Preview

Compare and contrast Blakes depictions of society in ‘The Ecchoing Green’ and ‘The Chimney Sweeper’

Good Essays
Open Document
Open Document
1497 Words
Grammar
Grammar
Plagiarism
Plagiarism
Writing
Writing
Score
Score
Compare and contrast Blakes depictions of society in ‘The Ecchoing Green’ and ‘The Chimney Sweeper’
Compare and contrast Blakes depictions of society in ‘The Ecchoing Green’ and ‘The Chimney Sweeper’
In ‘The Ecchoing green’, Blake depicts a society that is very much in touch with nature. On the other hand, in ‘The Chimney Sweeper’ he presents a communitythat has been destroyed through it’s mistreatment of children.
In the first verse of ‘The Ecchoing Green’ the impression of a rural community is given and that society in this poem is very much in touch with enjoying the beauty of outdoors.
“The merry bells sing,
To welcome the spring” Furthermore, the bells are not ringing to welcome the people to church, but instead singing to welcome the spring. I think that this shows nature is appreciated and enjoyed in this society and not taken for granted.

The community appears to be relaxed and easy-going as the narrater (who appears to be a child) shows how
“While our sports shall be seen
On The Ecchoing Green”
This suggests that the community enjoy having fun together and to be in each others company. “Our” implies that ‘The Ecchoing Green’ is shared between the families and not owned by a single person.

At the beginning of the second verse we discover Old John, Blake describes him as old with white hair. I think that this implies that it is not just younger people enjoying the ecchoing green, it is the older generation too.
“Old John with white hair,
Does laugh away care”
Moreover, “Care” suggests death, because as John is old he must be approaching death. However, John is laughing this “care” away, so we can tell that whatever is happening on the Ecchoing green is making him happy, and pushing away his fears with laughter.

In the second verse of The Ecchoing Green, Blake depicts a society of young and old, giving the impression of a community that stick together and enjoy life together on the ecchoing green. “Such such were the joys
When we were all boys and girls,
In our youth time were seen
On the Ecchoing Green”
The families in this
Continue Reading
View Writing Issues

You May Also Find These Documents Helpful

  • Satisfactory Essays

    Innocence In William Blake's London
    • 269 Words
    • 2 Pages

    Innocence In William Blake's London

    Thus William Blake gives a very tragic and moving view of London and its inhabitancies.The bleakness and the dreary world of London is portrayed here. Indeed (The concept of universal human suffering permeates through Blake's dolorous poem "London," which depicts a city of causalities fallen to their own psychological and ideological demoralization,)which depicts a city of the picture of the exploitation and vulnerability of innocence . Innocence is devastated again and again. It is as if that England has stagnated morally and this moral degradation clearly expresses itself in the form of physically impaired children. Though the poem is set in the London of Blake's time, his use of symbolic characters throughout the piece and anaphoric use…

    • 269 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Satisfactory Essays
    Read More
  • Good Essays

    Innocence To Evil: Analysis Of William Blake's The Tyger
    • 777 Words
    • 4 Pages

    Innocence To Evil: Analysis Of William Blake's The Tyger

    In William Blake’s Songs of Innocence and Songs of Experience, the poems “The Lamb” and “The Tyger” are companion poems. Together, the two poems showcase one of Blake’s five main themes- childhood innocence can be dominated by evil after experience has brought an awareness of evil. With the lamb representing childhood and the tiger representing evil, Blake’s poems “The Lamb” and “The Tyger” focus on childhood and what people become after they grow and experience life.…

    • 777 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
    Read More
  • Good Essays

    William Blake's Chimney Sweeper Poems as Protests Against Society's Cruelty
    • 1031 Words
    • 5 Pages

    William Blake's Chimney Sweeper Poems as Protests Against Society's Cruelty

    William Blake, born on November 28th 1775 in England, was one of England's most renowned poets. His two most famous poetic collections are The Songs of Innocence, published in 1792, and The Songs of Experience, published in 1796; both pieces, highlight Blake's distrust towards society’s institutions and a sympathy for the vulnerable who were mistreated. He often wrote poems on similar topics but from different perspectives in each collection. Blake had written two Chimney Sweeper poems, one- in Songs of Innocence and the other in Songs of Experience, provide a glance at the lives of children who worked as chimney sweepers in his time. In these poems, Blake intertwines the themes of innocence and death to emphasize the moral wrongs of sending children to work as chimney sweepers. Both poems are, to an extent, a societal protest against child labor in 18th century England, however they are written from different perspectives and with varying opinions on religion and its impact on society.…

    • 1031 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Good Essays
    Read More
  • Better Essays

    Blake's presentation of Childhood and the Natural World
    • 1299 Words
    • 6 Pages

    Blake's presentation of Childhood and the Natural World

    In ‘The Ecchoing Green’ and ‘The Garden of Love’ Blake presents childhood and the natural world as a force for good which is ruined by authority. ‘The Ecchoing Green’ is a poem where literally children stop playing sports to rest at the end of the day. Blake conveys an idyllic setting through the use of simplistic rhyme scheme which gives the effect of a nursery rhyme emphasising the focus on children. This theme is continued with a choice of basic monosyllabic words. The overall tone of the poem is happy through sounds such as “bells ring” and positive imagery with “welcome the Spring.” This Arcadian setting is furthered through Blake’s illuminations, depicting adults as a nurturing, maternal figure. Normally Blake conveys white as a negative image however he chooses to use it differently to represent a purer, innocent setting through the clothing of the children and their overall positioning in a natural, open setting. Although this optimism alters in the second half of the poem as the adult voice of the poem says “the sun does descend” contrasting to the start of the poem. The elongated words at the end of the final verse “weary” “merry” “descend” contrast the shorter lexis at…

    • 1299 Words
    • 6 Pages
    Better Essays
    Read More
  • Good Essays

    William Blake Man of the Industrial Revolution
    • 1680 Words
    • 5 Pages

    William Blake Man of the Industrial Revolution

    During the 18th and 19th centuries, the Industrial Revolution was born in England. With this new growth in industry and capitalism, businessmen recognized the advantage of cheap labor. Children were among the most abused work force in that country 's history. William Blake saw this increase of social injustice and was overwhelmed, so he began to write about this hypocrisy of social values that he felt was being carefully hidden from the mainstream. While most considered this unavoidable, child labor was a topic that they did not discuss openly in social groups. Blake wanted to change all of that. As a social critic, he wrote many poems condemning the hypocrisy between these two worlds, for example, "The Chimney Sweeper," "London," and "The Garden of Love." In "London," Blake reveals that this hypocrisy has robbed the world of innocence and spirit. In the first two lines, Blake repeats the word "charter 'd." He uses this repetition to stress the mechanical behavior of the world around him. The word "charter" has connotations of something that can be sold or hired for money. Blake is connecting this idea with the chartered rights of Englishmen given three hundred years ago by the crown and never to be taken away. By using the subject ?street,? and the river ?Thames,? Blake is announcing to the world that this structural society has even corrupted nature. In the next two lines he comments on the beaten men of society: ?. . . every face I meet / Marks of weakness, marks of woe." This behavior is the thief of the individual 's innocence as the city of London represents what is manmade: "In every voice, in every ban, / the mind-fog manacles I hear": Blake turns to the root of the problem in the next stanza as he brings the church and state into the poem. In literature, the church is usually expressed in white symbolizing purity and often in contrast with children. These two ideas form a double negative image symbolizing the church when Blake writes about the ?. .…

    • 1680 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Good Essays
    Read More
  • Good Essays

    Summary: “Holy Thursday from Songs of Experience”
    • 267 Words
    • 1 Page

    Summary: “Holy Thursday from Songs of Experience”

    In the companion poem of Holy Thursday Songs of Innocence, William Blake discusses in the Songs of Experience the social chaos, especially the treatment of poor children, at that time. In the first stanza, “Is this a holy thing to see,” (line 1) Blake emphasizes “holy” again after the topic of this poem and implies the criticism toward church. “In a rich and fruitful land, babes reduced to misery,” (2-3) the ironic contrast in these two lines describes the peaceful world is not real; the human sorrow and the suffered children does exist instead. Furthermore, in the second stanza, Blake uses three questions, which are “Is that trembling cry a song? Can it be a song of joy? And so many children poor?” (5-7), to confirm the theme “a land of poverty” (8) and the sympathy toward children of this poem. For enhancing the description of the human suffering, stanza 3 vividly conveys the image of the miserable land. “And their sun does never shine,” (9) indicates the sun disappears and the endless dark fall upon the world. In addition, Blake takes “thorns” (11) to express various difficulties to live; on the other hand, the “eternal winter” (12) in the end of this stanza reveals the hopeless future for human kind. “Nor poverty the mind appall,” (16) Blake discloses his attitude that our mind will never get peace when mind never get poverty. From this poem, Blake tries to describe children’s tragic situation and the chaotic social system at his time; it’s a vivid but sorrowful…

    • 267 Words
    • 1 Page
    Good Essays
    Read More
  • Good Essays

    William Blake Thesis
    • 1119 Words
    • 5 Pages

    William Blake Thesis

    Later on in his life, Blake used his talent as an artist and a writer to express his experiences and also bring about a change in the social order and the minds of men (Reinhart). Blake wanted to expose the life of a chimney sweeper because he wanted the society to acknowledge its wrongdoings in stealing the sweepers’ childhoods. Written in 1789, “The Chimney Sweeper” starts its first stanza with two speakers, one representing the society and the other representing child labor. The first speaker's tone is untroubled by the condition of the child. This is a representation of how society viewed chimney sweepers in immoral, uncaring way. Right away in the first line of the poem the first speaker is addressing the child as “A little black thing among the snow” to dehumanize the child (Blake 1). Blake not only shows the speaker's voice as harsh but also uses imagery to display the amount of black soot that the child is covered in compared to the white snow in order to highlight the child’s physical conditions. Sold by their parents at a young age, chimney sweepers entered a life of torture and hardship. Then, to draw the reader’s attention to the corruption caused by the forced child labor Blake uses a…

    • 1119 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Good Essays
    Read More
  • Good Essays

    William Blake's The Chimney Sweeper: Two Perspectives
    • 392 Words
    • 2 Pages

    William Blake's The Chimney Sweeper: Two Perspectives

    In the two poems The Chimney Sweeper William Blake addresses the political issue presented at the time: the morality of the children sweepers. Blake attempts to describe the working conditions through two perspectives, one being through the eyes of an experienced chimney sweeper and the other through the eyes of the innocent.…

    • 392 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
    Read More
  • Powerful Essays

    Blake’s Optics in Demeanor of Cathedral’s Codified
    • 1614 Words
    • 7 Pages

    Blake’s Optics in Demeanor of Cathedral’s Codified

    Bibliography: Blake, William. 1988. The Complete Poetry and Prose of William Blake. Ed. David V. Erdman. Rev. ed. New York: Doubleday.…

    • 1614 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Powerful Essays
    Read More
  • Good Essays

    The Beauty of the Trees
    • 279 Words
    • 2 Pages

    The Beauty of the Trees

    Imagine a place with giant trees, tall bluffs overlooking the ocean, and green water lapping on the rocks below. The wind is cool and moist, the aroma of sea foam and grass fill the air, and water as far as the eye can see. Imagine this place and you have the Pacific Northwest, the home of Chief Dan George and the setting for his poem “The Beauty of the Trees. “ Chief Dan George was a leader of the Tsleil-Waututh Nation, a band of the Salish Indians located near coastal Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. He was an Indian Chief, actor, writer, and poet. “The Beauty of the Trees,” one of his most famous poems, has an underlying theme that the simple things in nature should be appreciated. The title of the poem suggests the poem will be about trees or the forest; however, it is about more than that. George presents a speaker who emphasizes the connection between him and nature, and he wants the reader to feel the same passion he does. The reader imagines a simple life, a man cooking fresh salmon over a fire as the sun sets with the trees whispering in the distance. In the final verse, the line “and the life that never goes away, they speak to me” (lines 16 and 17) the reader connects nature and the speaker to the circle of life and knows it will all happen tomorrow as nature is reliable. The last line “and my heart soars” (line 18) implies the speaker is content with life because nature is beautiful, connected to his heart, and will be the same…

    • 279 Words
    • 2 Pages
    Good Essays
    Read More
  • Good Essays

    Chimney Sweeper
    • 1118 Words
    • 5 Pages

    Chimney Sweeper

    Corruption of authority can consume an individual or even an entire society. Both of William Blake’s poems, “The Chimney Sweeper,” syntactically resemble one another through Blake’s employment of the ampersand and a fairly simplistic rhyme scheme; however, the tone in the first poem remains naïve and innocent as the speaker personally describes critical moments of coping with the atrocities of chimney-sweeping while the second poem employs a more cynical or accusatory tone as the point of view shifts from the speaker’s plight to the plight of all individuals succumbed to all atrocities. Blake, in turn, exposes the hypocrisy of society in which the church’s intolerance leads to mental, physical, and emotional wounds that may never mend.…

    • 1118 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Good Essays
    Read More
  • Good Essays

    William Blake's Chimney Sweeper Essay Example
    • 808 Words
    • 4 Pages

    William Blake's Chimney Sweeper Essay Example

    Blake's poem was initially very striking to me. While reading the first stanza, I was shocked and horrified by the imagery presented by the young narrator. I felt compelled to cry for the poor boy, and then became angry at his father for placing him in such a situation. In the second and third stanzas, I empathized with 'little Tom Darce' and pictured how frightened he must have been because of his nightmare; he seemed to be in great need of care and love, both of which I wished I could provide him. The imagery in the fourth and fifth paragraphs struck me as bright, beautiful and very innocent, thus causing me to wish that all the boys could live in such a wonderful environment. My reaction to the final stanza was a sense of distress; the boys had nothing to hope for, but were forced to perform a task which would eventually kill them. After reading the poem I was left with several impressions in my mind. The young and innocent portrayal of the narrator seemed to be a powerful influence on my emotional reactions to the poem. I was left with a sense of helplessness and frustration that I was not able to help the boys out of their oppressed state, and because I possess some knowledge of this period of history and culture, I know that the events described in the poem actually took place, and thus the poem becomes even more emotionally moving. It is the value system of the people of England in the 1790s which comes into sharp opposition with my own, especially with the issues that are in relation to the way that children should be treated; these people would essentially condemn their children to death so that they themselves could live. Noteworthy is the poem's notion of counter-dominance: the…

    • 808 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
    Read More
  • Good Essays

    Short analysis showing idealised and corrupted love in Songs of Innocence and of Experience
    • 720 Words
    • 3 Pages

    Short analysis showing idealised and corrupted love in Songs of Innocence and of Experience

    Blake continues the theme of mutual love in nature throughout poems in Songs of Innocence with The Shepherd who ‘follows his sheep all the day’. This presents an inverted authority figure as nature is shown to be leading the shepherd, which Blake chooses because the sheep gain protection and the shepherd attains happiness. In the poem Introduction the child orders ‘Piper pipe that song again – so I piped, he wept to hear’, as the piper indulges the child’s request, Blake represents a symbiotic bond between man and the inverted authority figure. Blake presents a supportive relationship between God and man in the poem The Divine Image to express how everybody has ‘Mercy, Pity, Peace and Love’ as their base emotions, no matter who they are, showing that everyone is equal – which is also a theme presented later in the poem as ‘every man in every…

    • 720 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
    Read More
  • Good Essays

    William Blakes Spirituality
    • 506 Words
    • 3 Pages

    William Blakes Spirituality

    The first stanza talks about the creation of Adam using the personification of the earth as "red clay brought forth". God had created Adam with dust, which brings to light the trivialization of the word create in our society; as humans we like to think we create things rather than merely assemble things to make bigger things out of them. Only God can truly create something out of nothing, as he created Adam from the ground. "The seeking serpent walks," (Blake) references that in biblical times that snakes could actually walk, Blake is revealing that we originated pure but then death came upon us when we were sought out by the walking serpent, our physically moving sin. Our spirit had been tampered with. Blake does not come right out and say that Adam ate the apple that revealed so much evil and desires, but simply says that in Genesis this had to happen; it was a divine plan for progression. God had to test us and see if we as humans could separate ourselves from the world and obey and worship him only. There is redemption though between the creation of heaven and hell. "...that the Messiah fell, and Formed a heaven of what we stole from the Abyss." (Blake). Blake's usage of the word "abyss" truly shows his tendency to portray a Dionysian energy. His descriptive text is soaked with rich and colorful imagery of the story he tells. Throughout the piece he constantly presents sets of contraries, which he states are the fuel to progression and forward thinking.…

    • 506 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
    Read More
  • Good Essays

    CHIMENY SWEEPER
    • 1092 Words
    • 3 Pages

    CHIMENY SWEEPER

    William Blake, in his poem “Chimney Sweeper” tries to tell story of a boy that is affected by poverty and corruption. Through Songs of Innocence, Blake makes the world know about the situation of children in his time working as chimney sweepers. Through the eyes of children, the speaker asserts that they can be set free from the evils of society through hope, joy, and cheer that every child has towards God. The speaker is against society, government, and family who give children so much pain and force them to work as slaves. Blake expresses his feelings in the Songs of Innocence by showing sympathy towards innocent children that are treated with cruelty. Society exploits, abuses and takes advantage of the children. The Songs of Innocence shows how society, specifically the father, the church and the chimney sweeping industry is to blame for the boy’s unhealthy condition and how the boy describes how pain and sorrow are part of his everyday life.…

    • 1092 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
    Read More

Related Topics