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Symbolism In William Blake's Little Boy Lost

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William Blake uses the children in both Songs of Innocence and Songs of Experience to represent the effects of the by-products left by a society dominated by the concept of providing for an upper class through the notions associated with proto-capitalism. This essay will highlight the various ways in how Blake presents both the physical and psychological effects caused by these by-products (poverty and suffering) to these children and how they as a whole, represent this side of society that is affected therefore as a result conveying the ways in which Blake represents poverty and suffering in both of his books. It is clear that Blake wished for his readers to sense in Songs of Innocence that the children are mostly unaware as to why they suffer or to what is the source of …show more content…

In suggesting that the father intentionally ignores the cries of his child who beckons him to: “speak, father, speak to your little boy/ Or else I shall be lost” [Blake, 190]. Evokes the notion of the father accepting that he has a lack of financial means in order to provide for his child, hence why he abandons it. Blake in doing this represents that poverty can lead to an abandonment of humanity, that the effects of these by-products can be so extreme that it can turn even the most caring of parents into the most unsympathetic humans. In evidence of this statement, it is conclusive that Blake wishes to present the effects of poverty in such a way in order to show that he acknowledges that these themes are created by the lifestyles enforced by the ‘elite’ in society. And in doing so Blake provides a mirror of the larger figures in society through the father in which he conveys this abandonment of thought and dehumanization of the people who are smaller than

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