London Flashcards
‘Chartered’
They all been ‘chartered’ so they are effectively owned and controlled by the wealthy
‘mark’
The repetition of ‘marks’ demonstrates that this is a permanent impact of place’s power with wide-reaching and exception-free extent. Also implies cannot remove the impact of the suffering they have experienced (weakness’ and like the branding of cattle, the citizens are branded too by their experiences
‘Marks of weakness, marks of woe’
Breaks from the iambic tetra meter used for most of the remainder of the poem, which could reflect how if people rise up against institutions of power, they can free themselves from societal restraint
‘In every infant’s cry of fear”
This is significant because children are supposedly born innocent and shouldn’t have to suffer. The phrase incites sympathy in the reader and also shows pessimisticalky how every life is destined for misery
‘mind-forged manacles’
Internal oppression and weakness, also a culmination of the suffering experienced in the preceding lines
‘black’ning church’
Adjective blackening is at surface level an acknowledgment of the soot and smoke the polluted every part of London during the 1700s. Figurative interpretation can be found through the negative connotations of immortality and evil derived from ‘black’ning’ it is the moral blackening of the church he is referring to.This can be perceived as a criticism of organised religion, and it’s failure to provide for the disadvantaged members of society
‘Appalls’
Connotes dismay/horror and reflects the lack of action of the church, which should offer support and help to the poor, but instead is focused more on its own wealth. A lack of morality appals those who believe in the true meaning of the bible importance of loving and caring for others taught by Jesus. It juxtaposes the purity and love expected of the religious institutions
‘youthful harlot’s curse’
Juxtaposed connotations of a new beginnings, joy and happiness of wedding with the end of life and grief of a hearse
‘Marriage hearse’
Juxtaposition of innocence of youth with immorality of harlot
