The Chimney Sweeper Analysis Script

(group 27)

Katie:

(1) When hearing the word innocence, a lot can breach the mind and one of the many connotations is childhood. In William Blake’s Songs of Innocence, “The Chimney Sweeper” brings into account the simple, stress-free mind a child has before experiencing the path to adulthood. The title of the song depicts the way life was in 18^th century London, in that young children were sold by their parents, to sweep chimneys. The young boy in the song narrates nonchalantly that his father sold him, so now he sweeps chimneys and sleeps in soot, showing that this cruelty was seen as completely normal in society.

(2) Sweeping a chimney does not sound promising or desirable for anyone. But Blake’s use of innocence shows that the perspective of the child has yet to develop and still remains pure, considering he was sold into a petty lifestyle and does not yet realize the disadvantages he will face as an adult if he continues his unbeknownst disadvantaged way of life.

(3) Blake’s young character explains that he could “scarcely cry weep! weep! weep! after being sold into the chimney sweep business, which explains that the boy was so young, he could barely pronounce words. Injustices happen in life, and can be abused by others especially when the victim is too young to know how their current situation will later effect their future.

Grace:

(4) Like many of William Blake’s poems,The Chimney Sweep is a cutting critique of an imperfect society that considers itself to be nearly flawless. Blake cleverly places the criticisms in the form of "innocence". This allows Blake to make his statements much more effective while simultaneously tugging at the reader's heart strings. Throughout this poem, Blake makes use of the character Little Tom Dacre, a young boy, by endowing the boy with personalized characteristics that take him from a faceless individual to a three dimensional, warm character with whom the reader finds connection.

(5) William Blake creates sympathy and sharp awareness for Tom Dacre, who represents other neglected children in poverty, by introducing his personal tragedy at the beginning of the poem. We cry with Tom as his innocence is stolen. The young narrator says "So your chimneys I sweep...” which ordinarily would go unnoticed by the upper class of society. Still, Blake tests the practices of the class system by elevating Tom out of his station in life imbuing human warmth in him which, in the eyes of the upper class of the time, was simply not done. Members of Tom’s class were background characters who anonymously provided a service to the affluent employers and were most certainly not to be seen or heard. Blake brought to light the reality that these people have not only basic human rights but they also have dreams, struggles and desires.

(6) Blake develops his social commentaries to encompass critiques of the church as well as religion. In order to dodge the hopelessness that is his life, Tom's only outlet is in his dreams.In Tom’s dream, thousands of young chimney sweepers were “lock'd up in coffins of black/ And by came an Angel who had a bright key,/ And he open'd the coffins & set them all free". The narrator reads the dream cheerfully with Tom feeling a sense of physical warmth after waking from the seemingly peaceful dream.

Matt:

(7) The cruel society in which the children live in is represented by the angel. The angel helps the young boy, Tom, remain optimistic when he tells him that “if he’d be a good boy/He’d have God for his father and never want joy. While this message seems positive, the interpreted meaning is only superficial. What it means is that if the poor chimney sweep carries out full responsibility and finishes his work for the upper class, he will be considered a “good boy” and go to heaven.

(8) All the chimney sweeps see this dream as God giving them a sign and believe that the church is their best way to be connected to God. The boys think the church can help them the same way the dream did. Unfortunately, while the dream maybe encouraging, it has done nothing to truly benefit the boys since they still live miserable lives of repression. Like the dream, the church does nothing to end the boys’ misery and suffering.

(9) In William Blake’s The Chimney Sweeper from Songs of Experience, he writes about a world that is wretched and merciless and portrays it in a dark, sad manner. William Blake’s goal is to reach out through his poem and voice his opinion regarding the depressing life in which young boys were forced to endure as chimney sweeps. At this point the only thing that has changed is the narrator of this poem’s perspective.

Casey:

(10) The Chimney Sweeper from the songs of Experience is very different from the Songs of Innocence and portrays an older, more mature character. This poem is written from the more experienced, more sophisticated point of view of a person who has endured many life experiences and hardships.

(11) The tone of this poem is more negative and pessimistic as if the speaker's life experiences caused him to lose hope in life and humanity. An example is shown to the reader by the boy's lessened significance in the second poem. Instead of having a name and being referred to as a person, the boy called “Tom” is now referred to as “A litte black thing among the snow”. Blake's reluctance to even acknowledge the boys existence as a human shows he no longer has faith or hope in the future of human kind.

(12) The black thing in the snow symbolizes humans impurity and the blemishes we leave on this earth. The symbolism of white is not only important in this example, but also ties back into the Chimney Sweeper from the Songs of Innocence when Tom's white hair is cut off symbolizing his evolution form childhood innocence into the truths of the real world. Once his white hair sheltering Tom from the truths of life is removed and he is exposed to reality he desperately wants to go back to regain his innocence but no matter how hard he tries he can now no longer be anything more than a black blemish on the white snow.

Brenton:

(13) Blake’s primary rhetorical strategy in writing the chimney sweeper twice (in both Songs of Innocence and Experience) is to show the overwhelmingly drastic change in perspective of the now more “experienced” and once innocent child. The narrator, now an experienced man, having gone through struggles and hardships, understands that he was abandoned by his parents and left on his own. This is made evident in his bitter and sarcastic answer to the whereabouts of his father and mother: “they have both gone up to the Church to pray.” Moreover, he now sees the direct correlation to society’s mistreatment of him and his early abandonment.

(14) Blake does not simply provide a surface level critique of society’s physical abuse of the chimney-sweepers at that time, but dives deeper into the morality, or lack thereof, of the proclaimed virtuous institution of the Church and its mass of followers. Although its proclaimed goals consist of love, benevolence, and charity, the Church and its followers are identified as hypocrites by Blake in light of their disparaging actions. While this idea is touched upon in songs of innocence, the opened-eyes of the experienced chimney sweeper, displays a more explicit and loaded criticism.

(15) It is obvious that Blake’s intentions for these poems were to be read side-by-side. Allowing the vivid contrast between youth and the aged, purity and the hardened, the poems together are intensely stronger and more effective, than if they were to be read separately. Although the innocent and the experienced live in the same world and society, their views are distinctly different which gives the reader a more rounded perspective regarding the thesis of Blake’s poem.

Katie:

(16) Even though the poor, innocent child had not yet realized the inequality of his chimney sweeper position, Blake demonstrates society as corrupt for taking advantage of the young and innocent with out them even being aware, which will lead the example for them to do the same when they become older and gain more experience in a corrupt world.