Blake's "Little Black Boy"

Blake’s “The Little Black Boy” is organized into seven heroic stanzas, the first of which reveals the speaker’s conflict of being “black” while the speaker’s “soul is white”(2). The immediate thought one would have is that the speaker feels burdened being black, or out of place, as the soul and color of the speaker’s skin do not match. The speaker is also not “White as an angel” like “the English child”(3), but is instead, “black as if bereav’d of light”(4). So one draws the conclusion that this speaker has been raised in a situation in which the white children are held in high esteem and black children are conditioned to believe they’re lesser than the white children. It can also be said that the speaker feels influenced by the ideas and theologies of western society in such a way that while the soul may be filled with white ideologies, the black skin prevents the ability to fulfill the white soul’s desires.

This idea is detailed even further when the speaker’s mother’s teachings are brought up. They may first imply equality and how “God does live/And gives his light”(9-10) to “flowers and trees and beasts and men”(11), but soon even the mother admits that their “black bodies and this sun-burnt face” are “but a cloud, and like a shady grove”(15-16). This leads to the mother’s conclusion that when their “souls have learn’d the heat to bear/The cloud will vanish we shall hear his voice” (17-18), and God will call for them to come to his “golden tent” and “like lambs rejoice”(20). So the speaker’s mother tells the speaker that while God gives everyone his light, those with “black bodies” (15) have to face extreme adversity to go to the promise land, and to make it to heaven.  They are different. They are marked to bear heat to make it to heaven. This leads one to believe that the mother was influenced by these ideas, and the child speaker will also be infected with the idea that it is okay for them to go through the adversity they have to. It is as if the ideas they have of being forced to face more adversity are as foreign and forced as the Christian religion. All of these ideas are forced upon these people that were kidnapped and forced to bear the adversity they’re going through.

These forced ideas and roles are also apparent in the final two stanzas. When the speaker says “to a little English boy” (22) that when they are free from their clouds (presumably physical bodies) he will “shade him from the heat till he can bear” (25), Blake is implying that the speaker will still be working for the white child. The speaker plans to “stand and stroke his silver hair/and be like him and he will then love me”(27-28). Even in heaven, the speaker intends to put the white child first and protect him and allow him the first right to “lean in joy upon our fathers knee”(26). The speaker has a false sense of camaraderie and attachment to the child that comes from the beliefs instilled in early childhood that in the end everyone gets to heaven. Those ideas are mixed with the responsibility the speaker currently has to the white child to lead to the conclusion that even in death the speaker will be behind the white child. It is significant that this poem is in the Songs of Innocence part of Blake’s work, as this child is certainly ignorant of the horrors and hardships to come.

            It is important to look, after analyzing the poem, at the illustrations Blake included with the poem. There are actually two images that go with the poem, one of the child speaker in conference with the mother figure, and one in which the two children are in the presence of Christ. In the first image, one can see the scene in which the mother is telling the child of the “rising sun”(9) and detailing the adversity they must face, but promising a greater eternity. When comparing the pictures, the sun and Christ share the same place, but the mother is removed and the speaker has been moved back behind the white child, as it has been detailed in the poem. The most interesting thing these add to the poem are the indifference the white child has to the speaker, instead praying to Christ and looking longingly upward, not behind at the burdens he has caused and the people he has hurt. It is also interesting that a tree is shading the Christ figure just as the speaker is shading the white child. This can imply an ominous and subtle idea that the responsibility of bearing the burden of shading others from the sun (or taking on other hardships) will never go away, even in heaven. This contrasts, of course, the teachings of the mother figure in the poem, but the images allow Blake to have a deeper and subtle meaning in his work.

Questions:

Do you feel that Blake is implying the Christian religion is as forced upon the speaker and other slaves, or is he implying that the Christian religion is good for slaves because it gives them hope?

How do the images change or shape your view of the poem? In particular, the idea that the Christ/God figure is being shaded by a tree, just as the closer child is being shaded by the child behind it (presumably the speaker).

What else is revealed in having this poem within the Songs of Innocence. Does anyone know the poem’s pair in the Songs of Experience?

What does the poem say about slavery in general? Does Blake appear for or against it? How does this work in relation to the other pieces we have read? In particular, how does it relate to the Prince narrative when she details her beliefs as just an innocent child? How do the dream or vision like sequences in “The Little Black Boy” and “The Chimney Sweeper” from Songs of Innocence relate?

While the poem appears to be completely filled with heroic stanzas, lines 11 and 19 appear to be more than iambic pentameter. Am I reading this correctly? If so, what is Blake’s reasoning behind this?