Prayer Before Birth, Louis MacNeice

Question 1

Meaning

Answer 1

Form of prayer from unborn child: to be protected from threats and horrors of the world

Question 2

What did Louis MacNeice’s poetry focus on?

Answer 2

Poetry focuses on both importance of human kindness in face of tyrannical regimes

Question 3

Context

Answer 3

• Written at end of WW2
• After period of prolonged bombing in London
  
  • Encapsulates fear nation felt for future

Question 4

What is the significance of “Prayer” in the title?

Answer 4

• Foetus needs to pray even inside womb
  
  • Foetus = innocence entity
  • Fact foetus worried = world is terrifying and brutal
• Religious diction of poem
  
  • Ironic ∵ no god or moral force in world for child to pray to

Question 5

Imagery #1

Answer 5

“bloodsucking bat or the rate or the stoat or the club-footed ghoul”

1. Childlike immature images but horrfic, sinsiter, nightmarish = animals and supernatural reference
   
   • Juxtaposes postive, joyful imagery with birth → criticises society
2. ‘bloodsucking’ = connotations: vampirism & gothic horror → traditional forms of horror
   
   • But revealed later on = least of child’s concerns → mankind more horrific than fiction & myth
   • Plosive and alliterative ‘b’s reinforce horror
3. Repetition: “or that”
   
   • Increases anxiousness, endless horrors on Earth
4. Reference to devil

Question 6

Imagery #2

Answer 6

“freeze my / humanity, would dragoon me into a lethal automaton”

1. (Semantic field) of inhumanity
   
   1. Unborn child = salvage some humanity in hostile world
2. Reference to people becoming soldiers = exploitation
   
   1. Loss of free will = source of terror
3. “lethal automaton”
   
   1. Robot kills others
   2. Robot destroys the baby who becomes it
4. Fears being turned into machine or having his individuality lost

Question 7

Structure #1

Answer 7

Free verse (no regular structure + no rhyme scheme)

1. Chaos & disorder in world around us
   
   1. Ragged edges of stanza = brutality of universe
      
      1. Jagged and violent looking
2. Looks like heartbeat when turned on its side
   
   1. Grows strong OR more panicked = then stop
   2. Or could represent growth of baby

Question 8

Structure #2

Answer 8

6^th Stanza

1. Deterioration of verse form
   
   1. Stanzas become more randomly structured
      
      1. = Breakdown of modern society
      2. = OR increasing pace of terror = leads to crescent of horror (in final line)
2. Repeats 1st stanza
   
   1. Shows no one is listening
   2. More anxious than opening

Question 9

Tone

Answer 9

Religious: “hear me.” “console me.” “forgive me” “Let not”

1. “O hear me”
   
   1. Intense anxiety of speaker
   2. Instruction
      
      1. Implication some force will hear (e.g. god, mankind)
      2. Fact no response/answer = god, humanity doesn’t care or god may not exist
2. “forgive me” = religious, ominous, pessimistic
   
   1. All humans do cruel, sinful things ∴ sins inevitable in future ∵ virtue of being human
   2. Mankind = inescapably cruel
3. “Let not”
   
   1. Echo Biblical grammar of Old Testament
   2. Seriousness of child’s appeal

Question 10

Name 3 possible poem comparisons

Answer 10

1. “Half Past Two”
2. “Hide and Seek”
3. “Poem at Thirty Nine”

Question 11

“Half Past Two” Comparison

Answer 11

• Provides alternative child’s point of view
• Speaker neglected by grownups

Question 12

“Hide and Seek” Comparison

Answer 12

• Explores cruelty & lack of compassion towards children
• Cruelty from other children

Question 13

“Poem at Thirty Nine” Comparison

Answer 13

1. Contrasting style of personal address to reader about individual becoming person they can proud of
2. Whereas in this poem: baby would be ashamed to be human