In "The Chimney Sweeper" from Songs of Innocence, the narrator, a little boy who is in his innocence and youth, is unaware of how difficult his life is. ... In the first three lines, the narrator calls what he sees as a "little black thing among the snow" (Line 1) instead of a child, and asks him where his parents are. The rest of the poem is the little boy's response – they are in "praising God & his Priest & King" (Line 11) in church. In contrast to the narrator in the previous poem, this little boy is aware of his woeful plight, and understands that...

• Word Count: 1939
• Approx Pages: 8
• Grade Level: Undergraduate

The responder can see there that the father is blind to the boys needs, he can only see that the boy continues to love him and believes that that is all that matters. ... They arrive from America believing that they are a superior race and above all blacks. ... The girls realise that they are going to have to accept their black counterparts, as there is no other children to play with. ...

• Word Count: 1417
• Approx Pages: 6
• Grade Level: Undergraduate

In the Songs of Experience version, the narrator introduces the boy chimney sweep as no more than a 'little black thing'. ... In first two verses of both the Innocence and the experience Chimney Sweeper poems, Blake employs basic colour imagery to contrast the 'little black thing' with the white of the snow, which represents the purity of the childhood that the sweep has had taken away from him. The sweep's clothes are 'clothes of death' not just because the soot has turned them black, the colour of mourning, but also because the soot will soon kill the chil...

• Word Count: 1564
• Approx Pages: 6
• Grade Level: Undergraduate