Preview

The Chimney Sweeper

Good Essays
Open Document
Open Document
705 Words
Grammar
Grammar
Plagiarism
Plagiarism
Writing
Writing
Score
Score
The Chimney Sweeper
William Blake wrote two versions of his poem “The Chimney Sweeper”, firstly in 1789 and secondly in 1794. They both describe the lives of children as chimney sweeps. Three poetic techniques carefully explored by Blake are imagery, tone and diction to bring a sense of sympathy to his audience. Though these poetic techniques are handled in both poems, they are shown through different perspectives.

In both versions of the poem, images of death are depicted similarly using the color black. In the 1789 version, the speaker says that chimney sweeps are “lock’d up in coffins of black” and in the 1794 version, the speaker mentions that there is a “little black thing among the snow.” This outlines the blackness of the soot on the children, depicting the daily turmoil the children have to endure. Furthermore, illustrating the chimneys as ‘coffins’ describes their conditions: chimneys, like coffins, are claustrophobic and terrifying. Also noted in the 1794 edition, the speaker says “They clothéd me in the clothes of death.” This conveys the image that chimney sweeps live in fear, and that their work is that of death. Their clothes are black, like mourning, which once again illustrates death in both versions. Another type of imager is that of Heaven and God. The person who takes the children out of their work daily is referred to as an ‘Angel’, “And by came an Angel who had a bright key/And he open’d the coffins & set them free.” He is mentioned as an Angel because he is the one who literally ‘frees’ them from their work.

However, the tones of the two poems contrast; with one having a positive view on life and God, the other with a negative view. In the 1789 version, the speaker does not give out a personal opinion and listens to what he is told. God is seen as someone good, giving hope to people, “And the Angel told Tom, if he’d be a good boy/He’d have God for his father &never want joy.” The tone of this poem is hopeful and prospective, the speaker looks forward to

You May Also Find These Documents Helpful

  • Powerful Essays

    I prefer the second translation because the way that it interacts with the name of the poem. You can imagine a criminal who is about to be put to death saying these last words to the crowd so that they might show sympathy to their fellow brother. I think that Capote uses this excerpt of the poem as a way to foreshadow and embody the way that Dick & Perry (mainly Perry) feel about walking up to the hangman.…

    • 2433 Words
    • 10 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Good Essays

    Chimney sweeping was a job children lost fingers in the midst of his argument that they nonetheless, that improvement of their toil deadens their imagination. That’s 16 hours! They labor on from day to da, in the great solitude of steaming fields — never lifting up their poor, bent, downcast…

    • 1014 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    In the short story, “Barn Burning” by William Faulkner, ten year old, Sarty struggles between doing the right thing or betraying his father. In “Doe Season” by David Kaplan, nine year old, Andy struggles in trying to be the boy her father never had or the girl she really is. In both of the short stories, with the help of the character relationships and conflicts, the authors portray the theme of children finding themselves. [Thesis]…

    • 951 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Blake Archetypes

    • 744 Words
    • 3 Pages

    In the chimney sweeper it talks about how children are neglected because their parents no longer want them. Infant Sorrow talks about the disappointment that the parents have when their child is born and how they no longer want them. In Blake’s archetypes it has the messages of innocence, strength, neglect, and disappointment.…

    • 744 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Although Shaw describes the rebirth of his mother with the excessive usage of diction, he also attributes the cremation with vivid detail of imagery. Shaw’s usage of imagery with his mother’s cremation gives the reader an insight of the author’s attitude towards his mother. When Shaw describes the coffin of “streaming ribbons of garnet colored lovely flame, smokeless and eager, like pentecostal tongues”, his view of imagery suggests fire is a symbol of life and that there is a spirit ascending from the coffin. Shaw also notes his “mother became that beautiful fire,” before the cook “swept her up into a sieve and shook her out: so that there was a heap of dust and a heap of bone straps,” makes the imagery that Shaw…

    • 549 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Edgar Allan Poe uses death to convey his ideals. By looking at his language, one can tell his abilities to strike terror into the hearts of the readers. All of his adjectives and adverbs are very dark, sinister, and gothic. For example, the opening line of "The Raven" brought forth a very dark setting with the word "dreary". Also, "The Masque of the Red Death", uses the word "pallid", which is defined as pale, and paleness represents death (dictionary & thesaurus). In "The Raven", the story is about the man who dreads over the death of his beloved wife, Lenore. Throughout the story he wants to have the ability to see her again and pleads to a raven if he will let him, which relates to death. The raven itself symbolizes death, and declines to the character's supplication, although, they were not done intentionally. In "The Masque of the Red Death", the entire story is about death and about a pestilence called the Red Death, which takes people's lives away one by one.…

    • 718 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    The “red death” is a symbol of unavoidable death. It can even be compared to the Black Death that killed millions of people during the middle ages, in Europe. Surrounding this “red death,” Poe used objects and color to symbolize the unfortunate outcome in the end. For example, he used the ebony clock to portray time ticking down and reminding the people that like the pendulum swinging in the clock, they can not stop what is to come, but can only wait in fear. Another use of symbolism would be the color use for the rooms; the seven colors symbolize the seven stages in life. First, the color black. This was the seventh room and had contained the ominous, ebony clock. It had been "closely shrouded in black velvet tapestries that hung all over the ceiling and down the walls, falling in heavy folds upon a carpet of the same material and hue" (146), and contained "no light of any kind.” This represented the dark and unavoidable death. The other six colored rooms represent the stages of life before death, the growth from a baby to…

    • 696 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    criticizes the treatment of children in “The Chimney Sweeper,” and says, “And my father sold…

    • 1037 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    The fire lighting the suite of rooms is another object in the story that represented death. He says, "...There stood, opposite to each window, a heavy tripod, bearing a brazier of fire that projected its rays through the tinted glass... However, in the western or black chamber the effect of the firelight that streamed upon the dark hangings through the blood-tinted panes, was ghastly in the extreme, and produced so wild a look upon the countenances of those who entered..."The fire was meant to produce a shadowy atmosphere in the west and a favorable one in the east. This is symbolic to the sunrise in the east and sunset in the west because light means life and darkness means death. Poe uses…

    • 554 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Masque of the Red Death

    • 530 Words
    • 3 Pages

    Poe utilizes very vivid imagery in his story to paint a picture in the readers head. He constantly refers to blood though out the story, “the redness and horror of blood”, “profuse bleeding at the pores”, “scarlet stains upon the body”. He emphasizes blood so you can visualize in your mind what they all see every day everyone dyeing the worst way possible. This creates a dark tone by the reader visualizing how these people are suffering dying the way they are. When Poe describes to the reader about the seven rooms he speaks about each color and the glass windows that match the room. He spends a lot of time describing the black room, how it has “scarlet –a deep blood color” windows. Poe wants the reader to sense that something is not right in the black room “the dark hangings through the blood-tinted panes, was ghastly in the extreme, and produced so wild a look upon the countenances of those who…

    • 530 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    In the poem “Nighttime Fires” the speaker of the poem is remembering the speaker father’s wild obsession with burning houses at night and how the speaker had to go with the father to these burning houses with the family. The father is a casualty of the rough economy and this anger toward his bad luck is the reason he loves seeing these macabre scenes. The speaker in “Nighttime Fires” vividly illustrates the lasting impression that the fires and his father’s fascination with them, had on his childhood and the relationship with the father.…

    • 1242 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Satisfactory Essays

    The mahogany coffin a dark shade of red symbolizes death. The narrator’s parents build the mahogany coffin for Doodle because they thought that he wasn’t going to survive. “He seemed all head, with a tiny body which was red and shriveled like an old man’s,” (158). Later on when Doodle turns six, the narrator takes him to the loft barn where Doodle’s coffin is kept. His coffin was layered in Paris green. The narrator told Doodle that the coffin was for him but Doodle doesn’t believe him. The narrator also tells Doodle if he doesn’t touch the coffin, that he is going to leave him, Doodle is very frightened to touch it, but he doesn’t want his brother to leave him. When Doodle touches it an owl comes out of the coffin and fills both Doodle and his brother the narrator, with Paris green. The narrator and his parent’s keep the coffin because they know that Doodle is going to die soon, but if they throw out the coffin, it would show that Doodle isn’t going to die and that he might live after all.…

    • 599 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
  • Good Essays

    A big part of the poem where God is mentioned and glorified is in lines 91-97. “How the Almighty had made the earth/ Wonder-bright lands, washed by the ocean; / How He set triumphant, sun and moon/ To lighten all men that live on the earth./ He brightened…

    • 443 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    In this heartbreaking poem, a boy is begging for his father not to choose death; using a specific attitude. For example, when the boy begs his father complete the quote integration, “Though wise men at their end know the dark is right…. Do not go gentle into that good night.” (Thomas, 1)The author writes this stanza to have a remorseful and sorrowful tone, showing that the boy knows that his father cannot stay but will try nonetheless to keep him alive. The boy struggles to face the horrifying truth that the man that raised him is dying and he can not do anything to stop it. His attitude makes it easy to identify that he is still in…

    • 772 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    MacCaig has used metaphors, similes and personifications to enhance this poem. A personification in this poem that stands out is “The brown air fumes at the shop windows, tries the door and sidles past.” (stanza 1, line 3 & 4) The brown air is the heavily contaminated air, trying to infect our body with the poison that it contains. The air seems as though it is the enemy to our human body, and we create barriers, such as doors and windows, to protect us from the air.…

    • 590 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays

Related Topics