Original:
Blake feels education is a system which denies validity of imagination. Blake describes education as depressing in stanza two, by using vocabulary such as "sighing and dismay", "cruel" and "drives all joy away." He believes it denies imaginative freedom and spirituality. Blake compares the schoolboy to the caged bird, as though the boy like the bird is being imprisoned by education. The schoolboy in school and the bird being caged are seen as equivalents that both represent the caging of imaginative vision. Blake also uses the plant and applies it to the schoolboys present and future. He feels education "strips" the joy of the young schoolboy and because his imagination is trapped, the schoolboy cannot grow like the plant.
Refined:
Blake feels education is a system which denies validity of imagination. In stanza two, he displays how the "little ones" feel towards education by using the verbs "sighing and dismay" and Blake also explains his attitude towards education by using harsh lexis like "cruel" and "drives all joy away". He believes it denies imaginative freedom and spirituality. Blake compares the schoolboy to the caged bird, the bird represents freedom and the cage represents prison or being trapped somehow. Blake tries to state the schoolboy and the bird are seen as equivalents, free and spiritual and education is the cage; a prison or trap that captures the schoolboy and locks away his freedom. Both represent the caging of imaginative vision. Blake uses imagery of plants to also resemble the schoolboy, the connotations of plants are nature, green, beauty and growth. Blake uses the imagery of plants to show how his freedom allows him to grow as a child within nature and not within education. His attitude towards education shows Blake feels it "strips" you of growth because the schoolboy is deprived from freedom, because his imagination and freedom is trapped within this cage called education, the schoolboy cannot grow like the plant.
No comments:
Post a Comment