William Blake's The Chimney Sweeper Essay

The poet, painter and engraver, William Blake was born in 1757, to a London haberdasher. Blake’s only formal education was in art. At the age of ten, he entered a drawing school and then at the age of fourteen, he apprenticed to an engraver. ( Abrams & Stillinger 18). Although, much of Blake’s time was spent studying art, he enjoyed reading and soon began to write poetry. Blake’s first book of poems, Poetical Sketches, "showed his dissatisfaction with the reigning poetic tradition and his restless quest for new forms and techniques" ( Abrams & Stillinger 19). Poetical Sketches, was followed by many other works including, Songs of Innocence and Songs of Experience. These series were accompanied by etchings, which depict

“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

symbolizes in the story that death will come to everyone. No one can hide, and there is no escape.

Throughout the poems, us the readers, visualized the different techniques William Blake uses. As well as how different and similar both of them are. The Chimney Sweeper, in my opinion, talks about how the parents of a child don’t really want him or her in their lives because of how they are trying to get rid of them. Yet on the second poem, Blake went straight to the point by not using many stanzas. He uses several types of figurative language that guide us through both of the poems. Which made them sound more interesting and understandable to the readers.

In lines three and four, the author begins to point out the visual evidences of society's spiritual malaise. Blake uses the word "mark" several times to show the reader the problems he sees have outward signs--"marks of weakness, marks of woe." In stanza two, Blake leaves the visible evidence for the audible evidence, and we begin to hear the groans of a fallen world. Man and infant cry--one in experience, one in innocence--yet, both in a fallen world, both raising a pained voice. From line three on, the poem is filled with mournful, weary, destructive sounds--the pounding out of the "mind-forg'd manacles"; the sad "'weep! 'weep!" of the chimney-sweeper (Blake 33); the dying soldier's sigh; the harlot's explosive, withering curse. All of these sounds contribute to the picture of society reeling in the deadly stages of metastasizing cancer.

There is joy in this poem it shows when they have a dream where they are finally free from their black coffins and are able to call one man father who is God. There is also joy when they are finally able to become clean again wiping all that black icky coal yuck from their skins and become the color they once were before they started cleaning chimneys. The joy and happiness that they all have in this dream proves that life after this gets 10 times better than what it is now and show that they will once again know what happiness is if they have ever had any before or be able to experience it first hand. They each all awaken the next dark morning with smiles on their faces knowing that after this horrible chimney cleaning job they will become free and clean and be able to enjoy a life in the after

This gives the tone of the sinister intentions of the speaker helping Blake convey the theme to the reader of the evil of holing anger inside until it builds up, but describing the catering of the wrath as being sunned with wiles which are usually evils schemes or plans. Alongside this example another in the last two lines of the poem during the finale when is says, “In the morning glad I see; My foe outstretched beneath the tree.” The death of the speaker’s foe is described with a malevolent tone, because the speaker is described as being glad to see his foe dead beneath his tree with no show of remorse or compassion whatsoever except for the fact that his foe is dead. This also majorly helps convey the theme to the reader the evil outcomes of letting ones anger build up inside them especially when they allow it and purposefully nurture it until the manifests itself as a violent act against another leading to another’s

In both poems it mentions the color black and that is usually a symbol for death, and the color white which symbolizes purity, innocence. In one of them it says ¨Were all of them lock´d up in coffins of black” which is basically a symbol for death. Furthermore in the poems the soot that would fall on them can cause them to have respiratory problems and it can lead to a variety of health problems which would cause them to die. These kids would not have much of a childhood their parents would sell them so they would work most of their lives and not live very long due to all that their bodies were exposed to. They did not have much to look forward to in life other than be working with a bunch of other orphans, that is why both poems are not very joyful.

“Then down a green plain a leaping and laughing, they run, And wash in the river and shine in the sun. Then naked and white all their bags left behind, They rise upon clouds and sport in the wind;” When Blake wrote these lines he was of course referring to the act of Baptism. Which is defined in the Bible as being a water ritual, used as a spiritual symbol. Through this process the sweeps would be washed clean of all of their sins and also be cleansed of all of the bad things in their lives including their jobs. “And the Angel told Tom, if he’d be a good boy, He’d have God for his father, and never want joy.” This line of the poem indicates that if Tom was a good child and did as he was told on Earth that he would not be forsaken by God as his parents had forsaken him in his former life, but instead he would have everything he could ever possibly desire and be completely content in his afterlife. “And so Tom awoke; and we rose in the dark, And got with our bags and our brushes to work. Though the morning was cold, Tom was happy and warm; So if all do their duty they need not fear harm.” Through these words Blake reveals hope rather than despair because the focus is on immortality instead of life as a sweep. “The little Sweep's dream has the spiritual touch peculiar to Blake's hand.... (Gilchrist).” As stated before Blake is trying to convey

chimney sweep you were seen to be doing well if you got past the age

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

William Blake is one of England’s most famous literary figures. He is remembered and admired for his skill as a painter, engraver, and poet. He was born on Nov. 28, 1757 to a poor Hosier’s family living in or around London. Being of a poor family, Blake received little in the way of comfort or education while growing up. Amazingly, he did not attend school for very long and dropped out shortly after learning to read and write so that he could work in his father’s shop. The life of a hosier however was not the right path for Blake as he exhibited early on a skill for reading and drawing. Blake’s skill for reading can be seen in his understanding for and use of works such as the Bible and Greek classic literature.

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

William Blake was one of those 19th century figures who could have and should have been beatniks, along with Rimbaud, Verlaine, Manet, Cezanne and Whitman. He began his career as an engraver and artist, and was an apprentice to the highly original Romantic painter Henry Fuseli. In his own time he was valued as an artist, and created a set of watercolor illustrations for the Book of Job that were so wildly but subtly colored they would have looked perfectly at home in next month's issue of Wired.

One can see that William Blake as a poets’ focal point is male children. One can wonder the reasoning behind, could it be that he feels connected to the male side because he is one himswelf. “My mother bore me in the southern wild” (Blake, line 1) this implys how he was conceived in Africa. The ‘southern wild’ gives reference to the Africa, since it was seen of being wild. ‘Wild’ having connotations with animals. He acknowledges that he is black but does not want to come to terms with it. “ And I am black, but my soul is white!” ( Blake, Line 2) shows the difference between the two. It creates a sense of knowledge to the readers, that this was written during the time that racism was alive. The exclamation mark placed in a way to suggest strong feelings “ White as an angel is the English child” ( Blake, Line 3) is a metaphor where Blake compares the whiteness of the angel to the English child. It is seen that being white is seen as being clean or pure. “ But I am black, as if bereaved of light:” ( Blake, Line 4) makes reference to being black is like being deprived of light. Blake makes great us of metaphors within the poem to place emphasis on how good and bad, black and white. It can be seen that the boy has a vast amount of knowledge since “ My mother taught me underneath a tree” ( Blake, line 5) states that his mother gave to him one thing she could only give to him, knowledge. “Look on