Social Issue, Symbols, and Themes of Blake’s “the Chimney...

Manivone Sayasone Professor Nicoll-Johnson English 6B 1922 15 March 2013 Social Issue, Symbols, and Themes of Blake’s â€Å"The Chimney Sweeper† Poems During the seventeenth century, people in England substituted burning wood with coal to use their fireplaces to avoiding paying hearth taxes. The burning of coal left soot on the interior walls of the fireplaces that needed to be removed to keep the fireplaces clean. Homes would be polluted with fumes of the coal residue if the fireplaces weren’t cleaned regularly (â€Å"A History of Chimney Sweeping†). Since children were small enough to climb inside the narrow interior of the chimneys, they were employed as chimney sweeps that worked in harsh conditions (Nurmi 17). As a result, the lives of†¦show more content†¦The speaker of the poem firstly revealed that his mother has passed away when he was young and that his father sold him to a life of chimney sweeping before the speaker could pronounce the word, â€Å"sweep† (Carbatonic Funk). As a sweep, the speaker revealed that he is exposed to soot constantly. In the second stanza, Blake appealed to the readers’ sympathy once more by introducing them to Tom Dacre. Blake wrote, â€Å"Theres little Tom Dacre, who cried when his head / That curld like a lambs back, was shavd, so I said: / Hush, Tom! never mind it, for when your heads bare / You know that the soot cannot spoil your white hair.† (Blake lines 5-8). Tom is a new sweeper in the poem who represented â€Å"other neglected children in poverty† (Heath). Blake also made Tom into an individual instead of â€Å"another faceless young chimney sweep† by giving him â€Å"a name, feelings, and emotion† (Carbatonic Funk). Giving Tom his individuality can be seen as Blake’s method of telling those who exploited children for financial gain that children have â€Å"basic human rights and deserve to be treated respectfully† (Carbatonic Funk). In addition, the removal of Tom’s white hair symbolized his â€Å"sacrificial life to societyà ¢â‚¬  (Heath). Blake had the speaker compare Tom’s hair to â€Å"a lambs’ back† because the lamb symbolized â€Å"the Christian theme of Christ’s purity, sacrifice to humanity and temporal neglect of His Father† (Heath). More ChristianShow MoreRelatedThe Romantic Poetry Of Blake And Shelley1494 Words   |  6 Pagessymbolism, feelings and intuition, freedom from laws, impulsiveness, simplistic language, personal experiences, democracy, and liberty, significant in various art forms including poetry. 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