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¶ … Suffer the little children" -- Irony in William Blake's poem "The Chimney Sweep"
Characterize the speaker in this poem and describe his tone. Is his tone the same as the poet's. Consider especially lines 7, 8, and 24.
William Blake's poem "The Chimney Sweep" is told in the voice of a child. The poem's rhyme, cadence, and short metrical feet, along with its vocabulary, suggest a nursery rhyme more than a poem of outrage. However, although the young narrator accepts his fate, seemingly without protest, the poet does not. Blake uses the young speaker's stoicism and willingness to comfort a younger, newer sweep as a condemnation of an evil society that exploits children: "Hush, Tom! never mind it, for when your head's bare, / You know that the soot cannot spoil your white hair" (7-8). The boy's words suggests that Tom should bear up against his suffering, but clearly the poet wants the reader to be angry at the idea that a boy who is barely older than an infant should have his head shaved to clean chimneys. Although the speaker means his words to be comforting to Tom, the reader is likely to find it grotesque.
The speaker tells the reader that Tom had a dream, where the young sweepers were set free of their "coffins of black" by an angel and were allowed to play as young children should in heaven (14). This shows how the priorities of society have gone awry -- instead of hoping to live to a ripe old age, children fantasize about dying young so they can act like children in paradise. The idea that God loves little children is betrayed by a society that uses religious rhetoric to encourage children to become content with their miserable lives and do their adult duties. The ending lines of the poem are perhaps the most ironic of all: "Though the morning was cold, Tom was happy and warm; / So if all do their duty they need not fear harm" (23-24). Of course, Tom may come to harm anytime he cleans a chimney, and the only salvation from evil he can hope for is in the hereafter.
The boys can only achieve freedom in their dreams, because the reality of their situation is so hopeless. Dunn's boy worker works hard, but he is not consumed by his work, and he knows it is not a permanent, horrible situation. Dunn's poem, on the other hand, shows another dark side of work. His narrator is a boy old enough to work in a factory, but still young enough to
This job also gave him nightmares ("That thousands of sweepers... were all locked up in coffins of black") which shows that being a chimney sweep caused him much personal pain and distress. In Dunn's poem "Hard Work," we find a similar young boy who envies his friends away at camp while he labors in the Coke factory. Two key lines in this poem show how difficult it is for
The fact that the unnamed narrator, who could not have been more than five or six years old, shows a young boy's chilling resignation to his fate. These passages therefore show how thoroughly social conventions can "brainwash" society members, especially those who experience the most brutal oppression. This acquiescence to social convention is seen most clearly in Tom Dacre's dream. The ideal of a boy playing and running shows by contrast
The poem strikes a continual contrast between light and dark, like the natural, naked whiteness of Tom's hair, and the boy's bodies in heaven, "naked and white," with all of the unnecessary baggage of their labor "left behind." The poem also contrasts the ease of "sporting in the wind" rather than going into the pits of hellish, dark hot chimneys that is won if the boys are good and do
Blake's "The Chimney Sweeper "s Romanticism was an intellectual, literary, and artistic movement that took place during the second half of the eighteenth century. William Blake, an English poet, painter, and printmaker, explores opposing views in Songs of Innocence and Songs of Experience, his collection of poems that juxtaposes what he considers to be innocent perspectives against the perspectives of those who have been exposed to the cruelties of life.
Shakespeare and Blake A prevalent issue in English literature is how social status affects individuals. Two writers that are able to explore the negative aspects of social status are William Shakespeare and William Blake. In Shakespeare's Othello, the Moor of Venice, social status plays a major role in determining who does or does not get promoted within the military; this determination, in turn, leads to rebellion on the part of