An Exercise in Deconstruction -- William Blake's "The Little Black Boy"

William Blake's "The Little Black Boy" My mother bore me in the southern wild, And I am black, but O! my soul is white; White as an angel is the English child: But I am black as if bereav'd of light. My mother taught me underneath a tree And sitting down before the heat of day, She took me on her lap and kissed me, And pointing to the east began to say. Look on the rising sun: there God does live And gives his light, and gives his heat away. And flowers and trees and beasts and men receive Comfort in morning joy in the noonday. And we are put on earth a little space, That we may learn to bear the beams of love, And these black bodies and this sun-burnt face Is but a cloud, and like a shady grove. For when our souls have learn'd the heat to bear The cloud will vanish we shall hear his voice. Saying: come out from the grove my love & care, And round my golden tent like lambs rejoice. Thus did my mother say and kissed me, And thus I say to little English boy. When I from black and he from white cloud free, And round the tent of God like lambs we joy: I'll shade him from the heat till he can bear, To lean in joy upon our fathers knee. And then I'll stand and stroke his silver hair, And be like him and he will then love me. William Blake’s “The Little Black Boy” contains several clear binary oppositions – primarily: white/black, lighted/shaded and saved/unsaved. The speaker identifies the tension between all three of these issues in the opening quatrain (“I am black, but O! my soul is white; / White as an angel is the English child, / But I am black, as if bereav’d of light) (2-4). Light is clearly a privileged term as it is tied to God (“Look on the rising sun: there God does live / and gives his light”) while shade and black are clearly non-privileged (“these black bodies and this sunburnt face / is but a cloud, and like a shady grove. / For when our souls have learn’d the heat to bear, / The cloud will vanish”) (9-10, 15-18). Only pure souls that have learned God’s love will be saved, since only after “our souls have learn’d the heat to bear” will “the cloud . . . vanish” so that “we shall hear [God’s] voice” inviting us to “rejoice” (17, 18, 20). The text seems to be promoting an ideology revolving around the concept that one must “learn to bear the beams of love” so that “our souls” can “come out from the grove” (which is shaded) and join God “round [His] golden tent like lambs rejoice” (14, 17, 19, 20); only white, lighted souls will be saved. However, the text undermines itself in multiple ways. The speaker is taught the poem’s ideological concept by his presumably black “mother” “underneath” the implied shade of “a tree” (tree’s make up “shady grove[s]” – so the truth about the soul needing to be freed from shade is learned while under shade, and the issue of colour is addressed by a speaker of colour (5, 16). Furthermore, shade as a non-privileged term is undermined by the fact it is needed to “shade [the little English boy] from the heat, till he can bear / to lean in joy upon our father’s knee” – so in essence, both blackness and shade are necessary to save anyone (25-26) The poem cannot seem to decide that white is superior to black, as at first only black is implicated as “bereav’d of light” but later on the “white as an angel” “ little English boy” is also trapped by a “white cloud” (clouds cast shade in the poem and being black “is but a cloud” in the mother’s words) from which he must become “free” (3, 4, 16, 22, 23). The text/speaker also seems utterly ambivalent to being saved. The final lines state that after the eponymous little black boy saves the “little English boy” that he will “stand and stroke [the boy’s] hair, / and be like him, and he will then love me” – showing the “little black boy” really simply wishes to “be like” the “white as an angel . . . English child” rather than be saved (3, 22, 26, 27). The text’s own ambivalence and contradictions pull apart its proposed ideology. The collapsed ideology creates new implications – black and white are equal, being saved is not the ultimate goal (in the speaker’s mind) and while light seems superior, shade is a required and necessary precursor to light. The text therefore forefronts issues such as race and whether or not white is superior to black in a time period where this was a major question (in 1789) - Parliament began holding meetings regarding slavery during this time. “The Little Black Boy”’s initial overt ideological projection collapses in on itself and creates both ambivalence in the case of being saved or light and shade and support for equality (or even superiority) of black instead of white (the black boy is needed to “shade [the white boy] from the heat, till he can bear / to lean in joy upon our father’s knee” – implying the black boy is vital to saving the white boy rather than vice versa) (25-26).