IN-The Chimney Sweeper Flashcards
What is the poem about?
about a child chimney sweep who dreams of Paradise and is thus able to cope dutifully with his work the following day
At what age were children usually sold/apprenticed for being a chimney sweep?
around 7
How does Blake put the identity of the “Angel” in a negative light?
as he questions whether it is right for Tom Dacre to go back happily to work, deluded by an entirely false sense of duty, being misled by his own innocence
How can this poem be seen to be one of repression?
as the most vulnerable and damaged in society can be convinced that they have a part to play despite their exploitation
The wretched figure of the child sweep is a key embelmb in Blakes poems of…..?
social protest
Not only are the child sweep innocent victims of the cruellest exploitation but they are also associated with the smoke of industrialisation, thus uniting which two central Romantic preoccupations?
childhood and the impact of the industrial Revolution on the natural world
What happened to many child sweeps?
they suffered deformities and testicular cancer as a result
When was the practise abolished?
50 years after the death of Blake
What is the poem?
a dramatic monologue
How does the reader too become implicated in the childs exploitation?
as he remarks “so your chimneys I sweep”
What is central to the poem which is contrasted?
the grim realities of the sweepers lives and the ecstatic vision of liberty contained in the dream of Tom Dacre
Where does the dream of Tom Dacre take place?
in a pastoral idyll ‘a green plain’ where there is colour, light, pleasure and laughter
Where in the dream the pastoral idyll-‘a green plain’ is presented where there is colour, light and laughter; what is the real world?
a monochrome, dark world subject to the pressures of city life and a capitalist economy where the boys can only weep over their degradation
What does the angel say who releases the sweeps with a “bright key”?
that “if he’d be a good boy’He’d have God for a father and never want joy”
Where is the stipulation (condition) given by the angel that “if he’d be a good boy’He’d have God for a father and never want joy” repeat?
in the last line where the boys “need not fear harm” if “all do their duty”
The stipulation given by the Anegl that “if he’d be a good boy’He’d have God for a father and never want joy” is repeated in the last line wherehe boys “need not fear harm” if “all do their duty”. However such a submission seem an unlikely prescription from a social critic like Blake. What could Blake be implying through this?
that while it is true that the dream helped Tom endure his misery (he feels “happy and warm” when he awakens) it becomes clear that Blake is not advocating passive acceptance of earthly misery, he is exposing its futility in stopping the practise
How is it clear that Tom Dacres dream helps him endure his misery?
as he feels “happy and warm” when he awakens
What does Tom Dacre act as ?
a foil to the speaker
Blake decries what in the poem?
the use of promised future happiness as a way of subduing the oppressed
Blake decries the use of promised future happiness as a way of subduing the oppressed; why?
as this same promise was often used by those in power to maintain the status quo so that workers and the weak would not unite to stand against the inhuman conditions forced upon them
What becomes more clear in Blakes’ Songs of Experience but is touched upon in Innocence?
That the poet had little patience with palliative measures that did nothing to alter the present suffering of impoverished families
What is Tom Dacre comforted in his dream?
the promise of a future outside the “coffin” that is his life’s lot
How is Tom Dacre’s life only made bearable?
by the two-edged hope of a happy afterlife following a quick death
Blake here critiques not just the deplorable conditions of the children sold into chimney sweeping, but also the society and particularly the religious aspect. Why?
as they would offer these children palliatives rather than aid, the “angel” represents the church
What was the average life of a sweep?
one of destitution and exploitation
Blake melds the word ‘'’weep!’weep!’weep!” to that effect?
this accentuates the youth of the children with the pronunciation of sweep lisped “weep”
What did the Angel do?
opened the coffins containing the bodies and set all the bodies free from the bondage of coffins
What does Blake intend when he writes that “They rise upon clouds”?
this image of clouds floating freely is Blake’s metaphor for the freedom from the material boundaries of the body
“Though the morning was cold, Tom was happy & warm” What does this quote show?
the antithesis between the vision of summer and this dark, cold reality is deeply ironic
What do the “coffins of black” symbolise?
the claustrophobic confinement of chimneys which compare to coffins to their young occupants
What do “coffins of black” suggest about human bodies?
that they were more or less prisons for the soul
What is a negative about focussing the child only on the hope of release in the future?
this thereby gives him a false idea about his body and so his freedom to change his life
What is significant about “wash in a river”?
with the poor sanitation at this time and no running water, washing in a river represented a thorough clean, as well as evoking a pastoral idyll
Underlying the poem is the fact that the speaker is a child and thus all Blake’s associations with the image of the child are therefore in the background of the poem and affect our understanding of it. However the word child is not used which means that we have to remind ourselves that it is a child is speaking, why?
as society has forgotten this; to society they are sweepers not children
the children are “down a green plain” which i the colour associated with?
growth, fertility and spring
Usually places of “green plain” were not owned by anyone but were common land; what did this therefore represent?
another kind of freedom from the rule or demands of a landowner or authority figure
Black attacks the pious hope of future solace in heaven, who is this advocated by as a way of avoiding the uncomfortable reality of injustice and exploitation?
By some Christians
Blake in this poem attacks the pious hope of future solace in heaven, advocated by some Christians as a way of avoiding the uncomfortable reality of injustice and exploitation. What is Blakes view of this?
that this was a distorted perspective of fallen humanity
Christian teaching about respecting authority led to the sense that being ‘good’ meant accepting the status quo as though it had been designed by God to be that way. What quote supports this?
“And the Angel told Tom, if he’d be a good boy”
In Blake’s work how are parents often perceived?
as inhibiting and repressing their children
How does Blake suggest that the parents in his poems inhibit and repress their children?
through communicating their own fears and shame to the next generation through the parental desire to ‘protect’ them from their sexuality and desires
Parents misuse care to repress children rather than setting the children free by rejoicing in and safeguarding what?
their capacity for play and imagination
How does father in the Chimney Sweeper betray his own son?
by abuisng his authority and selling him into an apprenticeship ‘ whether by necessity or choice, he has colluded with the system of oppression
What did Blake believe about humans?
that they are essentially spiritual beings and that the body should be an expression of a person’s spiritual nature
Why does Blake believe that people are trapped?
as they believe that their bodies are purely physical and so they are trapped in a materialist approach to life; unable to themselves experience the world spiritually
This poem immediately concerns tus with the nature of innocence as Black saw it. How does Blake suggest we should see the attitude of the children?
we are forced to see through this ideology of repression and see the narrator as a ‘victim of innocence’ who needs to be enlightened to their exploitation
What question does Blake pose to us?
He asks if innocence is valuable or a service of manipulation and greed
Blake critises the religious idea that we can just change our attitudes to enjoy that which is loathsome. What is ironic about this?a
as it appears that region colludes with tyranny, offering false pleasures to ensure we do not challenge our masters
The scene presented by the dream is quote obviously redolent (reminiscent) of what?
of Paradise
tom himself and the narrator are deluded by a dream, a fallacy in which the only time where they may :shine in the sun: is in death. Why is this futile?
as this prevents change and perpetuates the issue
Why does Blake say that the exercise of innocence may all to innocence may all too rapidly conduce to this death if we persist to do what?
to not understand the facts of experience no matter how damaging and wearying they may seem otherwise we shall continue to submit to the most appalling of practises
How can the “Angel” be seen as bad in comparison to say the devil?
as Angels’ stand for a righteous purity which brakes the energy and imagination enacted by the devil
In Blakes view what did Christianity tend to place its highest valuations on; whereas he had sought one of fire, enthusiasm and enegery to allow every person and creature individuality (e.g the fly)?
on submissive and conventional behaviour
Why did Blake sought for a religion of fire, enthusiasm and energy?
to allow every person and creature individuality, untrammelled by the power of the State or by the restrictions of reason
