When my mother died I was very young,
And my father sold me while yet my tongue
Could scarcely cry " 'weep! 'weep! 'weep!'weep!"
So your chimneys I sweep & in soot I sleep.
There's little Tom Dacre, who cried when his head
That curled like a lamb's back, was shaved, so I said,
"Hush, Tom! never mind it, for when your head'sbare,
You know that the soot cannot spoil your white hair."
And so he was quiet, & that very night,
As Tom was a-sleeping he had such a sight!
That thousands of sweepers, Dick, Joe, Ned, & Jack,
Were all of them locked up in coffins of black;
And by came an Angel who had a bright key,
And he opened the coffins & set them all free;
Then down a green plain, leaping, laughing they run,
And wash in a river and shine in the Sun.
Then naked & white, all their bags left behind,
They rise upon clouds, and sport in the wind.
And the Angel told Tom, if he'd be a good boy,
He'd have God for his father & never want joy.
And so Tom awoke; and we rose in the dark
And got with our bags & our brushes to work.
Though the morning was cold, Tom was happy & warm;
So if all do their duty, they need not fear harm.
Poet
William Blake was one of England‘s greatest poets. He combined both a lofty mysticism, imagination and vision with an uncompromising awareness of the harsh realities of life.As a young boy, he had a most revealing vision of seeing angels in the trees. These mystical visions returned throughout his life, leaving a profound mark on his poetry and outlook. William Blake was also particularly sensitive to cruelty. His heart wept at the site of man‘s inhumanity to other men and children. In many ways he was also of radical temperament, rebelling against the prevailing orthodoxy of the day. His anger and frustration at the world can be seen in his collection of poems ―Songs of Experience‖
Summary
The speaker of this poem is a small boy who was sold into the chimney-sweeping business when his mother died. He recounts the story of a fellow chimney sweeper, Tom Dacre, who cried when his hair was shaved to prevent vermin and soot from infesting it. The speaker comforts Tom, who falls asleep and has a dream or vision of several chimney sweepers all locked in black coffins. An angel arrives with a special key that opens the locks on the coffins and sets the children free. The newly freed children run through a green field and wash themselves in a river, coming out clean and white in the bright sun. The angel tells Tom that if he is a good boy, he will have this paradise for his own. When Tom awakens, he and the speaker gather their tools and head out to work, somewhat comforted that their lives will one day improve.
Analysis
“The Chimney Sweeper” present in both Songs of Innocence and Songs of Experience are heart wrenching pieces of poetry written by Blake to shed light upon the oppression that the underage children went through just so that the greedy so-called upper class members of the society and their money-hungry parents who sold them off could exploit their innocence and labor to suit their needs. In the Songs of Innocence, this major social issue has been perceived through the eyes of a little boy who takes every misery that his inflicted upon him in his stride with the hopes of a better tomorrow. This little boy is unaware of the gross injustice being done to him. The Songs of Experience is the darker twin of the Songs of Innocence. In this dark version, there is an underline of protest and the sense of being wronged is predominant in the speech of the little boy as he now realizes the unfairness of the society which has taken his innocence from him to exploit his labor to meet their selfish demands.
This poem gives the readers a peek into the miserable lives of the little kids who had to work as chimney sweepers. The speaker tells us that after his mother died he was sold off by his father so that his child-labor could be used to make some money. During those days, little children were in demand for the job of sweeping chimneys in England as they could climb up chimneys easily and clean them by removing all the soot and dust. The father of this little child well aware of the money which he could get by sacrificing his son‘s childhood sold him off. The kid was sold at an age when he could not even say ―sweep‖ properly. He had to move around the city looking for houses that needed chimneys to get cleaned. This means that the kid was sold off at a fairly young age when he had not even learnt to speak properly. At the time of his life when he was supposed to play and get educated, this small child spent his days sweeping chimneys and at the end of the day he was not even given a comfortable place to sleep in but had to rest on the bags of soot that he would collect. This gives us an idea of the very miserable conditions and the cruel deprivations that these little kids had to survive in. By sketching this horrifying picture, Blake wants to give rise to a sense of protest in our hearts against the oppression of the poor children by the rich.
The speaker had a fellow friend named Tom Dacre who was inconsolable because of he was not being able to keep up with the ill-treatment. During those days it was a popular belief that curly hair seeped a child‘s energies which is why worker kids with curly hair had to get their heads shaved so that they could yield more productivity. Tom who had curly hair was also made to go through the pain of losing his beautiful white hair. The speaker tries to comfort Tom by telling him that now that he has got his hair shaved he never has to worry about getting them dirty. This innocence of the speaker and Tom makes our hearts go out for these kids who were made to go through hell but had to live with it because they did not have the power to complain. Here shaving of the kid‘s head implies the infringement of the beauty that a small child is supposed to be gifted with.
After being soothed by the speaker, Tom goes to sleep and sees a dream. In that dream he sees all his friends who are as young as him locked up in black coffins. Here black coffins refers to the pre-mature death which many of these chimney sweepers met when they were still kids because of the harmful exposure to soot and dust at all hours which damaged their lungs and often caused cancer. There were many kids who would lose their lives because they would accidently get burnt while sweeping chimneys. Next Tom sees that an angel comes and unlocks those coffins. Tom and his friends are set free who run down lush greenery to go and wash their soiled bodies covered with soot in the river. The angel here symbolizes the little kids‘ hope for a better tomorrow. Their optimism urges them to believe that one day their miseries will end. The ―green plains‖ refers to prosperity and ―wash in a river‖ means that the children are being relieved of the all the hard work they are forced to perform everyday while sweeping chimneys. The kids after taking this bath of emancipation were white again and were shining as bright as the sun. This means that freeing these kids from their miseries would promise them a great future and give them a chance to prosper. The kids are shown playing with the wind and clouds which means that their innocence and childhood that was captured because of their exploitation has been returned to them. This angel asks Tom to be a good boy as that would make him the Son of God which will end all his suffering. Here we see how the kid helplessly hopes in his dream that God will bring an end to his pain. By adding this aspect to Tom‘s dream, Blake also wants to shed light upon the blind faith on religion and Providence which never amounted to any good as little kids were made to suffer by the hands of their cruel and selfish employers. It is worth noticing that the angel is just a fragment of the child‘s dream and might not exist at all. It just might be something that the kid‘s optimism created to urge him through his dark days.When the little kid rises from his dream the next day he again has to gather his brushes and tools to set out for work but this time he does not feel too bleak and helpless because of his inspiring dream from the last night. The little child holds on to the comforting thought that he will soon win God‘s favor and that will take him away from his world of perennial angst. Here we again get to see the innocence of the child who blindly invests his hopes in God completely unaware that the evil forces of the society are much stronger than his prayers of redemption
Interpretation
William Blake‘s "The Chimney Sweeper" is considered to be one of Blake‘s more outspoken works, as it provides harsh social commentary on the issue of child labor. His use of anecdote, tone, biblical allusion, and design all contribute to the continuation of the theme of innocence in Blake‘s Songs of Innocence.
Many prominent Blake critics have suggested that "The Chimney Sweeper" was ―inspired by the agitation which was then trying to pass laws against the use of children as chimney sweeps‖.Britain‘s Act for the Better Regulation of Chimney Sweepers and their Apprentices stipulated that sweepers ―should not begin work until they are eight, they should be washed once a week, and they should not be made to climb chimneys with fires in them‖ , but this law was loosely enforced, and Blake felt greater emphasis should be placed on the safety of these sweeps. With this focus on advocating for children‘s rights, Blake spends the first half of the work exposing the dangers of the job of chimney sweeping and the exploitation of children in this line of work. The first stanza highlights the fact that ―boys (and even a few girls) as young as five were apprenticed by their parents to master sweepers in what amounted to both child labor and involuntary servitude‖.Throughout the first three stanzas, Blake uses powerful imagery to illustrate the terrible conditions in which the children worked. The soot in which the narrator sleeps is not metaphorical, but literal—―climbing boys did indeed sleep on the bags of soot they swept‖. Blake describes an environment in which the boys were surrounded by soot to represent the soot that was in the boys‘ lungs. Also, the ―coffins of black‖ represented ―the narrow chimneys in which children sometimes got stuck and suffocated‖.Blake‘s attempt to invoke pity in the reader is also supported by his use of anecdote. The work is written through the perspective of an experienced chimney sweep who was so young that he couldn‘t pronounce the word ―sweep.‖ ―The child‘s lisp in pronouncing his cry ‗sweep!‘…had its pathetic significance‖ in that it invokes pity in the reader; Blake used the child‘s inability to form speech, a problem associated with young children, to show the injustices of putting such young children in such a dangerous line of work. As an experienced sweep, the narrator consoles a new recruit, Tom Dacre, who ―cried when his head…was shav‘d‖, a common practice, ―since hair would collect large quantities of soot‖. However, the speaker reassures Tom that the shaving of his head is a good thing, for ―the soot cannot spoil your [his] white hair‖ . The speaker‘s ability to find ―the silver lining of every cloud‖ embodies the tragedy of the poem—the children‘s ability to remain innocent and optimistic in such a hopeless, oppressive environment.
The second part of the work is focused around a vision that Tom has in which an angel appears to ―set them all free‖ from the oppressive conditions of chimney sweeping. A common motif in Blake‘s works, angels ―mercifully bring death, particularly to children‖ . Specifically, in "The Chimney Sweeper," ―an angel unlocks the coffins of the chimney sweepers‖, signifying that the angel is bringing death to the children, thus liberating them from their oppressed state. In his dream, Tom dreams of the freedom to frolic in nature, ―to wash in a river and shine in the Sun‖. Tom‘s dream is the epitome of a child‘s innocence, as it shows that a child can still be optimistic, even when in the worst of situations. This innocence ―can be both imaginative and pathetic at the same time—imaginative because the innocent child can ‗transcend‘ his outer environment…and pathetic because the child so obviously suffers from that outward existence‖. Blake uses the fact that ―the child must indulge in symbolic compensations for his real lot‖ to invoke sympathy in the reader and develop a pitiful tone. However, Tom‘s dream of death also represents the experience that comes with the children‘s exposure to death in their dangerous line of work. Thus, Tom‘s dream embodies the incredible coexistence of innocence and experience that Blake describes throughout the poem.
The Angel‘s focus on being ―a good boy‖ and doing ―their duty‖ brings about Blake‘s questioning of religion and the accusation that it brings about false hope. In context of the poem, ―being ‗good‘ means continuing in Tom‘s enforced labors‖ presenting an open-ended conflict in the mind of the reader. Though Tom is reassured by the speaker‘s efforts and the Angel‘s promise that if they ―all do their duty, they need not fear harm‖ ,the Angel is acting as an agent to quiet revolt against the injustice of this oppressive labor. In essence, Blake is showing the downsides of innocence, for ―the comforting sentiments of innocence will have terrible consequences for these boys‖.
In addition to blaming religion for giving the sweeps false hope of a better life, Blake, as a part of his social commentary, also blames humanity in general for allowing and encouraging such a dangerous and inhumane practice. By using the word ―your‖ in the line ―so your chimneys I sweep‖ , Blake ―implicates the reader in the circle of exploitation‖ . Blake claims that by supporting the sweeping industry, society as a whole is perpetuating and encouraging the oppressive conditions in which the young sweeps live. ―The sweeps‘ trust in the justice and benevolence of the very world that has injured them is terribly pathetic‖ Blake invokes a feeling of guilt in the reader by juxtaposing Tom‘s dream with subtle accusations of society‘s betrayal of these young children.
Theme
Innocence
The first version of "The Chimney Sweeper" appeared in Blake's collection Songs of Innocence (1789).. That's because this particular song is all about the absence of innocence. The kids in this poem have no childhood whatsoever. They get up before dawn and clean chimneys. In that sense, their innocence has been stolen from them. They're forced to live a "black" life, covered in soot and facing a premature death. They frolic and play only in dreams.
Death
Chimney-sweeping was a dirty business, and those kids suffered a ton. Abuse, cancer, early death.. So it makes sense that a poem called "The Chimney Sweeper" would face death in some way. It does so in Tom's dream, in which the little guy sees his fellow sweepers in coffins. This might remind us that these kids face an early death, but it also shows us that in many ways, they're dead already; they've lost their childhood, their freedom, and their innocence. According to Blake, the chimney-sweeping life is no life at all.
Suffering
Chimney-sweeping was a dangerous job, and there was little joy and a lot of suffering for the children involved. Blake talks about how Tom's head was shaved (which made him cry). All the sweepers in the dream are "locked up" in coffins, the speaker was sold by his father, and the only place the children get to play and be children is in Tom's dream. Yep, there's lots of suffering in "The Chimney Sweeper." The sad thing is it's the children who bear the brunt of it, and there's no end in sight.
Religion
An angel appears in Tom's dream in the form of a savior who releases the chimney sweepers from their coffins, and tells Tom that if he's a good boy God will love him. It seems like the angel is telling Tom to do his job. Does that mean that, in "The Chimney Sweeper," religion, in a way, participates in the exploitation of children? In a word, yes. Blake uses Tom Dacre's sad, beautiful dream to demonstrate how these boys' religious beliefs keep them contained in their dreadful lifestyle, rather than allow them to rise above it.
Style or Techniques.
Simile
Tom Dacre's hair compares to lamb‘s wool. Lamb is a symbol of innocence. Line 8 contains a contrast of white hair (angelic) and soot (sin). Note that the soot cannot spoil the hair.
Allusions
The fourth stanza mentions the unlocking of coffins by an angel and being washed clean in a river. These are Christian allusions to Christ's resurrection and baptism. The beginning of the fifth stanza mentions the boys in the dream were "naked and white, all their bags left behind." Naked and white suggests innocence and purity.Baggage denotes sin and the cares of the world.
Metaphor
The children get up in the dark and go to work. While "dark" refers to the time of day, it is also a metaphor for the "dark" and miserable lives the children lead.
The speaker says he sweeps chimneys and sleeps in soot. To sleep in soot is both literal (the speaker is dirty at the end of the day) and metaphorical. His life revolves around chimneys, to the point that he "sleeps" in soot.
The speaker says he sweeps chimneys and sleeps in soot. Soot is here a metaphor for the poor quality of the child's life and for the way in which chimney-sweeping dominates his life.
Tom sees a few of his friends and thousands of others in "coffins of black." "Locked" is here a metaphor for the ways in which children were forced to work a job that killed their childhood. They're stuck. There's no getting out.
The speaker and Tom get up "in the dark." While this refers to the time of day, "dark" is also a metaphor for their dark and miserable lives. Folks, we hate to say it, but there's no light at the end of the tunnel for these kiddos.
EN1215_British & American Literature_content credits to original creators_Uploaded by Nisal Wanigasuriaya
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