Deconstructive Reading of The Little Black Boy

Courtesy of http://gutenberg.net.au

Blake's "The Little Black Boy" is a poem about a little boy who has just received an important lesson about life from his lovely mother. His mother tells the little boy that world is just a temporary thing deliberately created by God to test human's faith "And we are put on earth a little space / that we may learn to bear the beam of love". Once human beings pass the test "For when our souls have learnt the heat to bear," continues the mother, God will gather them in His "… golden tent like lambs rejoice." Golden tent here is probably metaphor for heaven. To be a good child the little black boy was, he then spread this seemingly wise message to his surrounding namely to the little English white boy.

This is probably the first impression one might get when he or she read Blake's "The Little Black Boy." But since I intend to analyze this poem through poststructuralist lens or the applied form of poststructuralism: deconstruction, it has to be different. What poststructuralist critics do to the texts is: 1. they list the binary opposition and contradict its conventional purpose; 2. they try to look deeper at the metaphor used in poem and reveal its intended and unintended meaning; 3. they try to find ambiguous sentence or phrase or even word. Taking these three steps as guide I will try to do the deconstructive reading of "The Little Black Boy."

As I said in the first paragraph that at first glance this poem might sound like a religious poem, but when we look deeper we will find another shocking discovery to the extent that this poem might also sound like it produces a racist connotation. It can be understood through the binaries presented in the poem such as white/black, light/shade, English (Europe)/ the southern wild (Africa). Throughout the poem we can get the implication that white/light/English are being privileged "White as angel is the English Child" over black/shade/Africa "But I am black as if the bereav'd of light". Contrary to its predecessors who believe that text should be analyzed in isolation, poststructuralist believe that reality itself is text. Thus we can connect the mentality being implied in this poem as the reason used by European colonizers to colonize their countries like Africa.

"And these black bodies and this sun-burnt face/

Is but a cloud, and like a shady grove

The cloud will vanish we shall hear his voice"

The attempt to make white/light/English as the privilege ones continue throughout the poem such as in the lines above when it seems to say that when people die and go to heaven, they all are going to have white skin ". Thus it implies that white is the color of heaven. Cloud is used to create an image of how having black skin and sun-burnt face are just temporary thing, just like the cloud that comes and disappears anytime.

As for the mother who at first glance seems to look like a good, loving and caring mother, when looked through poststructuralist lens can be the opposite. Earlier I try to prove that this poem is so far away from delivering religious message. Therefore by being consistent to that note, I would also like it to be applied to mother. Consequently, instead of giving religious message, the mother does the opposite. She, through her seemingly religious lesson, makes the son adore the color of white instead of the color that he is more related to. In addition, this message also has made the son unappreciative toward the physical appearance God has given to him. Hence it answers the reason why the little black boy shares the massage to the English boy, because he is desperate to be liked. So the little boy is under the impression that if he can convince the white boy that in the heaven they are all gonna be the same "And be like him" he will treat him better "..and he will the love me."

But then again we have to also consider the reason why the mother have that thoughts? Perhaps, since religion is sometime brought to one country by the colonizers, perhaps that message the mother have is taught to her by the priest who has been professionally trained by the colonizers to brainwash them. The message is perhaps part of propaganda deliberately shared to the people so that the colonized society would think of its colonizers in a positive way.

In conclusion, Blake's "The Little Black Boy," is a very intense poem that is open to many interpretation depending on which lens one prefers to use while looking at it. As for me, I think poststructuralism or Derrida's deconstruction is the perfect lens to put on my eyes in order to see the very things this poem offers. It can be looked up by examining the binaries, the metaphors, and the ambiguous words.