William Blake's poem The Little Black Boy - Essay Example

Essay, World Literature Topic: William Blakes poem "The Little Black Boy" The poem “The Little Black Boy” is from the compilation of the poems by William Blake, “Songs of Innocence and Experience.” This work relates to the literary stream of Romanticism. Blake was a British poet. The genre of this poem is lyric poetry and it depicts the social and cultural issues of the time. Racial discrimination is the dominant theme. The speaker of the poem is an African child and with his self-understanding he has come to terms with his black color.

He pleads for equality for all, without discrimination on any count. His assertion that he is “black as if bereav’d of light” is the pointer to the gravity of the problem of racial discrimination. But the speaker would not give up or lose hope. He is quite confident that blacks deserve perfect love and will achieve equal status as that of a white person. As for the imagery, the black and white colors refer to differentiate races and indicate how the child understands good and bad. Particularly, the line, “And I am black, but Oh!

My soul is white,” highlights boy’s awareness. This observation touches the emotional chord of the reader’s heart. Child represents the prevailing state of affairs in the entire nation and the plight of the racial minorities. Blake employs generous use of metaphors. The line “look on the rising sun: there God does live and gives his light, and gives his heat away,” compares the sun to God. The sun gives light, warmth and hope for growth for all, irrespective of any discrimination. Light is an accepted metaphor for divine knowledge that lies within the inner world of human beings.

The image of boy’s sun-burnt face is the pointer to the harsh discrimination prevailing in the society that denies education to the blacks due to racial segregation. The poet specifically mentions this position in the line, “And these black bodies and this sun-burnt face are but a cloud, and like a shady grove.” The blacks are compared to the dark clouds. The issues raised in the poem are still prevalent and relevant today. The speaker has successfully brought to the fore the problems of race, status etc.

The speaker is familiar with the Bible and he uses images and propounds biblical concepts. Some of them are: Tree: Refers to the Tree of knowledge of good and evil in the Garden of Eden, in Paradise. East: Associated with eternal life, the direction of the rising sun. In Christianity, this direction relates to the resurrection of Christ. Lamb: This image implies innocence and the figure of Christ which is also a sacrificial figure. It as well relates to evil and violent and treacherous tendencies inherent in human beings.

Golden tent: Mentioned in Old Testament. Child: Though the word is not specially mentioned, the speaker is the child, the image of innocence and gentleness. This is a story told by the black child and his understanding of his own identity and his quest to know God. The poem is structured in heroic quatrains and has seven stanzas of pentameter line rhyming ABAB. This is a variation on the ballad stanza with longer lines and suits well for the pedagogical tone of the poem. The important aspect of the poem is the love of the mother of the speaker.

She nurtures the self-esteem of the child. She prepares the mind of the child to let him understand the functioning of God and that earthly life is just the preparation for the rewards in heaven. The dark skin has nothing to do with the essence of the personality of the speaker. Through the theology of the poem, the speaker pleads for forbearance. In the final two stanzas the black boy interacts with his friend, the white boy for whom he has lots of affection. The first two stanzas describe the past; the next three stanzas recall the mother’s advice and they refer to the present.

The final two stanzas refer to the black boy’s visualization of the future. Works CitedBlake, William. The Little Black Boy Web:—Retrieved on October 28, 2012