Prayer Before Birth Flashcards
What does the title tell us?
“prayer” shows a sense of fear and desperation and “before birth” indicates this poem’s written from the perspective of an unborn child who prays for future guidance and to be protected from humanity
I am not yet born
Anaphora - draws importance to how if prayer can’t be answered, the poet would rather not be born at all
Hear me
Imperative verb –> Commanding a God to help them as the foetus is desperate
Bloodsucking bat…Club-footed ghoul
Child-like images –> Innocence of the foetus
Hear me…Near me
Internal rhymes –> Creates a minuscule musicality of the poem which highlights the child-like trait that the foetus is expressing
tall walls wall…drugs dope…lies lure…racks rack…blood-baths
Assonance & Alliteration –> Torture, manipulation and entrapment is juxtaposed with the nursery internal rhyme-like style
With water to dandle me
Volta –> Symbolises how long nature really lasts for as a result of violent human activities and the foetus begins to highlight the violent nature of mankind in general
Water…grass…trees…sky…birds
Semantic field of nature –> Symbolises innocent and purity as well as the beautiful imagery which is the foetus’ relief from the corruption of humanity
my words when they speak me…my thoughts when they think me
Indicates how the foetus has lost control of himself due to humanity
The cues I must take
Metaphor –> Loss of free will
Old men lecture me…(until the end)
World is against them –> Heightens complete isolation
Lethal automaton
Metaphor of a machine –> Dehumanisation
Thistledown hither and thither or hither and thither like water held in the hands would spill me
The foetus fears that it will become shapeless and directionless
Not make me a stone
Cold and Emotionless –> Wishes to retain their innocence which contrasts with the theme of the poem suggesting this is near impossible
Let them not spill me.
Meaningless existence –> Lack of human wholeness