William Blake wrote the poem “London” with a very specific goal in mind; to show to the higher class people what life was like on the other side of town. Since only the higher classes could read, he put his story in the form of a poem. Blake used very dark and depressing language and tone to convey his point that living in the poor parts of London was appalling. Blake wrote his poem with the intention of showing how grim London was at the time, the near endless cycle of life and death that had been established, and the corruption of the church and bureaucracy.

William Blake published the Songs of Innocence and Experience in 1794, and that was a very dreary time period, especially for the lower class citizens. The speaker of the poem is most likely in a very poor and dirty part of London. The speaker says he can hear the “every cry of every man,” (line 5). The fact that he can hear people calling out for help in the streets spells that things are pretty rough. Another big problem for the citizens of London was the diseases that ran rampant through the city, specifically syphilis. Very soon after exposure to syphilis a painless sore appears. After four to ten weeks of having syphilis the body develops a rash that is very noticeable. The speaker makes a remark that he sees, “marks of weakness, marks of woe” (4). Those marks of weakness are the physical sickness gripping the people of London as many have broken out is the rashes. The mark of woe is the sadness that the people feel. There is no one to help them, even though the Church’s job is to care for the poor and the weak. London in 1794 is a dark and disgusting place and one objective of the poem is to bring the point across that people were suffering in a dark place with no one to help.

With no one to help the lower class out, they got pulled into a very vicious cycle of living. However, there were two varying degrees of vicious cycles. On the one hand were the males. Men at that time (in the poor districts) had it bad, but life was survivable. Although they were poor, they could have jobs to provide for themselves, rent property, buy food, and go about their days—even if it was not an ideal day, it was livable. On the other hand, women had a much different path to follow. Women could not do really anything; extremely limited jobs, no option to own or rent a house or room, and no way to make money unless they married a man who would provide for them. What if they could not, or would not marry? The biggest solution was prostitution. Women would start at a young age for survival. The speaker says that he hears “the youthful Harlots curse” (14) as he walks around the streets. The youthful implies innocence. The poor girl has no other choice other than to be a prostitute for survival. The curse is probably her sickness, but it could also be a vocal cursing because the poem mentions a baby, and prostitutes and babies do not go well together. The final lines of the poem say “And blights with plagues the Marriage hearse” (16). The plague would be syphilis, but what is the marriage hearse? The man in the marriage would have almost indefinitely been with a prostitute and would then likely have contracted syphilis. When the man marries he brings the plague, or the “curse”, into the marriage, effectively killing off the chances of having a family, thus the hearse. This is the cycle that the lower class of London dealt with; men would rarely be able to produce healthy offspring because of the illness rampant in London. The women would most likely turn to prostitution at a young age and probably lose any chance at a successful life. There were very little chances of happiness in reality, but the people were given a ray of false hope by the Church of England.

The Church of England was the primary establishment in 1794. They were responsible for taking care of the people since they were the ones closest to God. A second institution of England’s hierarchy was the royal family and Parliament. Although not tasked necessarily with looking out for the individual, they were supposed to make sure the country did not fall apart. Unfortunately, both the Church and Parliament were deeply corrupted. The Church took money from the citizens in the form of pardons. A pardon was a way to seek forgiveness from God through the middle man of a priest. If the person payed a specific amount of money, all was forgiven in the eyes of the Church and said person was allowed into Heaven; until of course they committed the next sin. Another way the Church really did not help out the people was that they had really intense child labor. Chimney sweeping was a job primarily for small orphans. The poem touches on this— “Every black’ning Church appalls” (10). The blackening of the Church is the corruption and greed that filled the hearts of the higher ups. The speaker saw this as an appalling thing. The Church was there to help the common man, and yet they stole right from them, but they did not know any better. The line, “The mind-forg’d manacles I hear” (8), tells about how the people have basically been brainwashed into giving the Church money if they put one toe out of line. The royalty was no better. The poem says, “And the hapless Soldiers sigh / Runs in blood down Palace walls” (11-12). While the royal family and Parliament sat behind the safety of the palace walls, they sent the lower class people to war on their behalf. While the royal family enjoyed luxuries such as a warm meal and a bed, they were completely unattached to the woes and hard luck the people below were living with. There was no help from either the Church nor the royal family for the common folk while they suffered in the streets.

In conclusion, Blake wanted to show how bad the poor people had it. He did it in a very clever and sly way, since only the upper class people could read. Blake wanted to shock the higher ups by breaking the barrier between the two big groups of people. He wrote about how bad the lower class had it, the way of life they were stuck in, and that the groups of people responsible for the poor were not taking responsibility for them. In the end, Blake wrote a very realistic poem about how terrible the poor of London were living life, and did a great job of bringing it to the attention of the Church and Parliament.
