¶ … 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.