Analysis of William Blake's "The Chimney Sweeper"

"The Chimney Sweeper" is a poem by William Blake about young children who are sent to work in mines in 18th century England. For this analysis, I examine William Blake's life with a concentration on the possible motives he may have had for writing this poem. I also analyze the poem itself and the message Blake was trying to convey.

Analysis of William Blake's "The Chimney Sweeper"

"The Chimney Sweeper" is a poem about young children who are sold by their fathers to work in the mines. They have gruesome jobs, and the workdays are long. However, the boys make the most of it, and they do the job with hope, because God is going to protect them and give them a home in heaven.

To properly look at London in 1757 to middle class parents. When Blake was a child, he saw visions of God and angels. This would be incorporated into his poems in later years, including "The Chimney Sweeper". His parents did not think he was normal, and kept him home for schooling. He learned to read and write, and then enrolled in an art school at age 10. His passion was for poetry however, and dropped out of the art school at age 14. He took an apprenticeship with an engraver. There he learned about Gothic styles that he could use for inspiration in his poetry.

Blake got married in 1772 to Catherine Boucher. She was illiterate, so Blake taught her how to read and write. They decided not to have children; instead Blake spent time with her and the other members of his family, namely his brother Robert. However, he lost his brother in 1787. Still though, Blake believed that Robert's spirit would be in good hands, and even saw it rise up for joy. He also claimed that Robert's spirit visited him in later years.

Blake lived the final years of his life in poverty after opening up a print shop that eventually failed. However, he was still able to pay off his debts, with the help of John Linnell, who gave him assignments to do, namely make illustrations for Dante's Divine Comedy. Blake died in 1827.

Now we can look at "The Chimney Sweeper". The poem starts out with the father selling his son to the chimney sweeping business at a very young age after the mother dies. I can infer from this that the father needs the money and quite possibly is not capable of taking care of the child himself. The "'weep" can be how a young child pronounces sweep, but it also symbolizes how this makes the young child feel. The last line of the first verse states, "So your chimneys I sweep & in soot I sleep". What I interpret this line as is "I do all of this work for you, and this is what I get in return?" The boy does all of the work, and he is treated poorly, maybe even as less than human. His father has abandoned him, and there is no one who cares for him.

In the second verse we get to meet another boy in the same situation, Tom Dacre. Tom's hair gets shaved and he is in a state of depression about his whole situation. The author, also the boy in the first verse, tries to cheer him up. He says, ""Hush. Tom! Never mind it, for when your head's bare. You know that the soot cannot spoil your white hair." The white hair is symbolic to the innocence of the child and also the hope that they have. What the author is saying is, "They can destroy us physically, but they cannot destroy us mentally and spiritually." This is the first time the poem infers religion, and it continues in the next verses.

From reading the next verse, it seems like Tom has a dream or a vision. He dreamed that his fellow sweepers died. It starts out as a nightmare, but as it moves into the next stanza, it shows a beacon of hope. The angels took the boys souls out of the coffins and into a much better place. I believe this stanza was the vision part of it. Tom now had a sense of hope. He had something to look forward to, and there was a world waiting for him that was infinitely times better than the world he is in now.

The poem continues to discuss the world these boys would go to. It says, "Then naked & white, all their bags left behind," I believe "naked and white" represents their innocence and simplicity and the "bags left behind" represent the burdens they had to face. They will no longer have to face them in their new life.

In the last stanza, Tom gets back to work, but has a much better attitude about it. He has a lot more hope than he did before. The last line of the poem struck a chord for me though. It states, "So if all do their duty they need not fear harm". This relates to the above parts of the poem that mentions hope and god and angels, but what kind of "harm" are they referring to? It is probably dangerous to work inside chimneys, but it is very possible that these children could be abused by the bosses or whoever is in charge. I believe Blake is criticizing child labor, as it was going on in England at the time.

Five years after Blake wrote "The Chimney Sweeper", he released a variation of it. It was only three stanzas long, but it was similar to the original. I believe this variation criticizes the Church of England, even though Blake himself appears to be a religious person. In the last stanza, the poem states, "And are gone to praise God & his Priest & King, Who make up a heaven of our misery." During that time the Church was in on the chimney sweeping, some of that type of work was done in churches.

I believe Blake wrote this poem to make people aware of what was going on in England. It was a terrible thing that happened, and children were exploited. Also, he wanted to let people know of the gruesome labor these children were put through, and also the way they were treated. Many people at that time didn't know what was going on in their own country. These things probably weren't even printed in the newspaper. Blake wanted to make people aware of this.

I believe another reason Blake wrote this poem was to show that there is hope even in the darkest situations. Even though those children had been put through terrible hardships, they still had faith. So a person reading it going through a tough time could still overcome it and have hope, because their tough situation was probably a small fraction compared to the chimney sweeper.

In conclusion, this was a powerful poem. Blake has a few different messages in this writing, and it can be interpreted a number of ways. However, you can clearly see in the poem the fact that these chimney sweepers had been put through terrible hardships. I enjoyed this poem, even though it was sad in a way. If you believe that the chimney sweepers reached a place better than the one they were in, then this poem has a happy ending.