EX-The Chimney Sweeper

Question 1

The poem parallels its namesake in Songs of Innocence. Whereas the innocence poem posits a subtle satirical message against the region that brings false comfort to abused children, what is the effect of this poem?

Answer 1

this version strikes directly at the problem

Question 2

Like Tom Dacre and the narrator in the innocence version of the poem, the chimney sweeper is likewise crying. What does the child respond when asked where his parents are?

Answer 2

“They are both gone up to church to pray”

Question 3

The boy goes on to explain that his appearance of happiness has led his parents into believing that …””?

Answer 3

they have done me no injury

Question 4

He said that his parents taught him to “wear the clothes of death” why?

Answer 4

clothes are a materialistic concept which Blake perhaps uses as a device to reflect the child being bound and restricted by the capitalist ideology which suppresses the human soul

Question 5

The boy’s happiness and the fact that he “smil’d among the winter’s snow” was an affront to his parents, how is this so?

Answer 5

as his ability to enjoy life despite the “winter’s snow” and deprivation of winter, which may represent poverty, as it does in “Holy Thursday” is the very quality that condemns him to a life of further labour and danger

Question 6

The boy’s happiness and the fact that he “smil’d among the winter’s snow” was an affront to his parents. His ability to enjoy life despite the “winters snow” and deprivation of winter, which may represent poverty, as it does in which poem, is the very quality that condemns him to a life of further labour and danger

Answer 6

Holy Thursday

Question 7

What is the damning statement which ends the poem?

Answer 7

the boy finishes that his parents “are gone up to praise God & his Priest & King/Who make up a heaven of our misery.”

Question 8

The voice of the young chimney sweeper is similar to that of Innocence at the beginning. This poem starts with what type of rhyme scheme which is characteristic of innocence and childhood. This tone breaks down in The final stanza has only a near rhyme between “injury” and “misery”which suggests an increasing breakdown in the chimney sweeper’s world and the social order

Answer 8

AABB

Question 9

The final stanza has only a near rhyme between “injury” and “misery” what does this suggest?

Answer 9

this suggests an increasing breakdown in the chimney sweeper’s world and the social order

Question 10

The Chimney Sweeper suggests that the entire system, God included, colludes to build its own vision of paradise upon the labours of children who are unlikely to live to see adulthood. What quote supports this?

Answer 10

the boy remarks that his parents’ are gone to praise God and his Priest and King,
Who make up a heaven of our misery.”

Question 11

What is the message when the boy decries that the “God and his priest and king” “make up a heaven of our misery”?

Answer 11

this carries the double meaning of creating a Heaven and lying about the existence of Heaven, casting even more disparagement in the direction of the Priest and King

Question 12

The boy says that his parents have gone to praise “God and his priest and king” what does this suggest?

Answer 12

this suggests that Blake sees no distinction between them; he views the established church that officially serves God as one that also upholds the monarchy, state, and by implcation, the hierarchical social order that condones the miser vale state of child chimney sweeps

Question 13

The poem may symbolise the way in which the human mind has produced prohibitions and inhibitions regarding instinctual life and sexuality. These prohibitions are then transposed onto wider society. The mins creates an idea of God who is forever saying “Thou shalt not” tying people to laws in prohibitions which has led people to imagine what about God?

Answer 13

that God is a great, tyrannical ruler

Question 14

What could be interpreted from the fact the child says that his parents “They clothed me in the clothes of death, “?

Answer 14

Literally this depicts his clothing as full of soot which is the only covering for the working sweep. It is the clothing of death because of the sickness to which his work gives rise. Metaphorically it is the repressive effect of prohibitions and inhibitions on the body which is imprinted and dead rather than lie.

Question 15

The boy believes that his parents are jealous “because I am happy and dance and sing” and so have handed him the experience of misery and repression. What is the theme of this poem which is seen in the Little Girl Lost, Found and also within The Little Vagabond and innocence Chimney Sweeper?

Answer 15

the idea of parental failure an neglect

Question 16

the AABB rhyme scheme changes after the first stanza, why may this be?

Answer 16

as Blake is constructing a self contained interaction which the monosyllabic tone and repeated exclamation ‘weep!’ cause to elongate the pace of the the scene

Question 17

What was the purpose of the poem “The Chimney Sweeper” contextually?

Answer 17

its purpose was to expose the oppression that the underage children were subjugated to for the greed of the upper class and disparity of their parents

Question 18

the Chimney Sweeper from experience is no longer an innocent child but someone who has learnt of the harsh ways and feels a strong resentment towards this system where children are shed of their ________.

Answer 18

innocence

Question 19

How is the boy described?

Answer 19

as a “little black thing among the snow”

Question 20

Why is it important that the boy be described as a “little black thing”?

Answer 20

contextually at this time the colour associations of “black” was that of darkness and suggesting that the child’s loss of innocence is no less a heinous sin

Question 21

The child notes that :They think they have done me no injury, “ because “I am happy and dance and sing”, what is the effect of this?

Answer 21

this sheds light upon the cruelty of the parents and employers who let little children work and made it justifiable by posing as if that exploitation did not inflict any harm upon the children

Question 22

What can be suggested from the fact that the parents “are gone to praise God and his Priest and King,” while the child is at work?

Answer 22

this is a social protest against the fact that the Church sins as much as the parents and employers by isolating them from service.

Question 23

IN innocence God is shown as the poor child’s only hope of redemption and freedom from his suffering whereas in the Experience version he has been prorated as what?

Answer 23

as a conspirator against the childs innocence as he lets the child suffer offering no intervention

Question 24

This poem uncovers he hypcrisy of “God and his Priest and King” while also shedding light on what?

Answer 24

the child’s misery

Question 25

What is the effect of the description of the child as “a little black thing among the snow”?

Answer 25

the experience and misery of the child is a stark contrast with the purity and whiteness of the snow

Question 26

The child states that because he has a happy disposition and “smil’d among the winter’s snow,” that he is content; they are of course wrong. What quote suggests that the child acknowedlegs he will soon die because of his sweeping duties?

Answer 26

“They clothed be in the clothes of death”

Question 27

What does the reader suggest about Heaven in the quote that they “are gone to praise God and his Priest and King,
Who make up a heaven of our misery.”

Answer 27

that heaven is not a perfect pace and made from the innocence by which they have taken from the child

Question 28

Why does Blake use a basic rhyme scheme?

Answer 28

as he wants his readers to focus on the content of the poem and to not get lost in a complex rhyme scheme; furthermore the fact the poem is narrated by a child adds sense to the speaking. The sound and the cadence of the poem also sounds sweet and innocent, like the narrator himself.