Emanuela Kucik "The Little Black Boy"

William Blake “The Little Black Boy”

In this poem, William Blake assumes the identity of a young black boy telling his story. The poem is spoken through the mouth of the child and conveys the pain of being black in an era in which white supremacy reigns. The poem sees the child through a journey of struggling to accept himself and his race; through his Mother’s lessons, the child learns that God loves not only white children, but black children as well and that once they die and go to heaven, the racial stigma and problems disappear for they become souls. This message brings the little boy great hopefulness and happiness. Based on a shallow surface reading of the poem, it seems as though the little boy is depressed at the beginning of the poem and by the end of the poem he is hopeful and happier. However, upon closer analysis, particularly of the last stanza, it is evident that the little boy is indeed hopeful and happier at the end, but not because his mother’s message makes him feel as though he, as a black boy, is equal to an English white boy. Instead, he is hopeful because he feels that when he dies and is nothing but a soul, he will be equal with the white boy because he too will be a soul. This conclusion is disturbing because from it we infer that the little boy is still not satisfied in his own skin, for it is only with the hope of shedding that skin that he feels hope and happiness at the prospect of being loved by a white boy. Furthermore, it does not strike the child that true love does not love because of similarities, but in spite of differences. However, we as readers, being presumably older and wiser than the child, pick up on this underlying dark theme in what originally appears to be a happy ending.
The main formal feature of this poem is its seven stanzas, each line containing four lines of 10 syllables and an abab rhyme scheme. While the poem does not have any striking formal features, such as a line standing on its own, or a sudden stanza with only three lines, the importance of the form is found in its childlike narration and its constancy. The simple, formulaic abab rhyme scheme presented in the first stanza fits in with the simple speech of children, speech that often tends to be uncomplicated and straightforward. Throughout the entire poem, the form never changes, drawing a parallel with the little boy’s inability to change his view of himself as inferior to whites due to the color of his skin. The significance of the form in relation to the boy’s mental journey throughout the poem is evident in a stanza by stanza analysis.
From the title, we presume that the speaker of this poem is a young black boy; a child. While some of the poem’s words, such as “bereav’d,” do not sound like the words of a child, but rather the words of an educated poet such as William Blake, the easy, flowing rhyme scheme still makes it easy to imagine a child narrating the poem. In this first stanza, the child introduces his plight: he is black, but with a “white” soul, thus indicating that although he is cursed with black skin in a world that views white skin as purity, he has a pure, good soul. The four lines with 10 syllables each and the abab rhyme scheme make the poem seem as though it is a nursery rhyme, almost making one forget the depth and pain within the words. On a deeper level, the first stanza is obviously the first place the form is introduced, and with it, as I mentioned, the child’s plight is introduced as well. The lack of a change in form throughout the rest of the poem indicates a lack of an ultimate change in the child’s inferiority complex.
In the next four stanzas, the strict form and rhythmic patterns continue, as does the child’s story, combining to illustrate the boy’s inability to escape from his childlike mindset that he is, and always will be, inferior because of his skin color. In these stanzas, the child discusses how his mother tries to teach him about God’s love for all life, including blacks, and how once they die, they will be stripped of their burden of black skin and just be souls in heaven. The formulaic form works with these stanzas as well because it continues in its nursery rhyme way to make readers listen and engage in the writing. This nursery rhyme feel also effectively communicates the voice of a young child remembering comforting words his mother spoke to him. Many of us know the feeling of having a parent comfort us as a small child about an issue we were worried about, and many of us can relate to relaying the story in our heads over and over again to comfort ourselves. These four stanzas have the feel of the child relaying the story to an invisible audience, attempting to comfort himself about the grievances he faces as a black boy. Since the form, rhyme scheme, and subsequent nursery rhyme feel do not change within these stanzas, the parallel is still being drawn between the unchanging form and the child’s inability to truly change how he feels about himself, albeit a subconscious inability.
In the last two stanzas the poem’s form does not alter nor change, signifying the ultimate message of the poem: despite the child’s apparent happiness at the end of the poem, it is a happiness rooted in a sense of insecurity and inferiority that refuse to budge. In these two stanzas the child conveys how he told a white English boy the story his mother told him. However, the child concludes the poem by saying that since he and the white boy will both be souls, the white boy will then love him because the black boy will “be like him.” This assertion makes the reader realize that the black child’s inferiority complex is so deeply rooted that the only way he sees hope for himself as equal to the white child is when he is stripped of his black skin. It is critical that the form does not change in this stanza because it goes with the idea of the child’s unwavering inferiority complex. The constant form mimics the child’s one-minded train of thought: that no matter what, black is inferior to white and therefore, he is inferior to the white boy. The last line, greatly indicative of the child’s low self-esteem, shows that the child is in the same frame of mind by the end of the poem as he was at the beginning of the poem when he stated he was “bereav’d of light.” Thus, having the poem’s formal features remain constant parallels the boy’s thought process, which, by the end of the poem, we realize has, at heart, also remained constant.