The Chimney Sweeper

Blake believed that problems concerning child labor are the result of our carelessness. Through a set of literary devices such as imagery and language, Blake protests against oppression resulting from child labor. Blake describes that the clergy participate in this oppression because they allow it. Ironically, Blake does not describe the church as a holy sanctuary but as a place where the clergy “...[make] up a heaven of our misery.” We sense that religion and a belief that salvation will serve the children is nothing more than a lie to perhaps soothe the conscious of those involved in child labor. The image of a “black” child suggests that the chimney sweep is covered in filth and

Blake uses realistic irony in this poem. This irony shocks the reader into realization of how terrible life is for child laborers. Some of the verbal irony Blake uses lies in the first stanza. The poetic voice claims that “[his] father sold [him] while yet [his] tongue could scarcely cry 'Weep! weep! weep! weep!'”. These words have a double meaning. They can mean that the speaker was not yet over mourning for his mother, or they can mean that he was so young that he was not yet able to sound out the sound properly. In this case, he would stand on the corner and, instead of repeating the word sweep in an attempt at getting someone to hire him, he would repeat the word “weep!”

Blake wrote The Chimney Sweeper in first person, envisioning a young chimneysweeper. This gives his poetic voice creditability because the subject of the poem is chimney sweeping. In addition, using first person creates a deeper sense of sympathy for the reader. This young boy, the poetic voice, lost his mother while “[he] was very young.” Soon after the loss of his mother “[his] father sold [him] while yet [his] tongue could scarcely cry 'Weep! weep! weep! weep!'”. This sympathy causes us to realize not only how these children lived, but also how they felt and how they were deprived of their childhood.

soot. The boy then helplessly cries “weep, weep” alluding to sweep, sweep, having felt innocence lost over such labor.

Such realities did not just involve child labor. The treatment of children, or the negative treatment of children, was not uncommon and in fact, it was perhaps common practice to mistreat and neglect children. We see this in the following which shows us a historical look at children in England: “The first foundling hospital was f

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