William Blake Research Paper

Chimney sweepers are known as bringing clean, and fresh air back to the home. Moreover, in literature, movie and artwork, child sweepers are portrayed as the cheerful young apprentices with older sweeps. But the truth is a huge difference in the history. Many orphans and children were forced into labors at an early age. In addition, these child labors were treated poorly while they were working for long hours as chimney boys. In his book The Songs of Innocence and The Songs of Experience by William Blake, he tries to imply the innocence of youth, which is caused by the society because of the adult’s religion and culture—rein children’s life. Furthermore, Blake uses an ironic tone to criticize the church leaders and the

For example, in “Chimney Sweeper” from Songs of innocence, Blake mentions the boy—Tom Dacre, who has the dream about the Angel. Blake stated that “that thousands of sweepers, Dick, Joe, Ned, and 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, and set them all free.” After setting free by the angels, those children have a good time with each other. The Angel told Tom Dacre that he has god for his father in order to encourage him to live in this difficult circumstance. Therefore, Tome Dacre wakes up and said that “if all do their duty, they need not fear harm.” This imaginary scene implies that the children are affected by the religion because their parents and other people have this kind of culture. Thus, the children obtain the same religion and culture. Also, they believe in gods and angels—what people believe in. The religion accidently makes the children believe that there is a hope in the future even though they are in this difficult situation. But unfortunately, their hope is an illusion and it would not happen in their

In “The chimney Sweeper” from Songs of Innocence, although the children are sold by their parent in an early age, they do not give up their life because they believe in that one day, there is someone will set them just like an angel, and they will have a better life in the future. Obviously, children have a positive attitude and work hard to wait until the angel comes and helps them out. On the contrary, in “The Chimney Sweeper” from the Songs of Experience, it describes that working for a long time, the child’s skin becomes dark because of the soot in the chimney. Nobody helps the child to escape from this situation. In the meanwhile, the whole society is too obsessive in the god culture. As a consequence, the children know that it is hopeless to their future, and Blake blame on the whole society. Blake use different way to show how the religion affects children’s minds in order to make criticism. The children become positive when they believe in angel. In contrast, they also can be negative when uncaring parents are too obsessive to the