An Interpretation of William Blake's "The Chimney Sweeper"

Want to read the rest of this paper? Join Essayworld today to view this entire essay and over 50,000 other term papers

Blake gives rise to a dark and sad scenario in an attempt to capture the reader's emotions. This is further supported when the young child recalls on how he couldn't even pronounce the word "sweep" when he was introduced into the chimney sweeping business. This would constitute a direct allegation of his young age. In addition to this, he tells us with a childish and innocent tone of some of the harsh conditions which child chimney sweepers like him had to endure, "So your chimneys I sweep, and in soot I sleep," (Kennedy, Gioia 441). By recalling on these events, William Blake attempts to capture the reader's emotions by raising pity on them; first by displaying the young age of a child who's not even old enough to pronounce a word correctly, and second, by hinting at the harsh and likely dangerous conditions that this child is often confronted with (Mayhew 2009).
On the second stanza, the author introduces Tom Dacre, one of the young boy's new recruit's. When doing so, we ...

Get instant access to over 50,000 essays. Write better papers. Get better grades. Already a member? Login

CITE THIS PAGE: