William Blake As A Critic Of His Time Blake took an active role in exposing the corruption taking place in his society. Prime targets of his criticisms were the institutions that remained silent in the faces of injustice. Blake stands agains the institutions that allow human oppression. Three of his poems from Songs of Experience present his views on the matter: " The Chimney Sweeper," "The Garden of Love," and "London."In "The Chimney Sweeper," Blake takes his stand against the the calamities brought upon children by those supposed to protect him. Innocence comes to an end for the child when he is exposed to the horrors of sweeping chimneys . His sadness can be felt when he says : "They clothed me in the clothes of death/and taught me to sing the notes of woe" (Blake, 6-7). The child is telling society that his pain is being caused by those in whom he put his trust his parents. Even more disconcerting is to know that his parents do nothing to stop his horrors. They abandon him and go "...to praise God & his Priest & King" (Blake, 11). Perhaps they do this , because on the outside their child looks happy and they probably think that they are helping him more than anything: " And because I am happy, & dance& sing,/ They think they have done me no injury," (Blake, 9-10) . In the meantime, the church is also playing a part in his misery. How? Because it allows the parents to come inside its building to pray when they should be protecting their child from all harm: "They are both gone up to the church to pray'" (Blake, 4). ".....a heaven of our misery" (Blake, 12) finally emphasizes to the reader once more those who are responsible for the child's pain and sorrows . He hopes that, somehow, people would take action and do away with the calamity of child labor. In another one of his poems, "The Garden of Love", Blake portrays religion as the oppressor of human kind. Man wants to be close to God : "I went to the Garden of Lo...
