The theme of individuality is continued as he states “There’s little Tom Dacre who cried when his head/That curled like a Lambs back was shav’d”. However, Blake is now focusing on Tom’s loss of Individuality. This loss of individuality is due to his social status in the community. The use of imagery and similes once again sets up a clash between the accepted use of children as chimney sweepers and the values that they lose their individuality as a result of it.
In the poem London, Blake expresses his critique through the usage of a progression of symbols that spread out from the “charter’d street” to encompass the whole city where the persona notices every face he encounters “marks of weakness, marks of woe”. The city is therefore represented as an alienating and constricting environment and everybody is marked by it. Society marks individuals due to their family background and connections which restricts the acceptance of Elizabeth Bennet by Lady Catherine De Bourgh who states “but who is your mother’, Lady De Bourgh reminds Elizabeth her mother was not born into a landed elite family and recommends Elizabeth “not to quite the sphere in which she belongs”
Within the poem “The Chimney Sweeper” there is conflict regarding the Church of England. The chimney sweepers discussed in the poem are not aided by the church. The church can only stand by, inarticulate, faint and helpless while these suppressed children continue to carry out their inhumane tortures. The sweepers in a dream believe an angel would come by “Who had a bright key/ and opened the coffins and set them all free”. This is a sign from god, yet it is symbolic of the church itself. Through the use of symbolism, Blake has set up a clash between the common belief that the church is perfect and good in every way, to the value they do nothing for these poor people who believe so ardently in them. These changing attitudes towards the church are reflected within Darwin’s theory of evolution. Naturalist Charles Darwin went against the traditional way of looking at the creation of man. The traditional belief of “god created man “was challenged by what he calls the origin of species. Darwin believed in natural selection which meant that random variations occurred within species and allowed them to dominate over other species without this variation, which is ultimately meant survival of the fittest.
It is clearly evident through the poems “London” and “The Chimney Sweeper” from the Songs of Experience and Innocence respectively, that Blake’s poetry, and Simon Langton’s Pride and Prejudice depict changing way of thinking in the late 18th century, as conflict between ideologies and values systems takes place. It is tradition that keeps societies, families and communities under control, but when these traditions are challenged, conflict with obviously increase and a new value systems and ideologies will be introduced into society.
