William Blake's "Songs of Innocence and Experience "juxtapose the innocent, pastoral world of childhood against an adult world of corruption.

Explain in your own sentences.

Child Labor
Answer: William Blake describes innocence and experience as the two contrary states of the human soul. William Blake is saying that a human soul is innocent through its youth and gains experience as it gets to adulthood.

"The Chimney Sweeper" is that the title of a poem by Blake , published in two parts in Songs of Innocence in 1789 and Songs of Experience in 1794. The poem "The Chimney Sweeper" is set against the dark background of child labor that was prominent in England in the late 18th and 19th centuries. At the age of 4 and five, boys were sold to wash chimneys, thanks to their small size. These children were oppressed and had a diminutive existence that was socially accepted at the time. Children during this field of labor were often unfed and poorly clothed. In most cases, these children died from either falling through the chimneys or from lung damage and other horrible diseases from inhaling the soot. In the earlier poem, a young chimney sweeper recounts a dream by one of his fellows, in which an angel rescues the boys from coffins and takes them to a sunny meadow. In the later poem, an apparently adult speaker encounters a child chimney sweeper abandoned in the snow while his parents are at church or possibly even suffered death where the church is referring to being with God.

In 'The Chimney Sweeper' of Innocence, William Blake can be interpreted to criticize the view of the Church that through work and hardship, reward in the next life would be attained. This results in an acceptance of exploitation observed in the closing lines 'if all do their duty they need not fear harm.' Blake uses this poem to highlight the dangers of an innocent, naive view, demonstrating how this allows the societal abuse of child labor.

In Experience, 'The Chimney Sweeper' further explores this flawed perception of child labor in a corrupt society. The poem shows how the Church's teachings of suffering and hardship in this life in order to attain heaven are damaging, and 'make up a heaven' of the child's suffering, justifying it as holy. The original questioner of the child offers no help or solution to the child, demonstrating the impact these corrupt teachings have had on society as a whole.