William Blake's "London" William Blake's Essay

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The fear and the misery cannot be escaped. The image here is of a town brimming with people and yet they are alienated and oppressed.

One of the most powerful literary techniques Blake employs in the poem is irony. In the beginning of the poem, after Blake introduces the notion of misery, he follows it with the notion of freedom. Those in the city are no doubt free but they are still miserable and crying out for help. Here we see that freedom is not only going to mean that things are working out well. Indeed, free societies experiences tragedy though that is a concept we rarely choose to associate with freedom. It is also important to note that this misery stems from "the mind-forged manacles" (8) of the people. This tells us that much of the suffering that these people are experiencing is self-inflicted.

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This idea forces the reader to stop and think about things in a different way. The repetition of the word "every" in the poem is significant because everyone is responsible for his or her own happiness and they cannot look to the government to give it to them.

Blake's "London" focuses on man's suffering but it also asks us to determine from where the suffering comes. While we might think that it comes from a modernized society or a city that is filled with people or perhaps from a "caring" government, the truth is quite different. Blake is walking through the streets of a lovely city and all he can see is misery from a people that are alienated from one another for no apparent reason. Through imagery and irony, he makes his point.

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