“The Chimney Sweeper” by William Blake was published within Songs of Innocence, and seems to be a discussion between two young boys, and their work and religious obligations. The speaker of the poem discusses another boy named Tom, and the experiences he and Tom have shared, due to both being orphaned.
At the bottom of each printing, there are several characters who all appear to be young and with shaved heads, meaning they are probably representations of orphaned chimney sweepers. At the time of Blake’s life, it was popular practice for young male orphans to become chimney sweepers because they could fit in the chimneys, and they had no one else to provide for them. Though the coloring of each color plate is slightly different, the boys look dirty and hairless in every one, correlating with the line, “When your head’s bare / … the soot cannot spoil your white hair, to suggest even farther that the young characters are orphan chimney sweepers (Blake 8-9).
The other thing that I thought was cool about the color plate patterns, was that many of the groups of colors were the same as they had been for prints of “the tyger.” This made me wonder if he printed different volumes in certain colors based on who he was giving them too, or how he wanted them to be interpreted at the time.
The different colors on each plate were a big part in determining the mood and tone the poem seemed to give off to the reader. One of the prints, copy U, was completely black and white. This highlighted many of the dark undertones of the poem. For example, the poem seems to suggest that it is okay to have this terrible job now for the boys, because they will later be welcomed into open arms in the afterlife. The black and white color scheme here shows the view of the children, that things were exactly the way they needed to be, and there was no grey area in between; this is what they have to do now, to get this outcome later.
Some of the color plates, used brighter, warmer colors like pink and orange, which highlighted the afterlife imagery of the second half of the poem. The boys would “never want joy” because they would already have plenty of it, assuming all of the rules were followed (Blake 22).
Blake was my favorite poet to study when I took British lit, but I hadn’t ever realized how differently the poems could be viewed when the different color variations were put on the plate. IT totally makes sense, because different colors are associated with different feelings,I just wish we could find out why Blake used different colors at different times, and which ones he felt were the most accurate, or if he sometimes changed his mind or went back and forth about that.
I really liked what you said about your poem. I found it interesting that back then young orphan boys to become chimney sweepers. This was something new I learned. I have to agree with you about the different images and how the colors affected the mood. In the images for my poem, the darker pieces made the poem seem sad and dark while the brighter colors made the poem seem more happy even if the poem wasn’t meant to be happy.
I liked your discussion of the characters in this poem, that the two boys, like many in the Victorian period, were sold into the chimney-sweeper trade “because they could fit in the chimneys.” There’s a similar scenario in Charles Dickens’s novel, Oliver Twist, in which young Oliver is almost sold into that business. It was very dangerous for those boys, and I think Blake is being ironic and darkly humorous when, in the poem, Tom goes to work as a chimney sweeper “happy & warm” (25) because an angel tells him that when he dies, he will go to heaven (“He’d have God for his father” [22]). Blake’s ironic moral in the last line, “So if all do their duty, they need not fear harm” (26), implies that, if the boys are good chimney sweepers, they will die at their work and go to heaven, so they should not fear the harm that will come to them. Ouch.
I like the insight that you provided for the poem “The Chimney Sweeper”. I did not know that, as you stated, “At the time of Blake’s life, it was popular practice for young male orphans to become chimney sweepers because they could fit in the chimneys, and they had no one else to provide for them”. I would usually picture chimney sweepers as adults. I certainly agree with you that Blake conveys dark themes in this poem, especially when he states “That thousands of sweepers, Dick, Joe, Ned, & Jack, / Were all of them locked up in coffins of black”. Blake emphasizes here just how dangerous it is to be a chimney deeper by evoking the image of thousands of dead young boys.