Analysis Of The Poem London Essay

The poet, William Blake, through the poem London is able to express his intentions and message of the poem through the content, aim and the theme, no escape. He is able to create a dark atmosphere, due to how cynical his message was. He also uses particular words and sentences, emphasizing on the importance of diction. The diction of the poem helps to show the differences in the classes within the society and the hopelessness that has wash over the whole society. Throughout the whole poem, the readers are able to know his disapproval, dislike and displeasure over the place that he lives in, by creating a moody and sullen tone which enhances the eerily seriousness of the atmosphere.

The content, aim and the theme help to reinforce the writers intentions and message of the poem. Through the four quatrains, iambic tetrameter poem, it shows a society that is portrayed as being devastated and grim. Using the basic rhyme scheme of abab, it shows how the people and the places are infected and affected. The rhyme is able to give a flow to the events, making it on-going showing how the society keeps on worsening day by day. The poet describes the city that he probably lives in, and from the use of the word I in I hear shows as a narrator, he isnt the observer but also one of the people of the society that is suffering from the negative aspects of the society. William Blakes intention of the poem is to inform the readers and to express his opinions of how he does not approve of the society he lives in. It shows how the society has negatively affected him, causing the readers to question if he is mentally stable when he said: The mind-forged manacles I hear. There is a repetition of the word every in the second stanza, showing the importance of it as he stresses on that particular word. It shows how everyone within the society is influenced negatively and how he or she cant escape and are trapped in this civilization. It creates a sense of hopelessness, highlighting a significant theme. This important theme is no escape; as escaping is hard and most of the time, the people in the society gave up on trying to survive by escaping. This hopelessness can be seen through soldiers sigh which shows how they have no choice but to go to war and serve for their country. It definitely gives the opposite effect of patriotic. The readers can feel a sense of defeat, as if the soldiers sigh because there is no way out and they are trapped in this mournful atmosphere which links to how the other people feel living in this particular depressed society. On the other hand, the use of the word sigh could also link to death as it could be a soldiers sigh when he has died or when the enemies have defeated him. Overall, the use of the word sigh has gloomy connotations to it, creating a grim atmosphere.

The poet encourages the readers to visualise and to picture the grim society through the use of diction and the imagery, allowing them to have a better understanding of his intentions. In the first stanza, the writer uses the repetition of marks, to focus attention on it. He tries to show the readers that there is a much more profound meaning to it. Marks can be linked to scars, which indicates how the negative characteristics of the society have affected the people immensely. Therefore, the people have invisible, emotional scars inflicted upon them, giving them an appearance of a sufferer. Throughout the stanzas, the poets use of diction has negative connotations to them. His choice of words is able to complement the mournful atmosphere. They range from weakness, woe, cry to blood which gives gloomy connotations of death. He is able to make the readers picture the atmosphere as being something dark, cynical and cold. The use of words such as chimney-sweepers, church, soldiers and palace are meaningful and notable as the poet is trying to show the stages of power each of them have. It shows the class differences in the society. There is the child labour, religion destruction, death in the war and monarchy. The readers can sense the poets disapproval of what the stages the society is based on from the way he links them to unfavourable and unsympathetic implications. He links the chimney-sweeper with cry, the church to blackening and appals, the soldier to sigh and hapless and the palace with blood. He shows how the lower classes goes through all the hardships, even face death such as the soldiers while the higher levels such as the monarchy have no involvement in them, letting the soldiers sigh runs in blood down palace walls. Therefore, religion is not significant anymore and it is tarnished and blackened, due to all the sinful and selfish deeds of people. The use of blackened with church creates oxymoron as church is linked to religion and purity while blackened doesnt. It creates an understanding for the readers over how religion is destroyed. This highlights the importance of the theme ignorance and selfishness and loss of virtue, due to the corrupted society. The use of the word ban in the second stanza draws more attention to the corruption of the society. The word ban is linked to censorship; hence, the people, including William Blake, in that society are unable to voice and express their disapproval and condemnation of how the community is governed. Yet, people, out of fear and hopelessness, do not speak out. As a result, the readers are able to sense and feel the frustration and the struggles of William Blake throughout the whole poem.

The whole last stanza is noteworthy as it sums up Williams predictions of the future and how it will be affected tremendously, yet painfully due to how the society is being regulated right now. Through the gloomy words such as youthful harlots curse and new-born infants tear in the last stanza, highlights how the new, upcoming generation will suffer, due to actions that are being taken place by this generation that leads to sinful deeds and mistakes. Throughout all the other stanzas, the poet talks about how virtue is being lost and religion is being destroyed which therefore leads to his conclusion of how all of this will affect the future procreation negatively. The marriage hearse in the last line of the last stanza creates an oxymoron that all happiness eventually shall be lead to death. The poet deduces from all that he had witnessed as a narrator and a sufferer, that the countrys dreadful mistakes will burden the future generation with unhappiness and misery. The last stanza can also be underlined through the chimney-sweepers cry that was used in the third stanza. It shows the desperate attempt the new generation will go through to clean the chaos of the older society that lead to their state of depression.

The important themes, the use of diction, the imagery and the last stanza are able to create the mournful atmosphere of the society and portray the poets disapproval of the societys negative attributes. From its attributes, the poet is able to sum up a conclusion in the last stanza about how this will have an impact on the new generation immensely yet, unfavourably.