The Chimney Sweeper from Songs of Innocence & Experience

"Where are thy father and mother? say?

"They are both gone up to the church to pray."

When and who introduced a bill that proposed limiting the hours of workers under eighteen years of age to ten hours a day?

1831, Micheal Sadler (1780-1835)

"And because I am happy, and dance and sing, They think they have done me no injury

And are gone to praise Gods and his Priest and King, Who make up a heaven of our misery."

And so Tom awoke; and we rose in the dark,

And got with our bags and our brushes to work.

And by came an Angel who had a bright key

And he opened the coffins and set them all free

When my mother died I was very young

And my father sold me while yet my tongue

Then down a green plain leaping, laughing, they run

And wash in a river, and shine in the Sun.

And so he was quiet, and that very night,

As Tom was a-sleeping, he had such a sight!

How does Blake's use of parallelism in both poems add to their emotional effect? Discuss specific examples of parallelism in the poems.

Blake uses parallelism in both poems to show how miserable each sweeper's life is. For example, in the first poem, it saids "And so he was quiet, and that very night, As Tom was a-sleeping, he had such a sight!"; and in the second poem it saids "Because I was happy upon the health, And smil'd among the winter's snow."

What was Blake said to be?

Blake was said to be mad, not only because he saw visions, but also because his poems cry out against the social problems he saw all around him.

A little black thing among the snow

Crying "weep, 'weep," in notes of woe!

Who did the committee interview?

Factory owners, workers, and doctors who treated people who worked in the factories.

And the Angel told Tom, if he'd be a good boy,

He'd have God for his father, and never want joy.

How would you paraphrase the last two lines of the second poem?

I would paraphrase the last to lines from the poem as this: How could parents give up their kid to slavery and go to the church to pray?

What is the interview about?

It is about the representative of the kinds of testimony heard by the Sadler Committee.

After the bill was not passed, what did it lead to?

It lead to a committee to investigate the conditions of children working in textile factories.

Though the morning was cold, Tom was happy & warm;

So if all do their duty they need not fear harm.

Could scarcely cry " 'weep! 'weep! 'weep! 'weep!"

So your chimneys I sweep & in soot I sleep.

There's little Tom Dacre, who cried when his head

That curled like a lamb's back, was shaved: so I said

What was the Factory Act of 1833?

The act that limited working hours to twelve hours a day for textile workers aged thirteen to seventeen, and eight hours a day for those aged nine to twelve.

In the first poem, how does the angel reassure Tom Dacre in his dream? What moral lesson does the speaker in the first poem draw from Tom's dream?

The angel reassure Tom Dacre, in his dream, that if he is a good boy, he'll have God as his father and he'll never lack joy. The moral lesson, from Tom's dream, is to never give up and to keep you hopes up.

In each poem, what is the emotional effect of the child's mispronunciation of the chimney sweeper's cry?

The emotional effect of the child's mispronunciation of the chimney sweeper's cry in the first poem is a adapting because he is trying to adapt to his new surroundings. In the second poem, the person's effect is disturbing because even though he feels sorry for the child, the child doesn't know him.

What did Blake see around him?

The growing division between classes, the wretched working conditions, and child labor.

Parallelism

The repetition of words, phrases, or sentences that have the same grammatical structure or that restate a similar idea.

What details of the speaker's history do you learn in the first poem? What is his present life like?

The speaker was sold by his father into child labor to be a chimney sweeper with his other worker fellow, Tom Dacre, after his mother died. The speaker's present was horrible as everyone had to do dangerous jobs for a purpose.

Describe the late 1700s in London.

The time was horrible; work became scarce, people were rooting through garbage, homeless families were sleeping in doorways, and children were begging on the streets or working at horrible jobs.

How would you describe the tone of the second poem? How does this sweeper's attitude toward his life and his parents contrast with the attitude of the sweeper in the first poem?

The tone of the second poem is idealistic. The sweeper's attitude in the second poem is arrogant because he ignoring the fact that his parents left him and his life is horrible, while the sweeper's attitude in the first poem is realistic about his life and knows his father left him and mother died.

In the second poem, how does the young chimney sweeper answer that adult's question? What do you think are his "clothes of death"?

The young chimney sweeper's answer to the adult's question is that his parents went to the church to pray. The boy's "clothes of death" is his work uniform.

Because I was happy upon the heath, and smil'd among the winter's snow;

They clothed me in the clothes of death, and taught me to sing the notes of woe.

Then naked and white, all their bags left behind,

They rise upon clouds, and sport in the wind.

What did most of the upper class believed about themselves and the low class?

They thought that they deserved their comfortable stations in life and that the pope must be innately evil, deserving the hunger and appalling conditions that they endured.

That thousands of sweepers, Dick, Joe, Ned, and Jack,

We're all of them locked up in coffins of black.

How does Tom Dacre's dream contrast with the actual conditions of his daily life?

While Tom's dream is full of life, warm, and hopeful; in reality Tom's life is cold, bleak, and a little frighting.

Do people today sometimes take the attitude expressed by the speaker of the first poem: If you are good, if you do you duty, you need not fear harm? Expand on your response.

Yes, I believe that people today sometimes take the attitude expressed by the speaker: "If you are good, if you do your duty, you need not fear harm?" If a job, that helps people, is dangerous, the job is still helping people and that makes you a good person.

"Hush, Tom! never mind it, for when your head's bare

You know that the soot cannot spoil your white hair.