PRAYER BEFORE BIRTH An Irishman by birth. Louis MacNeice was born in Belfast.

He was the son of an Anglican Bishop of Down, Connor and Dromore. After pursuing a brilliant career at Merton College, Oxford, he was appointed lecturer in classes at Birmingham University in 1930. Travelling widely when he was lecturing at Cornell in 1941 the Battle of Britain caused his return to England. From 1941 to 1949 he wrote extensively and produced radio broadcasts for the B.B.C. MacNeice's chief collections of verse are Blind Fireworks, The Earth Compels, Autumn Journals, Plant and Phantom, Springboard, The Dark Tower, Ten Burnt Offerings, Visitations and Solstices. His central theme is a pitiless exposure of the ills of the modern industrial civilisation, in which money is everything and higher values nothing. It is sick, in which "The excess sugar of a diabetic culture Rotting the nerve of life and literature." (From An Eclogue for Christmas) He also shows an equal awareness of the danger posed by the Fascists and the failure of democracy. This particularly forms the subject of Autumn Journal. But he does not advocate any particular social or political theory to set these ills right. He wants people's awareness to grow. While his general tone is satirical, the final impression left on the mind is that of pity rather than bitterness. He, therefore, appeals more to the emotions than to the intellect. In this sense he is a romantic, notwithstanding the stark realism of his subjects. For the same reason, he is an expert in lyrics. While he resembles the other poets of the Oxford group (like Auden, Spender, Ceil Day Lewis etc.) in the choice of his subjects and vocabulary, he is unlike them in the sonorousness of his verse. His poems display all easy colloquial tone coupled with sensitive intellectual protest. Prayer Before Birth occurs in Collected Poems published in 1949. Here the unborn poet prays for freedom -freedom from fears, restrictions, delusions and tyranny of the . totalitarian state. Man is reduced to an automation under modern state. He is turned into a robot and is subject to the coercions of the state and its institutions. He is made to speak and think. He cannot use his free will and enjoy the soothing and blissful aspects of Nature that help the natural growth of man. The poem is a protest against all these. BRIEF ANALYSIS Stanza 1: The first fear refers to all the frightening things of the night, both real and imaginary. Stanza 2: Next is the fear of being closed in by lies and persuasion, being led by drugs, tortured both mentally and physically, and being made to participate in warfare and other massacres. Stanza 3: The poet makes a plea for the good things of life which today are fast disappearing: clean water, love, forests, birds and purity ("white light") as a guide. Stanza 4: The child asks for forgiveness for all the sins that the world is going to make him commit in the future: his wrong words his evil thoughts those times when he is led to commit treason the times when he will be forced to kill other people ultimately for his own death of spirit because he has been forced to give into these social pressures. Stanza 5: The child asks to be guided into the part he must act in this dramatic performance of life so that he is able to perform his role correctly, and that he be given all the right clues on how to react when important people lecture him or laugh at him. Note the metaphor of the stage. Note too the extended personification: mountains frowning, deserts calling, etc. Stanza 6: A plea is made that tyrants and autocrats (like Adolph Hitler) may not be allowed to come near him.

Stanza 7: He asks for the strength not to become a killing machine ("lethal automaton") or just a part in a machine ("cog in a machine"): he pleads that he be not allowed to become inhuman ("a thing") or something that is completely at the mercy of others ("blow me like thistledown hither and thither"- or spilt as if he were just water. Stanza 8: His final plea is that his heart may not turn to stone, or his life be wasted. Failing that, he would rather be aborted right away. NOTES SENSE: The poet looks through the eyes of an unborn child at all the fears that face modern humanity, and asks God (or humanity?) to spare him these terrors. TONE: The poet examines the despair which faces modern man. Social pressure and prejudice are today almost unstoppable. The poet makes an impassioned plea for children to be able to lead lives free from this. There is a sense, however, that his plea will fall on deaf ears. CLOSER ANALYSIS Line 1. The poet looks through the eyes of an unborn child at the world and at the life awaiting it there. The speaker of the poem is a foetus a very unusual point of view. How old is the foetus? The poem has eight stanzas and so some critics argue that the foetus might be eight months old. It is interesting to note that to keep pace with the foetal growth every month and to suggest increasing intellectual and emotional complexity, the stanzas grow in length. The first stanza refers to certain fears of the child; they are every child's fears during childhood. The child mentions some animals-both real and imaginary-and prays to God to protect it from them. This stanza is similar in structure to stanza 6, only that the fears it expresses in the latter stanza are mature and more serious fears. L.2. The blood-sucking bat: the vampire bat found in Central and South America. Vampire bats approach their sleeping preys on foot, cut their skin and suck blood. They spread diseases like rabies. Occasionally they bite humans. Stoat: a small nocturnal animal of the weasel family with black-tipped tail. Club-footed Ghoul: frightening monster. It preys on the dead. L. 4. console me: comfort me. The unborn child needs to be comforted for soon it will be born into an evil world. L.5. With tall walls wall me: 'Walls' refers to the barriers of caste, creed, language, etc. which man builds between himself, and his neighbours. Cf. Tagore'S words: "Where the world has not been broken up into fragments by narrow domestic walls." The poem was written during World War II and it is highly probably that the poet means to allude to the Nazi concentration camps also. The phrase "with tall walls wall me" contains both alliteration and assonance. Alliteration is the repetition of consonants and assonance of vowels. The expression 'bat or the rat' in line 2 is an example of internal rhyme. Line 6: with strong drugs dope me: The reference here is not to the evil of drug addiction but to the drugging effect of inhuman ideologies. The Nazi ideology of racial superiority, for instance, drugged the Germans to the extent of behaving madly. Dope: dull my senses Wise lies: the lies the political leaders tell you to get your support for war. For example, they might tell you that war is necessary to end all wars. Cf. Pound's reference to the young men who went to war "believing in old men's lies" and who "came home to a lie" to see "liars in public places" (Hugh Selwyn Mauberly). Note the use of alliteration and assonance in "with wise lies lure me".

Lure: to attract or tempt. The unborn child fears that in the world it will be forced by persuasion and lies to participate in warfare. L.7. Rack: an instrument of torture consisting of a frame on which the victim's body is stretched. The poet is referring here to all kinds of persecution which the totalitarian governments use to get rid of opponents. In blood baths roll me: soak me in blood, that is, force me to take part in warfare and cause blood, to flow like rivers. L.8. Provide: to make available. The child is eager to make its stay on earth as comfortable as possible and so it makes a plea for those good things which are fast disappearing under the pressure of man's greed-water, grass, forests, birds, etc. Line 9. Dandle: to toss a child in the arms or to move it up and down on the knees. The sight of a child splashing in a stream would make us imagine that the water is dandling the child. Hopkins in his "Wreck of the Deutschland" describes the sailors as being "dandled to and fro" by the waves leaping into the deck (line 126). Trees to talk to me: Poets often represent the trees as talking/whispering. Cf. Robert Frost's line: "Not all thy tongues talking aloud/ Can be profound."("Tree at My Window") L.10. Sky to sing to me: Probably the poet has in mind the music of birds. In Shelley's "To a Skylark" the skylark sings "from heaven or near it" filling the skies with sweet sounds. When he wrote this line, the poet was probably thinking about the constant.roar of war-planes in the London sky. A white light to guide me: Some critics explain the 'white light' as standing for purity. The child would like to remain pure, so much so that purity becomes its guide. However, it seems more reasonable to take it to mean the white light of conscience, which has its origin in God. L. 11. The child is horrified to think of the many evil things waiting to be done by it, of course, under pressure of the sinful majority. He begs in advance to be forgiven for all this. . L.13. For the sins ... commit. The world (or the state) turns the individual into an instrument to carry out its will. The poet is thinking of Hitler's Germany. The society overpowers the individual, makes him an instrument to accomplish its designs. The child knows that there is no scope for independent action. Rather than the white light at the back of the mind, it is the dictates of the state that will guide it in its life. Hence the apology. L.14. My words: my wrong words. Forgive me God if my words hurt or deceive other people. L. 15. When they speak me: When my voice becomes an indistinguishable strand in the collective voice; when the society speaks through me, hurting, deceiving and misinforming others. My thoughts: The evil thoughts which the world will put into my mind so that I may turn them into evil actions. When they think me: When they think using my brain. Treason: crime against the country; actions like helping the enemies during the war etc. Traitors beyond me: traitors who are beyond my power to control. Lines 16-17: The world will murder using my hands. In that case forgive me for misusing my life. I may be obliged to keep the evil people alive by dying for them. In that case forgive me for having died for the evil people. Line 11 has'" been explained also as: 'Forgive me for my own death of spirit because I have> been forced to give in to those social pressures.'

Line 18. The child' realizes that all the world is a stage and that it will have to act different roles on the world's stage. The child prays to God asking Him to rehearse it in all these roles so that it can act each role properly. L.19. In the parts I must play: In the various roles I will have to present on life's stage. Cues I must take: 'Cue' means the last word(s) of an actor's speech that serve(s) as a signal to the next speaker. Note the imagery of the stage used in this section. L. 20. Old men lecture me: When I am subjected to criticism by those who think they have the right to 'correct' me. 'Lecture' means to criticize someone for doing something. Bureaucrats hector me: When government officials coerce me or pressurize me into doing the things they want. The old men who 'lecture' and the bureaucrats who 'hector' are typical of those who do not allow a person's individuality to express itself. . L.20-21. Mountains frown at me: Teach me how to react whet mountains show their disapproval of my actions. 'To frown' means to show anger, worry, deep thought, etc. by bringing the eye-brows together. The mountain frowning at the child is probably nature accusing man of environmental degradation. Mountains may also stand for the huge, insurmountable problems of life. (Perhaps there is also a reference to the boating episode in Wordsworth's The Prelude). L.21. Lovers laugh at me: When lovers mock at me for not being successful like them or for being different from them or for not being a lover at all. White waves call me to folly: Folly means 'an unwise act'. Perhaps the poet means escaping the problems of life by choosing to end one's life. Virginia Woolf's suicide in 1941 by jumping into the sea was still fresh in- MacNeice's mind. If we take 'white waves' as a symbol of the ebullience of youth, 'folly' may mean the unwise actions (indiscretions) characteristic of youth. L.33. The desert calls me to doom: When the desert calls me to ruin and destruction. If we take desert as a symbol of the sense of emptiness an unfulfilled life may feel, the line may be explained as 'When my own despair drives me to doom.' 'Desert' can also stand for, as at least one critic has pointed out, youth's spirit of adventure and the line may also mean: 'When I come to grief by pursuing my spirit of adventure.'(Cf. Frost's poem "Desert Places".) L. 23. Beggar refuses my gift: When I (or if I ) become such an ignominious character that even a beggar will avoid me.(A totalitarian set up demands absolute conformity and anyone who fails to conform is isolated and declared an enemy of the people. In some respects the society the poet paints here resembles the world in Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-four. ) L.24. When my children curse me: When my children are ashamed of me. Not that the speaker has done anything particularly shameful but the children have been brainwashed by the state to isolate people who held individualistic views. Perhaps there is here a reference to Stalinist Russia where children were encouraged to betray their parents if they did not toe the official line. L. 26. The reference here is to tyrants and autocrats like Hitler and Stalin. Line.28 ff. In the prevailing political set up, the society is a machine and a man is no more independent than the cog of a machine. But society is a collection of individuals. To the state he is a fighting machine. L. 30: Freeze my humanity: stop the flow of the natural feelings of compassion and fellow feelings. Dragoon: to compel by military bullying, to coerce Lethal: deadly Automaton: robot; a man who acts in a monotonous routine manner without active intelligence

Cog: a catch or a tooth on a wheel L. 31. A thing with one face: one from among a collection of uniform beings, all of them having the same face L.32. Dissipate my entirety: cause my wholeness to disintegrate and disappear L.34. Thistledown: soft and light seed that floats and drifts on the wind L.35. Hither and thither: here and there L.38. Let them not make a stone of me: Let them not harden me and turn me into as insensitive a 'thing as the stone; let them not waste me like water. Let them realize that I am a human being with feelings of my own and that I am far too valuable a creature to be expended like water. STANZA 1 1. What do all those creatures have in common? Why should the child be afraid of them? (4) STANZA 2 2. Why does the poet refer to the "tall walls", the "black racks", the "wise lies" and the "blood baths"? (4) STANZA 3 3. What do the images presented in this stanza tell us about the modern world as the poet portrays it? (4) STANZA 4 4. Explain the "sins" mentioned here. Why should the child feel responsible for them if he doesn't actually commit them? (4) STANZA 5 5. What is the overriding image used in this stanza? Why would the child need help with the part that he plays? (4) STANZA 6 6. Why should stanza 6 be so short when compared to the other stanzas? (4) STANZA 7 7. What is the common theme with all the wishes contained in this stanza? (4) STANZA 8 8. Comment on the final stanza as a suitable climax to the poem. (4) PARAPHRASE I am a foetus waiting to be born. Grant me my prayer, 0 Lord. I fear the vampire bat and the rat. I fear also the weasel and the frightening monster which preys on dead people. Lord let them not approach me. I am an unborn child. Console me, 0 Lord. I need to be consoled for there are many terrible things waiting for me in the world. As I grow up, the world will surround me with high walls. They will drug me with sectarian ideologies. They will tell me wise lies about the need to participate in warfare. If I demur, they will torture me into submission; if I allow myself to be lured by the wise lies, I will have to roll in the blood baths of massacres. I am not yet born. God, provide me with all those things a child needs to lead a happy and contented life in a healthy environment. Provide the world with plenty of water so that I can splash in it. Let the earth remain a green place with the grass growing luxuriantly for me. I want, besides, trees to talk to me. I want the sky to sing to me. Provide the earth with birds also. Above all, I want that white light-the light of conscience-at the back of my mind. I am an unborn child. God, I seek your forgiveness in advance for the many sins the world will make me commit. Forgive me for the wrong words I might use, that is, if I use my words to hurt, misinform or

offend anyone. I might only appear to speak; it might be the world speaking through me. Forgive me for the evil thoughts the world will put into my mind. Forgive me, 0 God, for the thoughts of treason which traitors who are beyond me might plant in my mind. Forgive my life if I allow the world to commit murders using my hands. Forgive me for my death if I waste my life to keep some autocrat in power. I am yet to be born. I know I will have to play many roles on the stage of life. Rehearse me in all these roles, 0 God. Teach me the proper cues. Teach me how I should react when old people criticize me for what they consider my lapses. Bureaucrats may coerce me into toeing the official line in everything. Mountains may look frowningly at me accusing me of environmental destruction. Lovers may laugh at me for not seeing the world as they see it. The white waves of the ocean may put thoughts of selfslaughter in my mind. I may come to grief by responding to the call of the desert spurred by my desire for adventure. I may suffer social isolation to such an extent that beggars may refuse the alms I give. My own children may turn against me and shower me with curses. Teach me, 0 God, how I should conduct myself on such occasions. I am not yet born. There are men who-are in fact animals and there are also men who think they are God. 0 God! do not allow such men-to come near me. I am not yet born. It is going to be quite a struggle for me to keep the open independence of my soul. Fill me with strength so that I may resist those who would bully me into becoming a deadly war machine or a cog thereof. Provide me with enough strength, 0 God, so that I can fight back when they standardize human beings into look-alike robots having the same kind of face. Aid me in my effort to resist those who would cause the wholeness of my personality to disintegrate. Similarly, I seek your help to oppose those who, not recognizing my worth, would blow me here and there like thistledown. My life is far too precious to be spilt like water held in the hand. " Let them not destroy my sensitivity and harden me till I become like stone. Let them not spill me like water either. CRITICAL APPRECIATION , One thing distinguishes "Prayer Before Birth" from all other poems that is the unusual perspective the poem adopts. Here the speaker looks at the world from the point of view of .an unborn child. The child is presumably in the last stage of foetal growth and it is knowledgeable about the world and its ways. Tile child trembles at the thought of having to spend a lifetime in the world. Frightened by this terrible prospect, the child prays to God imploring Him to protect, forgive and teach him. The world was indeed passing through a ,particularly dark phase at the time when MacNeice wrote this poem. With the Second World War raging in Europe and elsewhere, the world appeared to be at its darkest to the poet. It was a world entirely at the mercy of dictators. It was a world of fratricidal wars, treason, violence, regimentation and progressive robotization of the individual. MacNeice's .poem refers to all these social evils. The child prays to God in stanzas one and six asking Him to protect him from various things and creatures of evil. Stanza one mentions the various childhood fears of a child such as bats, rats, weasels and ghouls. Stanza six seeks protection from beast-like men and ruthless dictators who think they are God. In stanza two the child prays to God, asking Him to provide him with such things as clean air and water, birds, open skies and greenery. These things, the child is aware, are fast disappearing from the earth. In the next stanza he mentions the sins of modern life which, he knows, he will be obliged to commit once he is on earth. He will not be able to withstand the pressure of organized groups. He then seeks in advance forgiveness of God for these sins. Stanza five implores God to rehearse the roles he will have to play later in life so that he may prove equal to the challenges life may place before him. This theme is carried on to stanza seven where the child prays for the strength to withstand the dehumanizing ways of the modern world. Rather than live an insensitive lifelike that of a stone the child would like to be aborted.

The catalogue of the world's ills may not be interesting in itself; what makes the poem interesting is the way the poet has expressed his ideas. There is close correlation between what the poet says and how he says it. This is seen even in the verse form the poem uses, The poem flows freely like free verse and yet it is not without the discipline of metre, the dominant metrical form being the dactylic (containing a metrical foot of one long and two short syllables). This corresponds to the child's desire to be free and yet be guided by God's white light. The stanzas increase in length generally from the first stanza to the last and this may be taken as symbolic of the growing complexities of the child's feeling. . The poet successfully uses several decorative and functional .devices to increase the enjoyability of the poem. Take for example the way the poet uses rhyme. The word 'me' appears at the end of the first line and the last line in every stanza. In addition to end rhyme, the poet uses internal rhyme in several places. 'Bat' and 'rat' in line one, 'tall' and 'wall' in line 5, are among the many examples of internal rhyme. MacNeice's lines are rich in alliteration and assonance. Alliteration appears in the repetition of consonants, while assonance results from the repetition of vowel sounds. The expression "wise lies' is an example of both alliteration and assonance. In a sense stanza six 'rhymes' with the first stanza. These two stanzas are alike in structure and theme. The paralleling of the two stanzas serves to unify the poem. Truly unconventional both in thought and in style, "Prayer Before Birth" is one of the finest poems of MacNeice. It is a period piece in thaf what he portrays is the mirror image of Europe during the Second World War CONTEMPORARY RELEVANCE 'A Prayer Before Birth' is a satire on the life of the so-called modem twentieth century. It has been put forth in the form of a worried plea from the perspective of an unborn child. Through it, the poet appeals for a worthwhile and wholesome natural life, free from the threats of terror that surround human life today. MacNeice is an Irish poet and he belongs to the twentieth century, but the fears he expresses are universal and will always remain so. The prayer that the unborn child offers, ask for a careful hearing. It is a plea to be consoled and well provided for, and then to be forgiven its sins. It begs to be rehearsed in the part it must play on the stage of life and how it must attend to its cues. In addition to this, the rise of crime and fraud, especially delinquency, are causes of major concern of the present (twenty-first) century. It is highlighting the duties of parenting and exposing those areas where a child needs extra care and protection. The poem quite frankly makes the unborn child express its fears, trying to make the world of parenting aware of its duties. This is an appeal too, besides being a satire that if the world cannot provide a healthy atmosphere then children should not be brought forth into the world. All children of all times hope to live and lead a fulfilled life - and grow up as upright human beings. Who wants to be a 'lethal automaton', 'a cog in a machine' or 'a stone' or 'spilled water'? On the other hand, the needs of children are universal- water pure and clear, green grass and a healthy natural environment, with birds and trees and heavenly bodies - and the blessing of God. These needs will always remain the same. Hence the poem will always remain evergreen for projecting thoughts in a very unorthodox way and baring the truths that are often concealed under modem ways of life.