, who the narrator describes as a “little black thing”, who is working as a sweeper in very poor and hopeless conditions. Through the voice of the child chimney
William Blake’s poem, “The Chimney Sweeper” is a poem about children losing their innocence and being forced to clean chimneys. The setting is in the industrial period when children in orphanages being sent to work at such a young age. The young boys were usually the ones to be put to work because they were small enough to get into the chimneys and clean them. Children in this era eventually were diagnosed with Black Lung Disease because they inhaled too much soot in their lungs. The poem opens
In the Chimney Sweeper, William Blake portrays the lack of innocence in these young boys lives since they are expected to have attained the experience to preform such unjust actions. The speaker of the poem begins it by letting us know that after his mother passed away his father gave him up to be a chimneysweeper so he could obtain money. These two figures, his mother and father are whom kids are supposed to depend on and look up for guidance. He feels abandoned because his mother is gone and
through poetic devices, various issues that the world and society faces. This poem is ‘the Chimney Sweeper’, written by William Blake. He was a man who lived in a time of political, state and church turmoil, something that showed through in his writing. Born in 1757 to a respectable London family, Blake found in a great time of change as the American and French revolutions shook the countries. ‘The Chimney Sweeper’ is a poem that forces the reader to question the morality of what the church and parents
Have you ever heard about chimney sweepers? Well if you haven't chimney sweepers are little kids between the age of 4 and 7 who are forced to climb up inside chimneys and clean residue off from walls. These little children suffered from serious injuries physically, internally and mentally. This torture started to build a deadly cancer because of all the toxins they would intake and to force children to clean faster they would start a fire at the bottom. In some cases these children would have serious
from feudalism to capitalism. Similarly, William Blake, who lived in Industrial Revolution-era England, witnessed this widening gap firsthand. Commenting on the inhumane labor practices common to the poor in 19th century England, he wrote 2 versions of a poem called "The Chimney Sweeper" in different collections- Songs of Innocence (1789) and Songs of Experience (1794). With these poems, Blake comments on the practice of using small children as chimney sweepers, drawing attention to the inhumanity and