e hardships he encounters in his childhood. The poem, “The Chimney Sweeper”, is about a small boy sold into the chimney sweeping business and a dream another chimney sweeper had. According to Great Expectations and “The Chimney Sweeper”, children in Victorian England were treated unfairly because they were looked down on by the adults in society.

In both Great Expectations and “The Chimney Sweeper”, the children were abused by their family. In the poem, the chimney sweeper’s father sold him at a young age for money. The young chimney sweeper says, “[M]y father sold me” (Blake). His father did not care for the young boy. The boy was sold at such a young age that his “tongue could scarcely cry” (Blake). This was evidently a very traumatic experience for the child because he grew up without being loved. In Great Expectations, Pip is physically and mentally abused multitudinous times throughout the first stage of the book especially by Mrs. Joe. Early in the book, when Pip placed the bread in his pants to save it for the convict, his sister got mad and “concluded by throwing [Pip]” (Dickens 7). This is a prime example of physical abuse. Mrs. Joe continues to mistreat and degrade Pip. An object she uses to beat Pip is the Tickler; the Tickler “was a wax-ended cane, worn smooth by collision with my tickled frame” (Dickens 7). The reader can see that Mrs. Joe has anger issues and she takes it out by harassing Pip and Joe. The parent figures in these texts were very abusive.

In Great Expectations and “The Chimney Sweeper”, children were forced to do tasks that they did not want to do without complaints. An idea in “The Chimney Sweeper” is that if you do your job, no harm will come you to you. The young chimney sweeper says “[I]f all do their duty, they need not fear harm” (Blake). These kids needed this mindset to get through the day because the work they did was truly horrendous. The supervisors tried convincing the kids to work harder and not complain by telling them that if they were good boys, they would have “God for his father and never want joy” (Blake). In Great Expectations, Pip was forced to be an apprentice to Joe. Joe was a blacksmith, and blacksmithship was clearly not suited for Pip. Pip had higher, greater expectations for himself than a blacksmith. He wanted to become a gentlemen and strived hard to become so to impress Estella. Pip hated going to the forge; Pip was “dejected on the first-working day of [his] apprenticeship” (Dickens 107). Even though he did not like the job, he was an apprentice for many months without complaints to Joe. Children did not have the right to talk back or complain to their superiors in Victorian Era. Plus, Pip was also forced to go to Miss Havisham’s house. Mrs. Joe threatened Pip and “pounced on [him]” (Dickens 51) if he did not go to Miss Havisham. Pip’s opinion and thoughts did not matter. These ideas were not just present with Mrs. Joe and Pumblechook; it was present all over Victorian Britain. Children were treated poorly and had to listen to their elders.

The texts, “The Chimney Sweeper” and Great Expectations, show how some children are deprived from the basic necessities of living. In the poem, the chimney sweepers are very harshly treated. They do not have beds and the narrator says, “in soot I sleep” (Blake). The young chimney sweepers have to sleep on the same blanket the