In William Blake's two different versions of the poem "The Chimney Sweeper" he uses a strong tone, interesting imagery, and irony to bring a complex attitude to both poems yet holding completely different meanings.
The tone in both poems holds a very quiet and sad tone to play off the child's innocence and show you what particular things seem to bring them trust in the world. Though in the 1789 poem the child is on his own with the other group of children the only real adult figures he has left is God and the people he must work for. Yet towards the end of this particular poem the tone does a total 180 and seems to become more aware and hopefully towards the world that they are living in. Unlike in the 1794 poem that shows a much different side of the story for most of the children working like this. The tone continues to be sad and show a felling of dismay and misunderstanding towards the parents and what they are doing.
In both poems the image of God is a key piece to the entirety of the poem but rather then God holding the same meaning to the children they hold complete opposite meanings. In the first version of the poem God takes them away from all the harm and horrible things that are happening to these poor children that can't help the situations they have been put in. Line 20 says "He'd have God for his father and never want joy." This shows that no matter the situation that has been happening around them there father though they might not have one by blood would be God himself and that is all that they needed. Angels earlier in the poem were sent to set 4 of his friends free from the coffins of black that they had been locked in and now they are playing around in Heaven this shows the lack of fear the boys have towards death as a child. The innocence that death is okay because God will be there and Heaven is filled with "Sunshine and rainbows" is the bases of this poem but that is not the case in the poem that was published in 1794 who uses the image of God as a source of misery to the children rather then a hopeful outlook at Heaven. The Child still has a parental sources in there life but they are to busy praising God to help keep that child out of harms way. Just because the boy doesn't show is parents this ideal picture of dismay towards his job they believe that God has blessed them, but the child already knows that the parents have brought him closer to death through the work he has been doing. The innocence this child once held has disappeared rather then progressed like in the previous poem. God is the cause of his misery rather then his hope towards a good ending, the world has turned him dark.
Overall the poems are ironic that the idea of a chimney sweep is to clean a black covered object. The smoke represents a way to death that the boys are being put right into without a second thought. Smoke is deadly to inhale but the money talked louder then the health risks.
Reflection: I would give myself a 3 or 4 seeing as I never seemed to have a complete thought about any of the pieces I decided to use to compare and contrast the two poems. My biggest focus within the poem was how the use of God was heavily present in both poems. Though this was a key idea I feel as though I could of better described my other two pieces that I detected within the poem which were tone and irony. Going all the way to the beginning with my thesis, it was a very simply stated thesis that didn't go into much detail nor had a complex comparative structure. Moving to the end of my essay I don't have a conclusion which is a very important part when it comes tying the essay together as a whole. As a whole my essay seems to be very fragmented and incomplete and I wouldn't give myself a very high score.
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