Show how Blake creates opposing attitudes and ideas in his songs of Ess

Show how Blake creates opposing attitudes and ideas in his songs of Innocence and Experience. Show how Blake creates opposing attitudes and ideas in his songs of Innocence and Experience.David Jessup 11A1 Blake creates opposing attitudes and ideas by using contrasting, emotive language and also by using characters with opposing opinions and attitudes. In "The Chimney Sweeper" Blake uses characters with different situations and lifestyles to show how distraught the chimney sweeps can be when they are sent away from their families to work at a very young age. In "The chimney Sweeper from "Songs of Innocence" the young boy is described as an "angel" and also as a "lamb", both often used as symbols of innocence and purity. Blake uses symbols of innocence as an alternative way of describing the children as innocent. He used various similes and metaphors in the Innocence poems to make the poems more light hearted and to also convey a sarcastic tone because of the obviously false descriptions. "All of them in coffins of blackà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¦an angelà ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¦opened the coffins and set them all free", the coffins of black suggest that by fulfilling their tasks as chimney sweeps the children are going to their eventual death from suffocating or some other form of detath in the dark, smoky chimneys. With language like this Blake managed to portray his beliefs without going against the Church or the State directly. This meant that although he was criticised he could look at both sides of the lives of children without being accused of being single minded or patronising. In "The Chimney Sweeper" from Innocence the narrator is the chimney sweep himself; this is an effective method because Blake can then use the child's... ...he year that orphan children are paraded through the streets in bright colours as soldiers. Blake uses this viewpoint so that a neutral opinion can be gained of both a sinister viewpoint of the parade and a gratuitous viewpoint. "With wands as white as snow," show the beadles as pure and leading the children in a good cause but in Experience the beadles are shown in a different manner. "Fed with a cold and usurous hand?" showing the beadles cruelty and content to be selfish and treat the children as objects not human beings. The poem I like best of all six is "The chimney Sweeper from Experience because it takes the misuse of chilren in a bad situation and describes it in an even darker manner. "They clothed me in the clothes of death", the childs knowledge is invaluable that he knows of his inevitable detah even though he is only a young child.