The Chimney Sweeper by the English romantic poet William Blake first appeared in 1794 in the volume songs of experience 5 years after he published Songs of Innocence the poems in Songs of Innocence present an idealized and optimistic view of Life focusing on Purity joy and the innocence of childhood in contrast the poems and songs of experience present a much darker and more cynical view of the world they address themes of corruption suffering and the loss of Innocence often criticizing social and religious institutions the poems in this volume reflect Blake's growing disillusionment with the world as he saw it the two volumes were later combined under the title Songs of Innocence and experience showing the two contrary states of the human soul to illustrate Blake's belief in the Dual nature of The Human Condition the coexistence of innocence and experience light and dark joy and suffering In the Chimney Sweeper a companion poem to its counterpart in Songs of Innocence an unnamed adult speaker chances upon a weeping Chimney Sweep in the snow when he asks him where his parents are the young boy takes over the narrative and explains that they are in church praying once a child full of innocence and joy he is now full of Despair condemned as he is to a short and brutal life ignorant of their child's real suffering and believing that they have acted in his best interests is parents have gone to church to offer up their praise poverty often drove families to sell their children into chimney sweeping or other forms of Labor in 18th and early 19th century England when William Blake wrote his Songs of Innocence and songs of experience poor families had few options for survival especially if they were large or lacked a stable income selling children to a Master Chimney Sweep provided a small Financial benefit and relieved the family of the responsibility of caring for them chimney sweeps often started as very young children because small bodies were needed to climb into narrow soot filled flu the work was hazardous with risks of respiratory illnesses Burns and even deformities from prolonged crawling in confined spaces this harsh reality of child labor deeply troubled social reform of Blake's time and his poem The Chimney Sweeper exposes these conditions contrasting the innocence of children with the Bleak reality of their exploitation the church in Blake's time often Justified child labor through a combination of religious economic and moral reasoning that aligned with the broader societal Norms of the 18th and 19th centuries the church taught that everyone had a god given place in society poverty and hardship were often seen as part of God's plan with the expectation that suffering Faithfully would lead to rewards in heaven religious teachings often emphasized obedience to parents and employers as virtues which extended to Children working under harsh conditions hard work was often equated with moral goodness labor even for children was seen as character building and a way to instill discipline and responsibility it was commonly believed that idleness led to sin and so keeping children occupied was seen as a way to save their souls the poem comprises three stanzas of four lines otherwise known as quatrains although the poem does have a rhyme scheme note that it is not regular with the first quatrain featuring rhyming cupets I.E a a b b with the second and third featuring alternate rhyme I.E a b a b most Rhymes are single or masculine in that the rhyme falls on the final stressed syllable EG snow and wo although there is one example of double or feminine rhyme in the final stanza I.E misery and injury line lengths vary between 8 and 11 syllables and the poem's metrical or rhythmic structure is also irregular with a mixture of I AMS Dum and anapests didum EG a little black thing amongst the snow with an occasional spondy dum dum EG weep weep for emphasis Blake's diction is characteristically plain and simple although it is also highly symbolic and rich in meaning he often used straightforward language which made his poetry accessible to a wide audience but this Simplicity was intentional allowing him to communicate powerful messages in a direct way making his work both resonant and impactful in isolation the title The Chimney Sweeper is fairly self-explanatory it does however take on deeper significance when considered alongside its companion poem The Chimney Sweeper in Songs of Innocence although both poems share the same title their contrasting contexts and tones provide a powerful commentary on Blake's view of The Human Experience in Songs of Innocence the perm portrays a young Chimney Sweep in a more optimistic naive light where suffering is seen as something that can be overcome through spiritual faith and innocence in songs of experience however the same figure represents the darker side of life where the child's suffering is more fully acknowledged and criticized the innocence of the earlier poem is replaced with the harsh reality of exploitation and societal neglect by using the same title for both poems Blake underscores the Stark cont between the two states of being innocence naivity Purity and spiritual faith and experience disillusionment suffering and societal critique the repetition of the title creates a sense of unity while also highlighting the profound shift in perspective between the two volumes the poem begins a little black thing among the snow on a literal level this description reflects the boy's physical condition as a chimney sweep covered in s to the point of being unrecognizable the contrast between the child's blackened appearance and the white snow emphasizes his degradation and isolation from the natural world the word thing dehumanizes the child suggesting that he is viewed as a mere creature on a metaphorical level the contrast between the black of the boy and the white of the snow becomes symbolic we could argue that Blake is ironically describing him as Society sees him as a being besched and blackened by original sin among the snowy white Purity and idealized virtue of the church and Society the church's doctrine of original sin justifies the suffering of the innocent child framing this as a form of redemption or experation for Humanity's inherent sinfulness by opening the poem in this way Blake exposes the dissonance between the church's teachings of Purity and salvation and the Grim reality of its complicity in human suffering the child an emblem of innocence is paradoxically branded as impure by the very system that should protect him he continues crying weep weep in notes of Woe the verb to weep means to shed tears and woe is another word for great sorrow Blake skillfully uses sound pattering here to emphasize the child's distress note the episis present in weep weep the alliteration of the semi W here in combination with the repetition of the long e sound which creates a high pitched greedy quality that orally mimics the thin weak voice of a young child crying for help the boy's Youth and physical Frailty and vulnerability is also further emphasized by the asant of the long o sound in notes of Woe which mimics a sound of Despair note also the use of an apostrophe in front of the word weep to indicate that a letter is missing in reality chimney sweeps often called out sweep sweep to advertise their services Blake's use of weep weep plays on this transforming a cry of Labor by young child whose underdeveloped language skills leads him to struggle to pronounce his words clearly into a cry of pain and despair this pun further reinforces the dehumanization of the child is very voice is reduced to the very labor that defines his existence and creates a strong sense of paos in the next line the unidentified adult speaker addresses the child asking him where are thy father and mother say the possessive pronoun thy is a now archaic word for your which was used to express familiarity and was either used among people who were intimate with one another or to people who were of a younger age or lower status this is similar to words such as T Tu and two that are still used in languages such as French Italian and Spanish this line therefore introduces a sudden intimacy that contrasts with the earlier dehumanization of the child making the situation feel even more personal and heartbreaking the question subtly accuses the absent parents while simultaneously drawing the reader's attention to the broader systems that allow such suffering to persist it sets up the child's response which is even more devastating in its naivity and acceptance of his fate they are both gone up to the church to pray this line marks a pivotal moment in the poem as the child's voice emerges to take over the narrative the shift to the child's voice creates an immediate contrast between the adult's perspective and the child's innocent yet resigned explanation of his plight this naivity makes the situation all the more poignant and highlights how the child seems to have internalized his suffering as normal by allowing the child to speak Blake empowers the figure that Society typically silences the child's testimony becomes a form of evidence against these systems of exploitation and hypocrisy the Revelation that they have both gone up to the church to pray juxtaposes the parents spiritual Pursuits with their neglect of their child's physical and emotional needs this abandonment is both literal they are physically absent and symbolic they have relinquished their responsibility by entrusting the child to harsh labor the line suggests that the parents believe they are fulfilling their duties by seeking Divine approval for their choices it reflects the pervasive influence of religious teachings that prioritized suffering as a path to Salvation in the second stanza the child remembers a time of Happiness Purity and innocence because I was happy upon the heath and smiled among the winter snow a heath is an expanse of grassland and suggests a contrast between the open Countryside where the boy has spent his earliest years and the claustrophobic and filthy Urban conditions in which he now lives and works the breathy alliteration of the aspirated in happy and Heath emphasizes his former contentment in this natural setting the jux position of the child's previous smile with his current weeping underscores his loss of Innocence the snow which now symbolizes coldness and suffering was once something the child didn't feel an indication of his prior emotional and spiritual warmth the use of the causal conjunction because at the beginning of the line implies that the child's former state of happiness and ignorance of sin was intolerable to the church's Doctrine this subtly criticizes A system that thrives on guilt and suffering rather than fostering natural joy and Freedom the boy's punishment for his former happiness was that they clothed me in the clothes of death and taught me to sing the notes of Woe there is a certain ambiguity in the use of the pronoun they here which is deliberate and Powerful it seems to implicate both the parents and the church thus creating a web of blame the parents are directly responsible even if they are unaware of it for the child's physical suffering while the church is responsible for the ideological framework that justifies it this lack of clarity forces the reader to see the child's suffering as systemic enabled as it is by societal Norms parental actions and religious teachings alike the clothes of death can be interpreted literally as the soot covered Rags that blacken the child they can however also be interpreted on a metaphorical level to allude to the inevitability of an early death due to the physical toll that chimney sweeping had on very young underdeveloped and often malnourished boys the poip tonic repetition of clothed and clothes intensifies the claustrophobic tone and underscores the oppression that these boys suffered note that the boy has had to be taught to sing the notes of Woe while Smiles came to him naturally this line reinforces Blake's criticism of religious and societal institutions instead of fostering joy and freedom these systems impose suffering as a moral and spiritual obligation the repetition of notes of Woe from the first Danza emphasizes the enduring and cyclical nature of this suffering the child's learned sorrow starkly contrasts with the innate happiness he once knew highlighting Blake's belief that suffering is an artificial construct rather than a natural state the final stanza begins and because I am happy and dance and sing this line is slightly confusing due to the present tense am how can he be happy and dancing and singing if he is woeful in the snow it could simply be that to put it into the past tense would have necessitated danced and sang which would have messed up the later planned rhyme with King it could however also be interpreted as an indication of an enduring hope of Salvation a temporary relief from despair that comes from clinging to religious promises even if they are ultimately Hollow this links back to the companion poem and Songs of Innocence where the children find genuine solace in religious belief imagining Angelic visions of freedom and warmth then down a green plane leaping laughing they run and Tom was happy and warm so if all do their Duty they need not fear harm note the poly synon in this first line the Simplicity of the syntax evoking the child's own Simplicity and and ingenuousness because the child seems to have shown no sign of his distress to his parents they are in a state of blissful ignorance or perhaps willful denial of the harm they have caused they think they have done me no injury there is more than a suggestion that they have rationalized their actions as being in the child's best interest either spiritually or materially while turning a blind eye to the terrible conditions in which he would have lived and this is why they are gone to praise God and His priest and King who make up a heaven of our misery note the polyon here which seems to imply that Blake connects religion and government in a unified system of exploitation not only suggesting that both are complicit in perpetuating the suffering of the vulnerable but also that the individual's relationship with God and or spirituality is me mediated by more worldly concerns in other words you can't have one without the others the verb makeup is crucial here as it suggests a fabrication or invention implying that the promise of heavenly rewards is a constructed narrative designed to pacify and control the oppressed the oxymoronic heaven of our misery is deeply ironic and underscores the hypocrisy of the the system a true Heaven by definition cannot coexist with Misery the church and state claim to be working towards a moral and spiritual Paradise yet it is built on the suffering of the vulnerable like the chimney sweepers on a literal level the heaven could refer to the comfortable lives led by the wealthy who prospered as a result of the misery of what was effectively slave labor as Blake concludes the poem he forces the reader to confront the Paradox of a system that purports to save Souls while destroying lives thanks for watching if you have any questions please let me know in the comments section below and I'll do my best to answer them don't forget to subscribe to my channel for more videos on English language topics and exam techniques and English literature texts