The Chimney Sweeper Innocence Flashcards
“When my mother died I was very young”
Life expectancy was low and there were thousands of poor motherless children to be cared for by society. Their ‘care’ — provided by the church or state — was abysmal and many died. This little boy survived long enough to work for a chimney sweep.
It is possible that his mother died giving birth, bearing in mind the high maternal death rates.
“And my father sold me”
Children could be bought and sold. This was the fate of Charles Dickens’ Oliver Twist when he was sold by the workhouse to an undertaker (mortician).
A report to a parliamentary committee on the employment of child sweeps in 1817 noted that ‘the climbing boys’ as young as four were sold by their parents to master-sweeps, or recruited from workhouses
“weep! weep! weep! weep!”
The repetition of “‘weep!” four times seems almost uncomfortable as opposed to conventional tricolon where it would only be repeated thrice
The pun intended through the use of word ‘weep’ three times in the third line of this stanza holds pathetic significance. Most chimney sweepers, like him, were so young that they could not pronounce sweep and lisped ‘weep’. Since that tender age the little boy is sweeping chimney and sleeping at night in the soot-smeared body, without washing off the soot (blackness).
As the average size of a London chimney was only seven inches square, to encourage the sweeps to climb more quickly, pins were ‘forced into their feet’ by the boy climbing behind; lighted straw was applied for the same purpose.
“in soot I sleep”
In the 18th and 19th centuries, young boys swept chimneys, as they were small enough to climb up them.
Chimney sweepers sometimes slept under blankets used to collect soot; hence “in soot I sleep.” This was in the era before Child Protection legislation for bad employment of children.
Another interpretation is that ‘sleeps in soot’ is a reference to sin. The fact that he was sold and exploited is a critique of society’s system. This is of course an adult view unconsciously expressed by the child.
“There’s little Tom Dacre, who cried”
Instead of ruminating on his own condition, the speaker takes the time to look out for a child younger than himself. He will bring comfort to this younger child (“little Tom Dacre”).
We can speculate that this is an idealised picture. However, it is known that abandoned children often care for each other, the eldest assuming an adult role in the absence of parents. Being able to play, being occasionally naughty and rebellious is a luxury for children properly cared for.
This is a very famous character in Blake’s many poems. Tom was called ‘Dacre’ because he belonged to Lady Dacre’s Almshouse, which was situated between St. James Street and Buckingham Road. The inmates of the Almshouse were foundling orphans, who were allowed to be adopted by the poor only. It may be a foster father who encased the boy Tom by selling him to a Master Sweeper. Tom wept when his head was shaved, just as the back of a lamb is shaved for wool. The narrator then told Tom not to weep and keep his peace. The narrator told Tom to be calm because lice will not breed in the pate without hair and there will be no risk for hair to catch fire.
“curled like a lamb’s back”
simile
describes Tom’s beautiful blonde hair as well as likening the children to a lamb, a symbol of innocence.
“shaved”
This would have been done for practical reasons. It is also a biblical allusion to Samson: suggesting loss of power
“white hair”
Little Tom’s hair might not have been literally white. Perhaps his hair was described as “white” to contrast the soot, and can also be a symbol of innocence being shaved off.
White hair is also found in the elderly–Blake may be implying that child labour ages and wears down one’s body and brain. It could also be implying that as a result of this, the child Chimney Sweepers are closer to their deaths.
Blake’s readers would also recognise it as an allusion to the vision of the ‘Son of Man’ Daniel 7:9 which was associated with Jesus. He is reminding his readers either that a maltreated child still bears the image of God, or that there is something divinely human about the child.
“Dick, Joe, Ned and Jack”
The use of monosyllabic names further exemplifies the innocence of these children (ie: Dick instead of Richard, Joe instead of Joseph). They are common names in their familiar diminutive versions, probably representing all children; rather like ‘Tom, Dick and Harry’.
He saw in his dream that many Chimney sweepers, who were named Dick, Joe, Ned and Jack, were dead and their bodies were lying in caged coffins, made of black-coloured wood.
“locked up in coffins of black”
Chimney sweepers are metaphorically locked in a black box (the chimney), and perhaps the only thing worse — or better in terms of release from suffering — is to be locked in the black box of death: a coffin.
The claustrophobic confines of grimy chimneys may have seemed like living coffins to their young occupants, many of whom lost their lives through their job. It also refers to the idea that bodies are dead things. A platonic belief was that human bodies were more or less prisons for the soul.
However, Blake believed that it was mistaken to look for ‘release’ in the future. He felt that humans do not need freeing from their bodies, but from the perception that reality can only be experienced through the senses. (Compare The Garden of Love and To Tirzah.) Therefore, focussing the child only on the hope of release in the future gives him a false idea about his body, and so about his freedom to change his life.
“set them free”
The angel, through death, is setting the boys free from their lives as sweeps, escaping from the ‘coffin’ of living death as sweeps. It was also a literal death sentence for many boys in England at the time; many died early from lung and scrotal cancer.
Many suffered ‘deformity of the spine, legs and arms’ or contracted testicular cancer
suggests a positive and optimistic view on death. Also suggests that they will find peace only after death.
The freed little sweepers of the chimney ran down a green ground, washed themselves in the water of a river and dried themselves in the sunlight to give out a clean shine. This was really a very delightful moment for these chimney sweepers, who got freed from the shackles of bondage labor, exploitation and child labor
With poor sanitation and no running water, washing in a river represented a thorough clean, as well as evoking a pastoral idyll. It would also remind Blake’s readers of the many biblical images of healing and of new life that are associated with rivers, for example:
The healing of Naaman the Syrian by washing in the River Jordan 2 Kings 5:1-14
Jesus’ baptism in the River Jordan Matthew 3:13–17
The Christian symbolism of baptism as dying to the old way of life and rising to a new eternal life.
Blake may be using the associations negatively, showing how the feeding of such imagery to the child has encouraged his escapist dream.
“bags left behind”
Their ‘bags’ could be synecdoche, representing the suffering and oppression of the children. Today, in modern speech, we sometimes refer to ‘baggage’ as verbal shorthand for the effect on human psyche of past negative experiences.
‘Easy prey to those whose occupation is to delude the ignorant and entrap the unwary’, a sweep might be shut up in a flue for six hours and expected to carry bags of soot weighing up to 30lbs
“good boy”
Blake introduces the doctrine of Christian Resignation: the more one suffers in silence — that is, ‘be a good boy’ — the happier the reward in Heaven.
This is an interesting viewpoint. Here Blake doesn’t advocate social protest by the children; for him that is the role of adults, what he is doing here in publishing these poems. Today we would urge abused children to speak out.
“do their duty”
This sad ending describes how the children, in their young naïveté, are happy to work, for they are looking forward to death, where they will be free.
An alternative interesting interpretation is that the ending describes how the children were easily manipulated through an irrational and unreasonable religious vision. They can achieve ecstasy but their earthly lives are still terrible.
Blake’s poem is categorised as a positive ‘Song of Innocence’, which no doubt he did for completeness. He needed to write this in order to highlight the evil. But it is difficult, as Blake well knew, to put a positive spin on such grievous exploitation.
Further, it could suggest that the the vision Tom had, gave him a sense of hope, and after his death it will be okay; he will get the freedom that he lacks in the present. The vision creates a “warmth” and happiness despite the morning being cold as it fills Tom with hope for what’s to come beyond death. “So if all do their duty they need not fear harm” Can imply that if they continue with their work of chimney sweeping, they will be let into heaven, and have the freedom and peace that Tom saw in his vision
The practice was not abolished until 1875, nearly 50 years after Blake’s death.
This liberation, though, comes at a price. The angel who releases the sweeps with ‘a bright key’ tells little Tom ‘if he’d be a good boy / He’d have God for his father and never want joy’. This stipulation is repeated in the poem’s last line: the boys ‘need not fear harm’ if ‘all do their duty’. Such a submission seems an unlikely prescription from a social critic like Blake. While it is true that the dream helps Tom endure his misery (he feels ‘happy and warm’ when he wakes up), it becomes clear that Blake is not advocating passive acceptance of earthly misery in order to gain the joys of the kingdom of heaven after death.
“rise upon the clouds”
The image of clouds floating freely is Blake’s metaphor for the freedom from the material boundaries of the body and an important visual symbol.
