James Gwin
Chimney Sweepers With both The Chimney Sweeper: Songs of Innocence and The Chimney Sweeper: Songs of Experience, William Blake describes the poor conditions of children who worked as chimney sweepers. Although both of these poem are similar because they both express imagery about the concern of the bad conditions for child chimney sweepers, these poems also differ in tone and some details concerning the mistreatment of children. William Blake makes both of these poems very similar by showing the same imagery. This imagery expresses the mistreating of children working as chimney sweepers. This imagery is shown in The Chimney Sweeper: Songs of Experience when William Blake writes “They clothed me in the clothes of death,” showing how the child’s working conditions are going to lead to his death (SOE 7). This imagery is again showed in Blake’s other poem The Chimney Sweeper: Songs of Innocence. When Blake says “So your chimneys I sweep & in soot I sleep,” he shows how a child is mistreated by having to sweep people’s chimneys day and night (SOI 4). The child is shown that his whole life revolves around this unfair job, and he sleeps in the soot. Although these poems have many similar aspects, they are actually different in many details. While The Chimney Sweeper: Songs of Experience focused more on how so many people overlooked the mistreatment of chimney sweepers and expect to go to heaven, The Chimney Sweeper: Songs of Innocence revolves around a former chimney sweeper who has a dream about God saving people. When William Blake says “They think they have done me no injury” in The Chimney Sweeper: Songs of Experience, it shows that the people didn’t have the heart to realize how they were mistreating children (SOE 10). Blake also brings up that these people are also expecting to go to heaven where they will end up being miserable. Blake expresses this thought when he says “Who make up a heaven of our misery" (SOE 12). However The Chimney Sweeper: Songs of Innocence revolves around different details. Instead of expressing details on how people are going to live a miserable life in heaven, Blake shows details on how God will give the child a life where he will “never want joy” (SOI 20). This shows that the child’s life in heaven will only be joyful, and he would not even have to search for any of it. God says that all