Introduction
The economic situation in the country can be impacted by various factors. The life of the Medieval Europeans was highly influential by the Church and every step taken by authorities and monarchs was talked over with the secular clergy. In this respect, the society was under two powers: the official one (the power of the monarch and the Parliament, if any) and the power of the Church. Regarding this, the Church established rules and laws using influencing politics, law-makers, and their decisions. The population had to work hard to pay taxes to the state and various fees required by the Church that assured them of the importance of that. Additionally, the financial situation was not stable and the government could not change anything because of the Church that encouraged people to live a poor life now to live in Heaven after their death. Industrial Revolution was not profitable for the Church as it could enhance the people’s opportunities to live better and deprive them of a stable income and a people’s belief in the poor life full of hardships on earth and a good life in harmony in Heaven.
Discussion
Church and persuasive arguments
The Church is influencing people’s decisions and dreams. Instead of dreaming about a happy life on earth Tom, the main character of William Blake’s poem “The Chimney Sweeper”, wants to live with God in Heaven and is ready to go through various hardships of life and overcome all difficulties. “He’d have God for his father, and never want joy” (Blake line 20) can be interpreted as the main evidence of the religious impact on people’s minds. People are not expected to want something different than God’s favor. Besides, wealth is claimed to be inappropriate for those who truly believe in the best motives of the Church that wishes all people only the finest life.
The other points in this poem are the brainwashing of the poor people by the Church and other higher classes who say the poor ones only need to perform their duty sincerely and never look for joy in this life. Then only they will get a wonderful afterlife cared for by the angels and fathered by God himself. These words are always taken seriously with no question. The agonies of the poor ones remain in their life and still they work hard for the dream of the afterlife. The working class or any other person is never allowed to rebel or question any action of the Church or the higher class. In this respect, class discrimination has closely intertwined with economic problems and religious ones.
The innocent child takes the words of an angel in his dream seriously and dreams of another angel coming with a bright key and freeing all the previous dead chimney sweepers from their coffins and leading them to a world of purity. Tom becomes happy after this dream as he sees the angel assuring him in a good afterlife; the Church benefits from making people believe that the present does not matter and wealth is not necessary. “Though the morning was cold, Tom was happy and warm: So, if all do their duty, they need not fear harm” (Blake lines 23-24). Blake demonstrates his attitude to the way the Church tries to set an authority over the ordinary people. Light and genuinely optimistic images pervade the poem with some implicitly evil meaning that renders the author’s idea of the Church’s true intentions concerning child labor.
Labor force and religion
Labor force should not mean child labor. It is nice when a little child wants to help his/her parents though the child should not be forced to work. The level of industrialization can demonstrate the working conditions in the country. The Church and mechanisms are incompatible regarding the aims of each party in this case. The church is aimed at using people’s labor to its advantage and the clergy realize the consequences of better work conditions. The fewer people experience different hardships, the less they need some support, the less they go to church, the less the Church profits from the sufferings of poor people. Al the actions of the Church are well-grounded and targeted at gaining profit.
Tom’s father is one of those who can sell his son to the Church for the dangerous job of sweeping the chimneys. At the time of industrialization, there was always a need for small boys who could clean the chimneys by getting inside due to their small size. These little boys did not care at all; the poet comments, “So your chimneys I sweep, and in soot, I sleep” (Blake line 4); they had to live in utter unhealthy conditions as they were devoid of any home. Sometimes they died of ill health due to prolonged exposure to soot or by accidents. Tom is just a symbol or representative of these unfortunate poor children.
Tom, a little boy as a chimney sweeper
Tom, a little boy, is characterized as representative of all suffering children in the hand of the Church. He tastes the intense hard blow of poverty and sorrow right in childhood when his mother dies. The poet states, “When my mother died I was very young” (Blake line 1) and could not say a word. His father sells him for money. It is important to state that the Church is the buyer of a little boy. Tom’s life then begins in the dark gloomy world of labor doing a dangerous job of cleaning the chimney. He has to sleep in the soot that he has cleaned out of the chimney. His head is shaved and it makes him feel further sad. When he weeps for that along with the other grievances he is just given meager words of consolation saying now that soot will not dirt his hair. “Hush, Tom! never mind it, for, when your head’s bare,/ You know that the soot cannot spoil your white hair” (Blake lines 7-8). It is the perfect truth to the child. However, the child does not have to work at such a young age. He should play with his friend and enjoy the period of carefree existence. If his mother was alive, she would bake sweet cakes for him and comb his fair hair. Though he cannot live a normal life of a carefree child, Tom manages to find some light and happy dreams to comfort him on the hardest days.
Blake manages to reveal the hardships of Tom’s life through vivid pictures of the poem depicting the suffering of the little boy Tom and the nature in which that has given way to the industries by receding itself while getting limitations outside the boundaries of the cities. The first picture represents a little helpless boy with his head shaven. “There’s little Tom Dacre, who cried when his head,/ That curled like a lamb’s back, was shaved” (Blake lines 5-6). We find Tom sleeping in the dirty unhealthy bed of soot and weeping in agony and it is so real that it will make anybody feel for Tom and thousands like Tom. He speaks of sleeping in the soot which reveals the living conditions of these children.
Conclusion
The church should not encourage the use of child labor. However, the poem by William Blake dwells on the quite opposite facts. Child labor is not only the prime subject of the poem but it is created in a way to point out the unfair practices carried out in society. This is supported by the Church. The dominion of the Church over the poor people through brainwashing is successfully criticized. The poet is successful in his effort to make people think about these unfortunate issues.
Works Cited
Blake, William. “The Chimney Sweeper”. Anthology: The Norton Anthology of British Literature. Martin Greenblatt. New York: W.W. Norton & Co., 2005. 486.