Sweep: The Story of a Girl and Her Monster

The Sweep’s coat, which becomes increasingly tattered as he uses the threads from his own coat to fix holes in Nan’s, is a physical manifestation of the nature of his love. The Sweep tells Nan that his magical needle “draws the thread from the air” to patch Nan’s coat (232). Bemused, Nan asks why he doesn’t mend his own coat with the magical thread, but he insists, “I prefer to feel a breeze when I work” (233). However, while the young Nan notices him shivering, it is only when she grows up that she has the wisdom to realize that “with every stitch he gave her, he lost one of his own” (234). Having no money for thread, the Sweep allows his own coat to fall apart as he picks out threads to mend Nan’s. The Sweep willingly suffers through the cold and increases his own discomfort in order to safeguard Nan’s health and make her more comfortable, illustrating the selfless nature of his love for her. In this way, the coat itself serves as a visual representation of the Sweep’s intangible yet iron-hard convictions that protecting his adopted daughter is the utmost priority. With each selfless gift he donates to her care, he himself becomes diminished, but as his own life wanes due to long illness, he counts every sacrifice worth the effort.