In The Chimney Sweep, William Blake depicts the lack of innocence in the lives of these young boys, as they are expected to have gained the experience necessary to accomplish such unjust actions. The speaker of the poem begins by telling us that after his mother died, his father abandoned him to become a chimney sweep so that he could get money. These two characters, his mother and father, are the ones children are supposed to depend on and seek guidance from. He feels abandoned because his mother left and his father abandoned him for money, this shows how poor his family was and how his father would do anything for a chance at a better life, whether that includes his son or not. The speaker also says that he became a sweeper when he had barely learned to speak, we know this from lines two and three. He then learns to sweep the chimney and to live in unsanitary conditions (covered in soot). He even mentions that he sweeps up the soot and sleeps in it too; it's metaphorical because the job covers them in soot every day and he's so close to the chimneys he literally sleeps in the soot....