'Prayer Before Birth' by Louis MacNeice

                                             'Prayer Before Birth' By Louis MacNeice 

                     

                                            

• Justify your understanding of the poem 'Prayer Before Birth'          

                                            Prayer Before Birth is a very nice poem. This poem is written by Louis MacNeice. I am justify my understanding of this poem. This poem, 'Prayer Before Birth', written during the terror struck days of World War II, places the realities of an evil world into the mouth of a baby not even quite born. This baby cries out for protection against evil. The tactic of speaking through a baby allows the readers to see the juxtaposition of evil and innocence. The newborn baby is quite innocent, as he has not even taken his first breath in the world. However, his knowledge of all things evil allows the reader to understand the true gravity of the evils of the world. It makes one feel sympathy toward this new baby, and all that he would experience during life. It makes the reader want to protect his innocence, and the innocence of the children in his or her own life. ‘Prayer Before Birth’ calls out to God as the only one who can protect against the evil of the world. The author makes his own thoughts very clear by presenting them through the mouth of a baby.

                                                   

                                                                     Louis MacNeice 

• Why does the unborn child prayer for a strength?   

                                                         the speaker calls out to God for protection against what the world would want to do to him. He does not want God to allow the people of the world to “freeze [his] humanity”. He does not want to become an“a cog in a machine”. With this stanza, the author reveals what he thinks about war. When the baby asks God not to let him because “a thing with one face, a thing…against all those who would dissipate my entirety”, it is clear that the author feels hatred toward war. He knows that the other side wants to “dissipate” him, but he still does not want to become the face at the other end. He does not want to become a “lethal automaton”, trained to kill. He wants freedom from this kind of lifestyle. This is the reason to unborn child prey for a strength.

                                                               

• What is the role of natural elements in this poem?

                                                             The role of natural elements in this poem is Nature features strongly in this stanza, the most hopeful lines in the poem. The element water - the child wants to be able to play in it, the child wants talking trees, all the beautiful things that make a paradise, a healthy, ideal environment in which to live.

All this personification and optimism seems very innocent in context of the poem as a whole. But in war, when situations are bad, then is the time to dream and hang on to ideals. So this is the role of natural elements in the poem of " Prayer Before Birth ".

Thank You Reading..... 

Written By :  Krunal Viradiya