time of innocence can only be recognized retrospec-
tively, from the vantage point of experience. Blake
takes this tension between the two terms to new
heights in his poems, however, demonstrating that
people are capable of either state at various times in
their lives. Furthermore, either state might take the
form of the other. For example, in “The Chimney
Sweeper” from Songs of Innocence, the young chim-
ney sweep Tom Dacre has a dream wherein he and
his friends are freed from their coffins by an angel,
who leads them to play happily in the clouds. On
the one hand, the dream epitomizes innocence in
that it takes the form of a fantasy in which Tom gets
to escape from work to play with his friends. This
thought, that he would be rewarded at the end of his
life, keeps him going: “Tho’ the morning was cold,
Tom was happy & warm / So if all do their duty they
need not fear harm” (ll. 23–24). On the other hand,
this vision of innocence seems to simultaneously
convey a darker point from the side of experience.
In one sense, Tom’s vision suggests that the only way
for these children to be released from their horrible
working conditions is through death. Inverting the
closing line, it is precisely by doing their duty (clean-
ing chimneys) that they need to fear harm (black
lung, cancer, accident). This final line turns out to
be ambiguous indeed, because it could equally serve
as a kind of threat to the people who mistreat the
children: If they do their duty to the children, then
they need not fear harm.
The companion poem (also named “The Chim-
ney Sweeper”) from Songs of Experience reinforces
this point. The speaker of this poem fully recognizes
what might only be hinted at in the other. Of his
parents, who put him to work, he says, “They think
they have done me no injury: / And are gone to
praise God & his Priest & King / Who make up a
heaven of our misery” (ll. 10–12). These lines serve
as a great example of how Blake’s poems complicate
the narrative of growth, because here it is the adults
who are innocent and naive whereas the child is
burdened by the harsh realities of his experience. In
another sense, however, the adults could be to blame
for purposely trying to minimize their responsibil-
ity by inventing the idea of heaven to justify their
exploitation of children. In other words, adults fully
realize how horrible their actions are but seek to
cover up their knowledge with narratives of earthly
suffering and heavenly reward.
Like poetry, fiction often deals with issues of
innocence and experience. In fact, one of the major
genres of the novel, the bildungsroman, tells the
story of a character’s education and growth. While
these stories ostensibly focus on a single protagonist,
the growth of the individual is often linked to and
helps to illuminate larger societal changes or con-
flicts. In this sense, the bildungsroman often tells
the story of a particular character in a way that also
ties into the development of his or her community.
Both Joseph Conrad’s heart^ oF darkness (1902)
and James Joyce’s a portrait oF the artist as
a younG Man (1916) are examples of the genre,
although Portrait resists the kind of closure typical
of the genre.
One novel that resonates on both personal and
societal levels in terms of the relationship between
innocence and experience is Conrad’s Heart of
Darkness. The story is initially narrated by a sailor
who listens to the mysterious Marlow, who in turn
recounts his experiences piloting a steamboat up
the Congo River. Marlow begins as an idealistic
youth, looking to a life at sea as a chance to explore
new lands or, as he phrases it, the blank spaces on
maps. Taking a job with a Dutch trading company,
Marlow heads to Africa with high hopes. Through
a series of events in which he witnesses firsthand
the cruel and senseless behavior of the Europeans,
culminating in his meeting with Kurtz, Marlow is
forced to question many of the traditional narratives
he started out with, including that of the moral and
spiritual superiority of Europeans compared to the
native African peoples. Marlow’s physical journey
up the Congo, into the heart of Africa, can be said
to correspond with his spiritual journey, in which he
investigates the “heart” of humanity. Kurtz’s dying
words, “the horror,” coupled with his barbaric behav-
ior (note, for example, the skulls on the fence around
his house) suggest that there are terrible passions in
each of us waiting to be released.
Marlow’s encounter with Kurtz is immensely
disappointing in that Marlow had heard nothing
but fantastic tales about how intelligent, cultivated,
and efficient Kurtz was. Kurtz turns out to be a dis-
appointing hero to say the least. In a much broaderinnocence and experience 61