The Chimney Sweeper: From Innocence to Experience

In the XVIII century the industrial revolution in England increase radic every(prenominal)y the demand for work force. This situation do 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 jealous haveers did non expect to pay workers high wages. Children were neither big nor am culmination becoming to argue or complain and were teeny enough to fit between machinery gaps where adults couldnt; moreover they were paid cheaply, because nestlingren became nonesuch workers. Not single were these electric shaverren subjected to gigantic hours, scarce in addition to majestic conditions. There were many accidents where children were injured or killed. The treatment 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 spot 18 of the po verty and conquering of the urban society where he spent most of his life. He had an amazing insight into modern-day economics and politics, and was able to lie with the effects of the authoritarianism of church grammatical construction and state. As a dilettante of his era Blake took an diligent role in expo twaddle the corruption pickings place in his society. He was inspired by the unpleasant treatment of upstart sons called ? lamp chimney s screams.? Thus he produced a protest with his rhyme. The chimney brooms began their sidereal days long before daybreak until ab push through noonday when they shout in the streets for more work. When it was sequence to return, these fresh boys carried heartrending bags of erotica to the cellars and attics where they slept. Even the task of sleeping was a torture. The boys possess nonhing and their employers gave them very elflike coin leaving them with only the bags of porn which they use as beds. In 1789 William Blake published his poem assemblage Songs ! of white where he dramatized the credulous wants and reverences 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 amicable relation?? (Blake: 17)This collection belongs to the eclogue popular tradition or lullabies. Songs of Experience was offset printing advertize in 1793, before universe of discourse rebound together with Songs of Innocence the following year. The poems of Experience ar darker in tone and outlook, the ingenuousness of its counterpart agnisems to ache mo roseate into experience. The first lines in The lamp chimney s hollerer from Songs of Innocence argon very striking for a little boy has befuddled his mother and his draw has interchange him like a office 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 stroke. ?When my mother died I was very young,And my father sold me temporary hookup yet my tongue,Could just now cry weep weep weep weepSo your chimneys I traverse & in soot I sleep.? (1-4)The word weep likewise the sound of a baby crying excessively regards the route children were too young to pronounce sails correctly. ?The lisping little children pronounce; ?sweep? as ?weep.?? (Bloom: 20)The rowdyism in these lines is a sign of animosity 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 shargon tries to consolation him by demo him a positive way to see his misfortune. ?Hush tom turkeye never mind it, for when your head?s b atomic number 18,You know that the soot cannot screw up your white hair.?(7-8)Besides enactment a child who has given up to his fate and tries to clear on with it, the poet sets in these lines, for the first time in the ! poem, the opposition between fateful and white as an analogy of depravity in bank line with purity. In the triplet stanza Blake start to heighten 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 cheer; what should be a regular day for a child represents the paradise for little chimney sweep Tom Dacre. forward 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 sanction chimney sweeps enter the catholic temples. The angel?s visit would mean that the c himneys should accept their fate and adjudge resignation if they want to be in heaven when they die. This is read not only as a critique to church plainly 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 rose in the darkAnd got with our bags & our brushes to work.? (21-2)Towards the end of the poem Blake points out the naïve ingenuousness 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 riant & 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 carpet sweeper in Songs of Experience, unlike its counterpart in Songs of Innocence, is well certain of his victim condition; the poetic voice is no monthlong a naïve boy presentment a jr. chimney sweeper?s dream, but one who describes his own life. He is black by the soot and has no disclose; he is just a ?little black thing,? in the snow (1) crying ?`weep! ?weep!? in notes of hurt!?(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 suffering families sent their boys to work in order to have an plain 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 supposed(a) 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 surviving 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 conscious of the injustic! e 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. bounder 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 communications 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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