Prayer before birth

• • “Prayer before birth”
  • Prayer - sense of fear and desperation
  • “Before birth” - from the perspective of an unborn child - connotions of utter innocence and purity/ vulnerability
  • before a child is born, we have great excitement but this contrasts with the cynical tone of the writer who is not hopeful of the world they are about to be born into
• “I am not yet born" - anaphora - a reminder that this is from a perspective of an unknown child - reminder of their innocence/vulnerability
• “o hear me” “console me” - imperatives in the first line of each stanza - innocence/vulnerability of the speaker of the poem - commanding God to help them = desperation
• “Bloodsucking bat” “rat” - images of what they fear in the first stanas are child = emphasises innocence - but fears are much more realistic as we progress through the poem
• internal rhyme - “hear” “near” “console” “roll” 1st word is the imperative but the latter is the fear of what would happen
• • “tall walls wall me”
  • assonance
  • alliteration
  • torture/manipulation/entrapment juxtaposed with a nursery like rhyme scheme emphasises the fact that they are an unborn child -world is so terrifying if they are so afraid
• • “water to dandle me, grass to grow for me” “a white light in the back of my mind to guide me”
  • the unborn child is more concerned on what they need
  • focus on nature - that is what they need - written in a time when nature was being destroyed in acts of war in WW2
  • metaphor of white light - wisdom/God (as it is a prayer)
• « forgive me, for the sins that in me the world shall commit» - asking for the sins that they will inevitably commit before their birth

  -original sin - humans have a tendency/predisposition to sin

  -passive verb - responsibility lies on others / loss of control
• • “Rehearse me in the parts I must play and the cues I must take" - extended metaphor - no freedom to be yourself as if you are an actor in a play
  • modal verb emphasises lack of free will/choice
  • sense of isolation - Everything is working against them even the natural world - or this could be because he respects the natural world and recognises the power it can have over him
• • “Let not the man who is beast or who thinks he is God”
  • beast - reference to the devil
  • reference in fascist leaders such as Adolf Hitler as this is written in 1944
  • how does someone think that they are God? - do you choose who lives and dies/ do you control people’s thoughts - Hitler responsible for killing of 6 million Jews and his propaganda
• • “freeze my humanity” - metaphor of machine = dehumanisation
  • is he going to lack a moral code - human like
  • “dragoon me into a lethal automaton” - will they be turned into a weapon?
  • connotations to solfiers
  • are they just weapons they can use for war
  • “make me a cog in a machine” - people who work in large co-operations
• • Repetition of a “thing” - deduced and humanity is taken from them from an external view
  • connotations of being disposable and easily used/manipulated for personal gain
• • “will blow me like thistledown hither and thither or hither and thither like water held in the hands” - directionless/ substance which is easily manipulated by the wind
  • fear of being like water - can’t hold it in your hands/lacks form/changes shape - can be contained
• • “Let them not make me a stone and let them not spill me”
  • stone - fear of being a metaphorical dtone -emotionless/cold
  • repetition of fear of being like water - fear of having a meaningless existence - lack of human wholeness
• “Otherwise kill me” - dad because they would rather die than enter the world - lack of hope - juxtaposes with expectations
• • Structural techniques:
  • dramatic monologue
  • eight stanzas
  • free verse = irregularity of the world being plagued with sin - unexpected
  • incantation - repeated line - desperation of calling out for help
• • Tone: consider rated with expectations of an impending birth
  • fearful/critical/anguish/cynical
  • written by a father - fear for baby