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The chimney sweeper Innocence - Coggle Diagram
The chimney sweeper Innocence
Summary
The poem is told from the perspective of a young chimney sweep, a boy who has been sold into labour by his father.
The sweep meets a new recruit to the chimney sweeping gang named Tom Dacre, who arrives terrified. After the speaker tries to reassure Tom, Tom dreams of an angel who sets the chimney sweeps free, allowing them to play in green fields and then ascend to heaven.
This dream seems to suggest that if the boys are obedient workers, they'll get into heaven.
Themes
There is recurring reference to darkness and light, the contrasting themes of sin and innocence.
Blake highlights the terrible social conditions of the time.
structure
The poem comprises six quatrains, that is four-lined stanzas. The metrical rhythm is broadly anapaests, that is, each metrical foot is made up of two unstressed syllables followed by a stressed syllable. This gives an appropriately jaunty feel.
There is a regular AABB rhyme scheme throughout. This changes at the end to give a disjointed, corrupted feel to the poem. with 'work' and 'harm'.
Tone
During this period, children's education became more common and institutionalised. This was in order to supply church and the state with the functionaries to serve as their future administrators.
In England, during the 1700′s and 1800′s, Master Sweeps would buy young children from orphanages and take in young homeless children from the streets and turn them into indentured servants.
Many suffered from the first known industrial disease 'chimney sweep's cancer' caused by the constant irritation of coal tar soot on the naked skin.
These young chimney sweeps would sleep in cellars on bags of soot collected from the chimneys they swept. Often the soot would be dumped out of one of these bags and that same bag would then be used as a blanket at night.
"Hush, Tom! never mind it, for when your head's bare,
You know that the soot cannot spoil your white hair."
white hair" symbol for youthful innocence- shaved- represents loss of this
"soot" metaphor for evil and corruption
"lamb"-children are sacrificed for labour
Blake creates sympathy for Tom, who arguably represents other neglected children in poverty. His sacrificial life to society is emphasised through the simile of the lamb. The lamb symbolises the Christian theme of Christ's purity, sacrifice to humanity and temporal neglect of his father.
The simile of the Lamb likens Tom Dacre to Christ - Jesus' sacrifice for mankind
"were all of them locked up in coffins of black"
Coffins of black= metaphor for the chimneys
Idea of being a sweeper, already set up for death.
"locked" sense of entrapment to this predetermined fate
Monosyllabic sentence - pessimism