Paste your essay in here… “The Little Black Boy” is one of several poems in William Blake’s The Songs of Innocence and uses Christian philosophy to make commentary on racism and slavery. The poem is rich with religious imagery and depends on appealing to the better ideals of Christian-readers to make a case against outright racism and prejudice. However, there are elements of ambivalence throughout the poem as well as darker contextual implications of the logic the poem employs. Ultimately, “The Little Black Boy” stands out as an admirable statement against racism and slavery in a time where such an expression was controversial. The moments of ambivalence and oversight do not take away from the spirit of the poem, but they do murky the waters and raise important questions.
The speaker begins the poem as he addresses his origins from the “southern wild,” and reflects on the contrast between his skin color and that of the English child. Though the speaker’s “soul is white” his body is black, and he comments that it is as if he is “berav’d of light.” The angelic whiteness of the English child is resplendent of purity and morality, while the little black boy’s corporal existence is devoid of such light. Further contrasts between the speaker and the English child lie in their upbringing and their tutelage. The speaker, the little black boy, was taught underneath a tree and the lessons learned from his mother’s lap were explicitly religious in nature. His mother tells him that God lives in the rising sun and generously shares this light and heat so that, “And flowers and trees and beasts and men receive/Comfort in morning joy in the noonday.” This stanza serves to remind the reader that all “beasts and men” are similar in that the light of God shines down on them. The little English boy was most likely raised in conditions more classically affluent and European than the little black boy.
At first blush this seems a unifying statement: all men share the light of their Heavenly Father. Underneath this though there is a whisper of otherness that extends to the little black boy because of his skin color. White is the color of brightness and God’s love, but also of the English child. Lightness and whiteness emerge as one and the same, in essence the symbols of God are also that of the little black boy’s oppressors. There is also innate unfairness presented in this stanza by the speaker: the gift of light (whiteness) has been given to the English child but not to the speaker or his mother.
The speaker’s mother continues to teach her son as she notes that the humanity is given only a “little space” to learn how to “bear the beams of love.” For black bodies and sun-burnt faces these beams of love “Is but a cloud, and like a shady grove.” Initially it seems that the warmth and light of God is borne well by their blackness, but the darker implications of beams is the enslavement and persecution by the white master. The little black boy and his mother are able to shoulder these beams, but are not to take them joyfully as they would if they were beams of light from God. However, it may be that they are ultimately similar in weight and origin.
The remainder of the poem allows the narrator to reflect on what his heavenly experience will look like. Before Heaven can be entered, however, the soul must “have learn’d the heat to bear.” In one sense this is yet another similarity that the little black boy has with the English child. Neither of them will be able to have their heavenly reward until they’ve lived a godly life and borne the weight of God’s love (and expectations) to the best of their souls ability. Though perhaps a well intentioned sentiment, the souls of black men and white men are asked to bear quite different weights in the time the poem is written.
“Black bodies and this sun-burnt face” are made to “bear the beams.” As alluded to earlier, the symbolism of warmth and light with God also extends to whiteness in general. The slavery and hardship that the little black boy and his mother endure are not at all comparable to the hardships of the English child. To compare the expectation of forbearance and acceptance for an ultimately Heavenly reward is much easier for white men than it is for black men.
The speaker envisions that when his souls and that of the English child are free of their earthly weight that they will “like lambs rejoice.” He exults that together he and the English child will “lean in joy upon our father’s knee.” The little black boy notes that though his “cloud” is black and the English boy’s white they will in Heaven be free of their origins. They will be allowed the privilege to prance joyously around the “tent of God.” The speaker reflects that the body is but a vessel for the soul and is temporary. The cursory impression the speaker gives is that God sees black boys and white boys as His, and that despite the external differences in the pigmentation of their skin they will ultimately end up together in Heaven. This has the preconception of assuming their souls are able to bear the beams of his love.
The narrator states that when he and the English child are together that he will “shade him from the heat till he can bear.” Due to the weight the little black boy has had to bear while on Earth his soul is stronger than the English child’s. Rather than absorb God’s love alone the little black boy selflessly takes more light, i.e. shoulders more. The “cloud” of the white child is of weaker substance than the little black boy’s as he has not hard the same suffering and hardship.
Though the corporal forms of the English child and the little black boy divide and separate them, together through undertaking the onerous burden of God’s love they can perhaps be one and the same in essence. In this moment of similarity, kinship, and community the little black boy hopes that “he will then love me.” Much like the rest of the poem, these three stanzas seem to preach a message of ultimate similarity under God. However, they are abject of the the responsibility of mankind. There is a pacficity to the poem, blacks seem to be made to bear more weight than whites. Rather than question why this is, the little black boy seems to accept it as an immutable fact.
Furthermore, even though both the white child and the black boy are together in heaven the little black boy is still made to be different and other. He is still subservient. The little black boy must “shade him from the heat.” The strength of the black boy’s cloud, markedly different than that white cloud of the English child’s, allows him to bear this extra weight. How is it that the white boy’s soul is able to get into Heaven in the first place, if it can not bear the force of God’s love on its own merits?
The little black boy is distinctly different than the English child on earth and in Heaven. The blackness of his skin is also the color of his cloud while the white and pure English child’s soul is that of a lamb’s fleece. The hope that the English child will learn to love the little black boy is an ultimately futile one, and runs contrary to the macroscopic goal of the poem. The years of hardship and toil on Earth are not enough to earn acceptance or love, yet he expects that in Heaven all will be equal and his efforts appreciated therein. Their apparent Heavenly similarities are out shadowed by the differences between them, and it is clear that that the differences are the experiences the little black boy and the English child had on Earth.
The intermittent contrasts of light and dark throughout the poem extends from bodies to souls and forces the little black boy to, with the aid of his mother, come to terms with his blackness. He understands that he is different than the English child and searches for some kind of equality and understanding. He finds it in Christianity. The Christian edict that life is a series of preparations and quintessential proving grounds for Heaven allows the little black boy to come to terms with his lot in life.
At no point in the poem does the little black boy question if his suffering is the product of mankind and able to be changed, he instead is forced to subscribe to the indoctrinating Christian ideals of suffering and eventual reward. It is clear from the first two stanzas that the little black boy and his mother come from Africa, so it is possible that they had some other spirituality than Christinatiy. Slavery and forced conversion to Christianity go hand in hand through the pages of history. The onus of responsibility is not on the white men to change the system that keeps black men and women in bondage, rather it is the duty of the enslaved to accept the “beams of light” as their duty. To pay due diligence is a Holy act, and indeed the little black boy will be better prepared for Heaven as a result. Unfortunately for the little black boy, this better preparation will not earn him love or acceptance in the eyes of the English child until he sacrifices and toils yet again under the heat.
The neat story that the little black boy’s mother tells him makes him accepting and hopeful. Rather than question the legitimacy of the system which has him enslaved, he instead becomes docile and servile. He resigns himself to servitude and sacrifice for a higher power, but this higher power is not simply God. The English child embodies the oppression of the little black boy, who demands deference and servitude on Earth and in Heaven. The neat logical gymnastics rich with Christian ideals seems to tell the reader and the little black boy that all is well in the world, as ultimately blacks and whites will be equal and will love each-other. There is no room for questioning or rebellion, as this edict is a holy one. It is rather convenient that the men who makeup the clergy and law makers have clouds of white instead of black.