William Blake\'s the Chimney Sweeper

William Blake's The Chimney Sweeper

William Blake's poem The Chimney Sweeper is a poignant morality tale, told from the point-of-view of a young child who was sold into back-breaking labor by his own father. They boy was too young to even utter the words "sweep," much less protest the injustice of this arrangement. Unfortunately, such an arrangement was far from rare in Blake's time.

The unnamed boy then goes on to comfort Tom Dacre, another sweep whose blond hair was cruelly shaven-off. The poem then moves to a dream/fantasy, where Tom dreams of an angel who sets the sweeps free. In this dream, Tom runs and plays, just as any innocent young child. Tom is also told that if he is a "good boy," he will reap the rewards, in the form of God's love and eternal happiness. Tom retains these thoughts when he wakes up, and no longer laments his shaven head or his fate. Instead, he has a renewed cheerfulness, happy that if he works as a good chimney sweep and does his duty, boys such as him "need not fear harm."

Blake was a social commentator who was highly critical of injustices pervading Victorian English society. Boys such as Tom Dacre and the poem's unnamed narrator were often sold off by poor parents at the age of five. Because they were so young, the boys could climb narrow chimneys to clean out soot. This work caused a number of health problems, such as stunted and deformed growth. Many suffered from lung disease, brought about by breathing soot and harmful particles. Others suffered burns to their body, especially on the soles of their feet, resulting from scalding and poking by adult masters. Many more died from disease, suffocation and falls.

Against this backdrop, Blake shows the reader a young boy, Tom Dacre, and his simple dream. When first introduced, the young Tom is saddened by the loss of his beautiful blond hair, quite possibly a source of pride and his only worldly possession. 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 how horrible the life of a chimney sweep is. Young boys should be "laughing in the sunshine," and not climbing chimneys. The fact that Tom and other chimney sweeps accept their existence as they "do their duty" highlight just how deeply-embedded the moral code of society is, from the acceptance of citizens and the tacit approval of institutions like the Church.

The last phrase "if all do their duty, they need not fear harm," has incorrectly been interpreted as an acceptance of society's moral code. However, this is clearly untrue, since even chimney sweeps that did their duty often experienced great harm. Tom Dacre and the poem's narrator are innocent victims, who are echoing the moral code learned at the hands of social institutions such as the Church.