In William Blake's two poems, both named The Chimney Sweeper, Blake exemplifies the woeful lives of chimney sweepers by masking the cruel realities the children experience. Both the earlier poem and the later poem remain constant in shedding false hope for the sweepers, however, the time between when the two poems were written alludes to shift from the glorification of a Savior and God, to a rejection of the faith that once provided assurance. In both the first and the second poem, Blake's use of a purposeful diction to create a strict rhyme scheme and lucid imagery written in the ballad form, is all in effort to implicitly depict the Chimney Sweepers changes in ideology over time while still under the same fabricated sense of hope as a survival mechanism.
The ballad form requires a strict rhyme scheme. Blake conscientiously chooses the words he rhymes as emphasis naturally occurs at the end of a line due to the rhyming. The rhymes naturally help the poem flow but also hold importance as most of them hold a connotative meaning. In lines 13-15 of the first poem, Tom, the Chimney Sweeper, envisioned a dream where an "Angel had a bright key and [he] open'd the coffins & set them all free." Freedom is a word that holds much meaning especially when put into context. A key is meant to unlock something, in essence, set something free. It doesn't have to be physical but implies a release or freedom of a subject. The boys were confined in the cramped, sleeping in soot-filled chimneys. And the dream of an Angel, a heavenly figure, letting the boys out of the Chimney which was juxtaposed with a coffin, unveils Tom's where he find safety or comfort– religious figures. The first poem represents The Chimney Sweepers finding hope in a deity which is starkly contradicted in the second poem.
This faith or trust in a religious figure as a safety line is non-existent in the second poem and the Chimney Sweepers have found a new way of coping. In lines 5-8 in second poem, The Chimney Sweepers was "happy upon the heath" while also being clothed in "clothes of death". This happens in a simple a-b-a-b rhyme scheme but holds a negative connotation written in a contrasting conversational mood. The Chimney Sweeper described himself as being "happy" for losing the religion he had once put so much trust in. Heath is matched with the word death. Death is a word that holds much power. It can represent a better option or a honor in terms of battle. In this context, it is shone in a negative light. The Chimney Sweeper was "clothed in death" along with the dark soot of the chimney. He is described as having his fate, death, being decided by not only his parents, but by God who had abandoned him.
However, the meaning of the second poem is hidden behind the conversational tone and the repetition of the the phrase, "I am happy". Saying "I'm happy" is in essence, the same thing as saying "I'm fine" when in reality, nothing is actually fine. While the first poem starts out dark ask the Children are sold into, what could be called, slavery. The second poem starts out in a conversational, relatively positive mood. By the end of the first poem, however, hope is gained with each stanza. Tom wakes with a new hope to survive the darkness of the coffin as he does not need to "fear harm" anymore. While the second poem ends as Blake asserts that the root of the children's misery stemmed from "God & his Priest & King".
The author's purpose is not to show how God abandoned the children, but rather to condemn and criticize the church system of the time. A church that hides it's true intention by acting as a righteous establish but instead, takes money and returns none of it to the working class, or chimney sweepers. The first poem describes what the church supposedly stands for– hope, safety, etc. While the second inveighs against the church. Having both essays allows for the reader to see the shift from the glorification of the church, to the rejection of the church.
As the first poem builds up hope and looks towards a religious figure, the second poem rejects the religion that was supposedly their salvation. The rhymed pairs held connotations that supplied meaning to the stanzas while the stanzas worked to piece together to meaning of the two poems whose purpose was to describe a shift over time in belief.
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