Section outline
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The Marriage of Heaven and Hell Poetry Explications
Blake's 4th “Memorable Fancy” section of his poem “The Marriage of Heaven and Hell” is used to generate a vivid image of Hell in the reader's mind and contrast it with his opinions on free thought. The Angel as a character represents the deeply religious person, and Blake as a character represents the Free Thinker. The Section begins with a dialogue between Blake and an Angel that comes to him. The Angel states, “O pitiable foolish young man! O horrible, O dreadful state! Consider the hot burning dungeon thou art preparing for thyself to all Eternity, to which thou art going in such career”(Stanza 31, line 1). Blake responds by challenging the Angel by stating, “Perhaps you will be willing to show me my eternal lot, and we will contemplate together upon it, and see whether your lot or mine is most desirable.”(Stanza 31, line 3) This is where Blake challenges the profoundly religious person's view of Hell and how it is perceived. Having the point of view be the first person gives the reader a better understanding of how Blake perceives Hell as a land of free thinkers. If it wasnt for the first person view that gives the read insight to Blakes thoughts and emotions, it would be harder to understand how Blake views Hell differnetly than the Angel.
The primary literary device used in this section is imagery. Imagery is used in this section to produce an scene of Hell through the Angel's perspective. Lines like “fiery as the smoke of a burning city”(Stanza 32, line 5), and “beneath us at an immense distance was the sun, black but shining”(Stanza 32, line 5). The visual imagery of the Sun being Black but shining is intriguing. The blackness of it represents the darkness of Hell, but it shining over the landscape is to emphasize the horrors of Hell and how the sights are impossible to avoid. The theme that stuck out the most was the theme of freedom and free will. Despite seeing the horrors of Hell and what was in store for Blake, he still put importance on his free will. It is obvious William thinks of himself as a free thinker and believes it should be a part of the spiritual journey. He believes putting a restraint on humans and confining them to a specific view is evil, while the one who questions and thinks for themselves is the righteous way. The Leviathan is represented in this section where Blake says, “and now we saw it was the head of Leviathan. His forehead was divided into streaks of green and purple, like those on a tiger’s forehead; soon we saw his mouth, and red gills hang just above the raging foam, tinging the black deeps with beams of blood, advancing toward us with all the fury of a spiritual existence.”(stanza 34, line 2) This was included to further show how inescapable the wrath of Hell is. The Leviathan is depicted in the Bible as the largest Sea creature who is immune to weapons.
Blake's purpose of this section of the poem is to use his journey of visiting Hell to contrast religious peoples beliefs to his. He was successful in expressing this view for people reading this at the time. For modern day, questioning views and ideas is much more accepted, even by religious people. So the contrast would make less sense to someone now, but Blake's ideas on free speech can still be related to the modern day.