Show how Blake creates opposing attitudes and ideas in his songs of

Show how Blake creates opposing attitudes and ideas in his songs of

Innocence and Experience.

Show how Blake creates opposing attitudes and ideas in his songs of

Innocence and Experience.David Jessup 11A1

Blake creates opposing attitudes and ideas by using contrasting,

emotive language and also by using characters with opposing opinions

and attitudes.

In "The Chimney Sweeper" Blake uses characters with different

situations and lifestyles to show how distraught the chimney sweeps

can be when they are sent away from their families to work at a very

young age.

In "The chimney Sweeper from "Songs of Innocence" the young boy is

described as an "angel" and also as a "lamb", both often used as

symbols of innocence and purity. Blake uses symbols of innocence as an

alternative way of describing the children as innocent.

He used various similes and metaphors in the Innocence poems to make

the poems more light hearted and to also convey a sarcastic tone

because of the obviously false descriptions.

"All of them in coffins of black…an angel…opened the coffins and set

them all free", the coffins of black suggest that by fulfilling their

tasks as chimney sweeps the children are going to their eventual death

from suffocating or some other form of detath in the dark, smoky

chimneys.

With language like this Blake managed to portray his beliefs without

going against the Church or the State directly. This meant that

although he was criticised he could look at both sides of the lives of

children without being accused of being single minded or patronising.

In "The Chimney Sweeper" from Innocence the narrator is the chimney

sweep himself; this is an effective method because Blake can then use

the child's...

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...he year that orphan children

are paraded through the streets in bright colours as soldiers. Blake

uses this viewpoint so that a neutral opinion can be gained of both a

sinister viewpoint of the parade and a gratuitous viewpoint.

"With wands as white as snow," show the beadles as pure and leading

the children in a good cause but in Experience the beadles are shown

in a different manner.

"Fed with a cold and usurous hand?" showing the beadles cruelty and

content to be selfish and treat the children as objects not human

beings.

The poem I like best of all six is "The chimney Sweeper from

Experience because it takes the misuse of chilren in a bad situation

and describes it in an even darker manner.

"They clothed me in the clothes of death", the childs knowledge is

invaluable that he knows of his inevitable detah even though he is

only a young child.