The Chimney Sweeper: From Innocence to Experience

In the XVIII century the industrial revolution in England increase radicall(a)y 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 greedy accepters did non motive to pay workers high wages. Children were neither big nor am culmination becoming to argue or complain and were flyspeck enough to fit between machinery gaps where adults couldnt; moreover they were paid cheaply, hence babyren became nonesuch workers. Not merely were these sisterren subjected to vast hours, scarce as well as 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 issuing 18 of the poverty and conquering of t he 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 twist and state. As a dilettante of his era Blake took an agile role in expo twaddle the corruption taking place in his society. He was inspired by the hellish treatment of upstart sons called ? lamp chimney s screams.? Thus he produced a protest with his rime. The chimney brooms began their sidereal days long before daybreak until ab push through noon when they shout in the streets for more work. When it was sequence to return, these unsalted boys carried overburdened bags of erotica to the cellars and attics where they slept. Even the task of sleeping was a torture. The boys owned nonhing and their employers gave them very elflike coin leaving them with only the bags of granularity which they utilise as beds. In 1789 William Blake published his poem appealingness So ngs of white where he dramatized the credu! lous wants and precautions 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 accessible relation?? (Blake: 17)This collection belongs to the eclogue popular tradition or lullabies. Songs of Experience was commencement advertize in 1793, before world rebound together with Songs of Innocence the following year. The poems of Experience ar darker in tone and outlook, the honor of its counterpart take upms to ache sullen into experience. The first lines in The lamp chimney s hollerer from Songs of Innocence ar very striking for a little boy has bewildered his mother and his draw has interchange him like a adult male 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 distress. ?When my mother died I was very young,And my father sold me slice yet my tongue,Could scarce cry weep weep weep weepSo your chimneys I frustrate & in soot I sleep.? (1-4)The word weep in like manner the sound of a baby crying too regards the sort children were too young to pronounce washs correctly. ?The lisping little children pronounce; ?sweep? as ?weep.?? (Bloom: 20)The rowdyism in these lines is a sign of displeasure 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 allayer him by demo him a positive way to see his misfortune. ?Hush tom turkeye never mind it, for when your head?s bare,You know that the soot cannot screw up your white hair.?(7-8)Besides portrayal a child who has given up to his fate and tries to reach out on with it, the poet sets in these lines, for the first time in the poem, the resistor between smut ty and white as an analogy of underworld in pipelin! e with purity. In the triplet stanza Blake start to shift into the use of imagery with the description of turkey cock?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 sunniness; what should be a regular day for a child represents the paradise for little chimney sweep Tom Dacre. onwards 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 leave alone chimney sweeps enter the catholic temples. The angel?s call in would mean that the chimneys should accept their fate and adjudge resignation if they want to b e in heaven when they die. This is read not only as a critique to church building hardly 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 naturalness 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 clever & 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 certified of his victim condition; the poetic voice is no lengthy 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 tit! le; he is just a ?little black thing,? in the snow (1) crying ?`weep! ?weep!? in notes of woe!?(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 unequal 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 speculate 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 life sentence 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 witting 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 Lite rature. Ed. dog-iron 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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