Student Question
What does the lamb symbolize in "The Chimney Sweeper"?
Quick answer:
In "The Chimney Sweeper," the reference to the boy sold into child labor being shaved like a lamb symbolizes the meekness and innocence of the boy. It is also a reference to Christ, the Lamb of God, who also suffered through no fault of his own.
The poem "The Chimney Sweeper" by William Blake begins with the narrator's heartbreaking lament of being sold by his father after his mother died when he was still so young he could not even pronounce words properly. Because he is so small, he is able to crawl up into chimneys to clean them. Afterwards he sleeps without washing off the soot. In fact, child labor such as chimney sweeping was a horrific reality in eighteenth-century England, and the poor children often died from diseases of the lungs or from falling or becoming trapped in the chimneys.
He then tells the story of a chimney sweeper named Tom Dacre, who has a dream that an angel comes and releases all the chimney sweepers from their dark coffins and takes them to heaven. There they can "wash in a river" and run and laugh in the sunshine. The angel tells Tom that "if he'll be a good boy," God will be his father and he'll be happy in spite of his circumstances. This cheers Tom up.
The reference to the lamb occurs when Tom is first sold as a chimney sweep and his head is shaved. Blake writes that his hair curls "like a lamb's back." To understand the significance of this phrase, it is useful to refer to another Blake poem called "The Lamb." In this poem, the lamb is presented as a meek, mild, joyful, innocent creature, and the poet writes that even God, in the form of Jesus, "calls himself a Lamb."
In comparing Tom Dacre to a lamb, the poet is pointing out his meek, mild, and Christlike nature. The young boys like Tom who are sold to be chimney sweepers are as innocent as lambs, and even if their parents abandon them, God will take care of them, as Blake emphasizes in the poem's heavenly vision.
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