The words "my" and "I" in the first stanza of the poem describe the chimney sweep. He is telling his own story, using the first person voice.
In the first two lines, the chimney sweep, speaking to those people who are comfortably well-off enough to read a poem, explains how he became a chimney sweep. He tells his audience that his mother died when he was very young, then that his father "sold" him to a man who would make money having very young boys climb down narrow chimneys to clean them. Of course, actual slavery was illegal in England at that time, so the man gave the father some money and took the boy off his hands.
This was one of the worst jobs in nineteenth century England. It relied on young boys being kept half-starved to be thin enough to fit down the chimneys. Rather than go to school, they did hard work all day. Many of them died young.
Presumably, the boy's parents were very poor. His mother would probably have protected him, but once she died, his father apparently felt he could not take care of the young child. The chimney sweep ends the stanza by saying that he sweeps chimneys and sleeps in soot. The "I" in that final line also refers to him.
Wednesday, June 6, 2012
For whom are the pronouns "my" and "I" used in the first stanza of this poem?
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
What is the theme of the chapter Lead?
Primo Levi's complex probing of the Holocaust, including his survival of Auschwitz and pre- and post-war life, is organized around indiv...
-
Note that these events are not in chronological order. The story is told by the narrator, looking back upon her life. The first notable even...
-
It seems most likely you are asking about Michael Halliday's theories of language. He argues children have seven main functions they use...
-
Bacteria are single-celled microorganisms that thrive in diverse environments (such as the ocean, the soil, and the human body). Various bac...
-
When we try to analyze the modern world today, we’ll notice that it’s going through several changes. No one is sure who will control or s...
-
Meg Meg is the central character in the novel, and we see the action through her eyes. She is important to the novel because she, along with...
-
Ecofeminism (alternately ecological feminism) examines the connections between women and nature. Basic feminist tenets undergird ecofeminism...
-
First, Victor quotes Hitler when he says there's no shame in wanting more. Everything he does, he does because he lives by this belief. ...
No comments:
Post a Comment