November 18, 2017
Question:
Give an account of various forms of human cruelty on birds and the schoolboy as depicted in William Blake's "The Schoolboy" [NECO GCE NOV/DEC 2017]
Answer:
“The Schoolboy” is a beautiful poem crafted by William Blake
(1757-1827) to portray children’s perspective to formal education (i.e.
classroom learning ). He tabled his thought through the voice of a certain
schoolboy whose parents were so keen about the little boy’s acquisition of
formal education, on the contrary, the little boy saw learning through nature
(the things happening around) as the most suitable way of learning.
Blake even exaggerated the schoolboy’s outlook towards
attending school_ pointing that the little boy likened the actions of his
parents towards him to that of a bird kept in a cage. According to lines 21-30,
the schoolboy also likened himself to things such as a shutting bud, a blossom
flower, a summer season, etc; so as to justify that the action of his parents
were rash.
There are so many themes in the poem “The Schoolboy” by
William Blake; they are (i) freedom or freewill (ii) beauty of nature (iii)
informal education is better than formal education (iv) parental control.
Looking at the poem from the angle of freedom, human cruelty to the schoolboy
and the bird is made vivid. As long as a sheep cannot be wiser than its
shepherd, it remains truth that the schoolboy is not wiser than his parents yet
the limitations placed on the desires of the schoolboy hampered his freedom and
thereby painted the parents as wicked or cruel.
According to lines 16-17, the use of a caged bird in the poem to
symbolize imprisonment also depicted human as cruel. The schoolboy asked: “How
can the bird that is born for joy/ Sit in a cage and sing?” the lines tend to
expose that one of the most wicked acts of humans towards birds is to confine
them in a cage.
Enunwa Chukwudinma Samuel aka samueldpoetry
(the Leo with wings flying)
