... from the child's point of view as punishing him for being so happy by "clothing in the clothes of death and teaching him to sing the notes of woe."(Line 7) It is very obvious that the child feels hate towards his parents for putting him in such sadness, but instead he chooses ... to hide it by making himself look happy and satisfied. The color black seems to be very important because it is used to represent sin against innocence, the color of the white snow. Blake used a lot of ... and disturbing picture in the reader's head. For example, when Blake wrote " A little black thing among t...

• Word Count: 794
• Approx Pages: 3
• Grade Level: High School

... Chimney Sweeper, Blake suggests that the innocent child is caught in an exploitive and harsh world beyond its understanding. This poem describes how a chimney sweeper boy and his fellows cope with their miserable fate of being chimney sweepers, as it would often lead to death. The chimney sweepers are nave and innocent ... spoil your white hair-(8). Tom's initially frightening dream, "That thousands of sweepers, Dick, Joe, Ned, and Jack, Were all locked up in coffins of black.""(11-12), demonstrates that he is worried about dying while being a chimney sweeper. Tom has this dream with im...

• Word Count: 1280
• Approx Pages: 5
• Grade Level: High School

... is becoming filthy because of the soot in the chimneys. It may be considered that the job of the chimney sweeper is tainting him. The black soot is dirty and is polluting the chimney weepers clean white hair, the white standing for the purity of the child. Throughout both poems the ... can live in innocence. In the first line of the Songs of Experience poem the speaker states, "A little black thing among the snow,/ Crying! "weep! weep!" in notes of woe!" By using the color black immediately in the first line the poem begins with and an image of a child covered in darkness and death ......

• Word Count: 654
• Approx Pages: 3
• Grade Level: High School

... attempts to answer the question. He says that he who made him also calls himself a Lamb and we are called by his name. The Little Black Boy is the next poem. This poem is about a little black child and his mother. The mother teaches her child about God and how he loves everyone. He created everyone the way they are and loves them ... the way he made them. He doesn't care if you are black or white, when he comes to take you up to heaven with him it makes no difference. As long as you live according to his ways, he pays no attention ... of a young child that is happy, but those that were...

• Word Count: 1008
• Approx Pages: 4
• Grade Level: High School

... comfort offered in Experience's version. Here the sweep's unfeeling sanctimonious parents have clothed him in the clothes of death and taught him to sing the notes of woe. Religion is seen to be firmly on the side of the parents who are both gone up to the church to pray'. God himself ... this tender stage in their lives: 'leaping' and 'laughing' in the sunshine. In the Songs of Experience version, the narrator introduces the boy chimney sweep as no more than a 'little black thing'. The child is so young that he cannot even pronounce the traditional cry of 'sweep, sweep' which the chimne...

• Word Count: 1564
• Approx Pages: 6
• Grade Level: Undergraduate

... is a continuous cycle. Blake expresses in "The Chimney Sweeper" that humankind is not part of the solution but part of the problem. The image of a "black" child suggests that it is covered in filth and soot because he is forced by society to do his or her duty as a chimneysweeper. Blake suggests that society ... 's snow"(5-6), which suggests that he was then put into a woeful life for a child's happiness is not allowed. The images of "clothes of death"(7) and "notes of woe" suggest that it is humans who direct the children into a life of oppression. Finally, Blake criticizes what the peo...

• Word Count: 1046
• Approx Pages: 4
• Grade Level: High School