Noor Saket
Prof. Abid Vali
ENGL 221
19 Apr. 2017
The Unromantic Side of Innocence According to Merriam Webster Dictionary, the word “innocence” is defined in three different ways: “freedom from guilt or sin through being unacquainted with evil,” “lack of knowledge,” and “lack of worldly experience or sophistication” (“Innocence”). These three definitions apply to the persona of William Blake’s poem “The Chimney Sweeper,” which was featured in his poem collection Songs of Innocence. The chimney sweeper is guiltless, both legally and religiously, because of his young age that makes him “unacquainted with evil;” therefore, cannot be hold responsible for his actions. As for the second definition, the narrator’s low social class makes education an impossibility and impracticality by being expensive and time-consuming for the poor working child, who cannot afford either one, thus, …show more content…
’weep! ’weep! ’weep!”” (3). In her article “A Reading of William Blake’s ‘The Chimney Sweeper’,” Camille Paglia interprets the sweeper’s mispronunciation of “sweep” as a tool to accuse the society’s, the third party in the abuse, “inadvertently sending a damning message to the oblivious world. It’s really the thundering indictment of Blake as poet-prophet: Weep, you callous society that enslaves and murders its young; weep for yourself and your defenseless victims” (1466). Furthermore, this line also delivers a serious pun since the child is weeping his mother’s loss and the inhumane treatment by his father, employer and society, for making him waste his childhood in sweeping. The pronoun “your” in “So your chimneys I sweep, and in soot I sleep” (4), explicitly accuses the English society of encouraging child labor –and thus child abuse—by hiring the chimney sweepers, causing the number of children in this industry to be high- up to “thousands of sweepers”
Prof. Abid Vali
ENGL 221
19 Apr. 2017
The Unromantic Side of Innocence According to Merriam Webster Dictionary, the word “innocence” is defined in three different ways: “freedom from guilt or sin through being unacquainted with evil,” “lack of knowledge,” and “lack of worldly experience or sophistication” (“Innocence”). These three definitions apply to the persona of William Blake’s poem “The Chimney Sweeper,” which was featured in his poem collection Songs of Innocence. The chimney sweeper is guiltless, both legally and religiously, because of his young age that makes him “unacquainted with evil;” therefore, cannot be hold responsible for his actions. As for the second definition, the narrator’s low social class makes education an impossibility and impracticality by being expensive and time-consuming for the poor working child, who cannot afford either one, thus, …show more content…
’weep! ’weep! ’weep!”” (3). In her article “A Reading of William Blake’s ‘The Chimney Sweeper’,” Camille Paglia interprets the sweeper’s mispronunciation of “sweep” as a tool to accuse the society’s, the third party in the abuse, “inadvertently sending a damning message to the oblivious world. It’s really the thundering indictment of Blake as poet-prophet: Weep, you callous society that enslaves and murders its young; weep for yourself and your defenseless victims” (1466). Furthermore, this line also delivers a serious pun since the child is weeping his mother’s loss and the inhumane treatment by his father, employer and society, for making him waste his childhood in sweeping. The pronoun “your” in “So your chimneys I sweep, and in soot I sleep” (4), explicitly accuses the English society of encouraging child labor –and thus child abuse—by hiring the chimney sweepers, causing the number of children in this industry to be high- up to “thousands of sweepers”