Life for children in Victorian Era was very different than childhood in today’s world. Especially life for young children was very cruel. The texts, Great Expectations, by Charles Dickens, and “The Chimney Sweeper”, by William Blake, deal with the idea of how children were perceived in Victorian Era. Stage one of the book, Great Expectations, is about a young boy, Pip, and the 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). Th