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A Marxist reading of “The Chimney Sweeper” by William Blake

Mehdi Hassanian esfahani (GS22456)

Literary Theory (BBL 5201)

Dr. Edwin Vethamani

William Blake was always concerned about superstition and social difficulties of living in his

era, children’s education and condition, and was suspicious to the power, which had a

connection to the church. In The Chimney Sweeper (from Songs of Innocence), there is a

boy from lower class who is poor and uneducated. He was too young when his mother died

and his father sold him, like a material or a thing in a market. He couldn’t even speak when

he forced and learned to sweep the chimneys.

The class distinction is depicted in this poem, as the narrator speaks of his lifestyle.

The bunch of chimney sweepers, who seem to be young boys of the same social class,

includes poor boys like Tom, Dick, Joe, Ned and Jack. They have no power and no money.

They have no social statue as well. They do not have a family to relay upon. They are forced

to work, even if it is not pleasing or tolerable, and they cannot protest. They do not have

any financial support, and their skills are considered financially fruitless; they are, therefore,

powerless. Although there is no clue about (probably) the man in charge of these boys who

is the beneficiary of the job, their poor condition brings to the mind the presence of

someone who takes the benefits and ignores these poor workers’ situation.

The whole poem is about a false consciousness, an ideal which is presented to one of

the boys by a dream, when an angel comes and promises him a bright future of laughing

and running in green plains or bathing in rivers and shining in the sun, only if he does his job

hard and passively. The angel represents the social and religious power which asks the

workers complete and satisfactory results for their jobs, as well as their passiveness. Coming

from a dream, it can be the re-apparition of social forces in the boy’s life. The words are

what the capitalist employer asks, and what the capitalist society wants. Blake depicts the

society through the boy’s dream and the chimney sweeper’s life. He condemns this false

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consciousness, the angel’s words by bringing a dramatic irony. Readers know that poor

boy’s dream is not a true promise about their future and their lives, but Tom, the boy,

doesn’t understand it. He is hopeful about the future, childishly and foolishly optimistic; he

takes the words, awakes and starts to work hard in the cold, while he feels warm and happy

inside.

Religion can be so powerful to motivate an individual to bear difficulties. In The

Chimney Sweeper, the boy believes in a celestial father who observes and counts every

single act. He has a faith (powerful to himself in the overt content and perhaps naïve to the

reader in the covert reading of the text) which is spoiled by capitalistic powers of society,

and works as a repressive ideology to motivate the boy to be passively a good worker, and

to do his duty, -nothing more. This is hidden from the boy, as he can just see the shining

bright sun and the angel’s key in the dream. He sees and feels the surface and is unable to

interpret it. The boy does what the angle has asked; to be a good worker and never want

joy. Having nothing else in the life, the boy keeps his faith, but this unaccredited dream

keeps him away from awareness of his socioeconomic oppression, and guarantees the

future of beneficial oppressors.

Blake is condemning the capitalist society by depicting awful condition and future of

these boys. He shows us some clues, to trace the oppression to the power. The dream, the

angle, the promised God and heaven are keys to show the dark side of the story. Power is

misused through religious beliefs and activities. Church is the oppressor who invites

capitalism to this classist society, and tries to keep the power for its own.