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William Blake Questions

Through poems like The Chimney Sweeper and Holy Thursday, Blake conveys his thoughts on the poor treatment of children in late 18th century England. In The Chimney Sweeper, he shows how children are exploited and forced to work dangerous jobs. Though the poem ends happily, the message is one of irony and critique of a society that abuses children. In Holy Thursday, Blake questions the true motivations behind charity, implying that children are merely used to uphold social hierarchies rather than being allowed the freedom of childhood. Across his works, Blake aims to give a voice to oppressed children and condemn a system that fails to protect innocence.

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1K views

William Blake Questions

Through poems like The Chimney Sweeper and Holy Thursday, Blake conveys his thoughts on the poor treatment of children in late 18th century England. In The Chimney Sweeper, he shows how children are exploited and forced to work dangerous jobs. Though the poem ends happily, the message is one of irony and critique of a society that abuses children. In Holy Thursday, Blake questions the true motivations behind charity, implying that children are merely used to uphold social hierarchies rather than being allowed the freedom of childhood. Across his works, Blake aims to give a voice to oppressed children and condemn a system that fails to protect innocence.

Uploaded by

manazar hussain
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
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Q.(V.

Important)In the Songs of Innocence and Songs of


Experience Blake conveys his thoughts and feelings about the
treatment of the children of the poor How does Blake convey his
thoughts and feelings about the treatment of children of the poor
in England of his day?
Note: In your answer, either make detailed use of one or two of his poems
or range widely across the songs.
Ans;In the Songs of Innocence and Songs of Experience Blake conveys
his thoughts and feelings about the treatment of the children of the poor by
displaying how these children are the products of exploitation, how they are
ill treated and ignored. Blake explains in his poems how
society do not recognize, or more probably, refuse to recognize the
abuse of children of the poor and would rather use them as victims in
this harsh evolving capitalist world. Through many of the poems
regarding children of the poor, Blake gives the children a voice. He
is trying to say: We are human - not only human, but also spiritual
and divine. 
In The Chimney Sweeper from Songs of Innocence Blake presents children
of the poor who are not treated as if they are moral human beings, ‘And
my father sold me’, they are treated as if they are objects; ‘So your
chimneys I sweep and in soot I sleep’. The narrator is not Blake
himself; the poem is in fact spoken through the words of a little boy
chimney sweeper, which allows the reader to feel closer and much more
sympathetic towards the little boy. The matter of fact language,
simple and childlike of the boy speaker explains why this poem that is
so clearly set in a world of harsh experience is actually in the Songs
of Innocence. The fact that the father sells the child, which may have
been and probably was an act of desperation shows how in Blake’s time,
parents were powerless from being able to protect their children from threat
- in some circumstances this could still be true to this day. 
It is more likely that Blake here is suggesting that people are naive
and do not understand or even recognize the pain that children are
exposed to in what is considered a normal life for children of the
poor. In this poem Blake is trying to convey the obscenities of the
life of a poor child chimney sweep and in doing so trying to force the
reader to see that justice must be done. 

Though the content of this poem is very much tragic and


miserable,
ironically the story of the poem ends on a happy note; ‘So the morning
was cold, Tom was happy and warm.’ However, ironic is what Blake
intended it to be. Children are brainwashed into believing that this
is their path in life (to chimney sweep in this case) and would ‘have
God for his father and never want joy’ - as long as they do as they
are told and are good there will be better things for them to
come...in heaven. Though Blake does not criticize this innocence that
children hold in their view of God, he does present it as naive and
the moral we are left with, ‘so if all do their duty, they need not
fear harm,’ seems slightly uncanny. The hope of release and joy, even
though this happiness is deferred to the future, leaves the present
unchanged. This contrasts with the complete dearth of comfort offered
in Songs of Experience. Here the little boy’s unfeeling hypocritical
parents have ‘clothed [him] in the clothes of death / And taught [him]
to sing the notes of woe.’ Religion is seen to be on the side of the
parents, ‘who are both gone up to the church to pray.’ Blake is
displaying the hypocrisy of the parents here as they are thanking the
Lord for their wonderful life while their son has been sent out to
work, ultimately ending in his death. God himself is implicated in
the child’s condition, ‘God and his priest and king, / Who make up a
heaven of our misery’ - emphasis on the whole system which represses the
child, even forcing him to conceal his unhappiness
(‘clothed’),psychologically as well as physically. God is transformed from a
father in Songs of Innocence to an oppressor in Experience and the
systems within society who are tolerating such abuse of children are held
up to our scorn and loathing. 
The simple language Blake uses and the rhythm make the poem from
Songs of Innocence almost like a nursery rhyme. This can also be seen
through the extra syllables in some of the lines, ‘As Tom was a
sleeping’. This nursery rhyme likeness reinforces the innocence and
the young naivety that children possess. Blake manages to convey his
own thoughts through The Chimney Sweeper poems showing that children
are misled by their own innocence. He is condemning society who wrongly
convince the vulnerable that they have a part to play in the world despite
their exploitation.

From The Chimney Sweeper one can see Blake’s concerns


regarding society’s treatment of, and attitude towards the young. This poem
can be connected with Holy Thursday where Blake again expresses dislike
of attitudes towards children of the poor.

However, unlike The Chimney


Sweeper, there is something impersonal about the events Blake is
describing in Holy Thursday (Songs of Innocence). The children from
charity schools are attending a service in St Paul’s Cathedral. ‘Oh
what a multitude they seemed,’ ‘Seated in companies they sit’ - the
image is of masses of children, Blake does not describe one’s
particular experience or bring us close to an individual, making the
reader seem much more detached that that of the feelings one develops
for the little boy chimney sweep. 

When reading the poem at face value, the children seem happy as
they
have come to ‘raise to heaven the voice of song’ to thank God and give
gratitude to the rich benefactors, ‘the aged men, wise guardians’ who have
rescued them from poverty and starvation. However, there seems to be
something slightly more sinister under-lying the poem, such as the ‘Grey
headed beadles...with wands as white as snow’ - not only are beadles
traditionally associated with torture, but the ‘white as snow’
seems to represent something harsh and cold rather than the innocence
that it should portray. The children do not seem free or natural ‘in
companies they sit’, they appear to have been ordered and controlled -an
image Blake would convey as a loss of innocence as he strongly believed
that children should be able to develop freely and naturally conform to the
ways of the world rather than be ordered what to do. Blake conveys his
feelings by subtly questioning the motivation of those who have
responsibility for these youthful charges.

The angel at the end of the poem can also be questioned as to whether
Blake has portrayed it as good or bad. Is it the good angel who has come
to save the children or the bad angel who, as in The Chimney Sweeper
made the children believe that everything was good and right
with the world Blake would seem to suggest that society is doing its best for
the
children and this poem ‘expresses the idealism of one who saw the
annual charity school service as a manifestation of loving care,
[whereas] the Holy Thursday of Experience presents the horrified
protests of one who recognizes it as intolerable evidence of mass
poverty in society.’ (Internet Source)

In the Experience version of Holy Thursday, Blake gives the reader a


different view - skeptical and hostile, explicitly criticizing
society. The rhetorical questions Blake uses all the way through
imply and enforce his indignation. ‘In a rich and fruitful land’
conveys the inequality of the social classes; the children are
instrumental in maintaining the social hierarchy. 

The use of the word ‘babe’ conveys a lack of innocence and childhood
Blake is conveying that children of the poor are not able to enjoy the
freedom and innocence that they rightfully should. Although they are
children, they do not seem to live in the state of childhood. 

Thus Blake holds even the charitable actions of society are not what
they seem and goes beyond their outward manifestations to examine
their motives - making us aware of the conditions that permitted such
poverty to thrive. Blake is conveying with these poems the importance
of protecting and valuing innocence wherever it is found and that
society is corrupt in its treatment of children of the poor.

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