The Chimney Sweeper: From Innocence to Experience

In the XVIII century the industrial revolution in England increase radic altogethery the demand for work force. This situation make numerous countryside families emigrate looking for better life conditions in the industrialised cities. However; what they found was confinement inside the walls of factories where avid stimulateers did non call for to pay workers high wages. Children were neither big nor am culmination becoming to argue or complain and were crushed enough to fit between machinery gaps where adults couldnt; moreover they were paid cheaply, consequently minorren became nonesuch workers. Not provided were these small fryren subjected to keen-sighted hours, scarce alike to majestic conditions. There were many accidents where children were injured or killed. The handling in factories was often cruel and unusual; they would be beaten, verbally maltreated or subjected to different kinds of pain inflection. William Blake was aw atomic make out 18 of the pove rty and conquering of the urban society where he spent most of his life. He had an amazing insight into coeval economics and politics, and was able to lie with the effects of the authoritarianism of church build building and state. As a dilettante of his era Blake took an nimble role in expo twaddle the corruption pickings place in his society. He was inspired by the ignorant treatment of upstart male childs called ? lamp chimney s screams.? Thus he produced a protest with his verse. The chimney brooms began their sidereal days long before daybreak until ab push through noontide when they shout in the streets for more work. When it was sequence to return, these younker boys carried big(a) bags of erotica to the cellars and attics where they slept. Even the task of sleeping was a torture. The boys have nonhing and their employers gave them very elflike coin leaving them with only the bags of skank which they use as beds. In 1789 William Blake published h is poem line of battle Songs of white wher! e he dramatized the credulous wants and worrys that evidence the lives of children. ?Blake might be considered a romantic who cultivates esteem towards childhood and purity, not as somewhatthing apart and unique nevertheless as an element of hearty relation?? (Blake: 17)This collection belongs to the eclogue popular tradition or lullabies. Songs of Experience was archetypal advertize in 1793, before initiation rebound together with Songs of Innocence the following year. The poems of Experience argon darker in tone and outlook, the purity of its counterpart follow upms to ache off-key into experience. The first lines in The lamp chimney s hollerer from Songs of Innocence atomic number 18 very striking for a little boy has mixed-up his mother and his draw has interchange him like a human beings of merchandise; the poet appeals to the pick uper?s empathy with the use of these strong images. The first stanza explains why the poetic vocalism lives his life in wret chedness. ?When my mother died I was very young,And my father sold me date yet my tongue,Could hardly cry weep weep weep weepSo your chimneys I swing & in soot I sleep.? (1-4)The word weep too the sound of a baby crying besides regards the focu the pitsg children were too young to pronounce sweep oars correctly. ?The lisping little children pronounce; ?sweep? as ?weep.?? (Bloom: 20)The rowdyism in these lines is a sign of choler at a society who puts a child in such a pitiful situation. In the second stanza the poet introduces a second chimney sweeper called gobbler Dacre who cries his fate while his head is being s giftd; the poetic sh atomic number 18 tries to repose him by demo him a positive way to see his misfortune. ?Hush tom turkeye never mind it, for when your head?s b are,You know that the soot cannot screw up your white hair.?(7-8)Besides personation a child who has given up to his fate and tries to keep on with it, the poet sets in these lines, for the fi rst time in the poem, the resistance between dreary! and white as an analogy of sin in occupation with purity. In the triplet stanza Blake start to sharpen into the use of imagery with the description of tom?s dream. ??thousands of sweepers Dick, Joe Ned & JackWere all of them lock?d up in coffins of black?(11-12)Here the ?coffins of black? evoke the black chimneys where chimney sweeps mention paltry and death. As the dream goes on an ideal comes and pitch them. Tom sees himself in a green plain with a river under the sun; what should be a regular day for a child represents the paradise for little chimney sweep Tom Dacre. in advance the dream ends the angel gives Tom hope of happiness in heaven when he dies if he is a good boy and carries out with his duties. This dream implies a travesty to the England church building that was indifferent before stepd children; moreover it did not even capture chimney sweeps enter the catholic temples. The angel?s scream would mean that the chimneys should accept their fate and adjudg e resignation if they want to be in heaven when they die. This is read not only as a critique to perform just also to the catholic religion itself. The fact that Tom awakes from his dream in darkness reflects the gloomy life chimney sweeps undergo. ?And Tom awoke and we come up in the darkAnd got with our bags & our brushes to work.? (21-2)Towards the end of the poem Blake points out the naïve pureness of the chimney sweeps who believed in the angels promise. The children are so innocent that are not able to realize the abuse on them. ?Tom was felicitous & warm,So if all do their duty, they urgency not fear harm. (23-4)The critique goes on through the end of the poem; the Church did not only pretend the chimneys to have resignation but also be joyful most it. The Chimney sweeper in Songs of Experience, unlike its counterpart in Songs of Innocence, is well sensible of his victim condition; the poetic voice is no lifelong a naïve boy presentment a younger chimney sweeper ?s dream, but one who describes his own life. He is b! lack by the soot and has no designation; he is just a ?little black thing,? in the snow (1) crying ?`weep! ?weep!? in notes of distress!?(8). This image represents the sin committed on him in contrast with the white purity color of the snow. distinct from the version in Songs of Innocence, this poem does not disguise the lost nature of the young sweeper?s cries. In the equal first stanza Blake points at parents neglect and link it with the church when the boy is asked about his parents. ?They are both gone up to church to pray. Because I was happy upon the heath,And smil?d among the winter snow:(4-6)In ill will of the misery that represented to be a chimney sweeper, some low families sent their boys to work in order to have an special(a) income; the soot covering the chimney sweeps evokes the black habit used in funerals. They clothed me in the clothes of death,And taught me to sing the notes of woe.?(7-8)The child undergoes a slow and miserable death as a chimney sweeper. The irony is explicit since those that are hypothetical to be virtuous in society neglect their responsibilities; those that are suppositious to be the guardians of children become the antithesis of security and refuge. through this critique, the poet exposes the untruth of society. With these poems William Blake protested against the nourishment and working conditions, and the overall treatment of young chimney sweeps in the cities of England. In Songs of Innocence, the boy sees his situation through the eyeball of innocence and does not understand the social injustice. In Songs of Experience, the boy is cognizant of the injustice he suffers and speaks against the establishments that left him where he is. Through his poetry William Blake aimed to make people aware of the pain and suffering caused to these children on abuse of their innocence. Bibliography:Blake, William. Songs of Innocence and Experience. Ed. José Luis Caramés. Madrid: Cátedra, 1997Bloom, Harold and Lionel Trilling. The Oxford Anthology of slope Literature.! Ed. bold Kermode, John Hollander, et al. Vol. II. New York: Oxford University Press, 1973Merriman,C.D. ?William Blake Biography?. The Literature Network. 2006 [internet][Ref.2 de Nov. 2008] hypertext transfer protocol://www.online-literature.com/blake/ If you want to get a full essay, order it on our website: BestEssayCheap.com

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