Prayer Before Birth Literary Elements

The speaker of the poem is an unborn entity who seeks protection from the inevitable harms of society on earth.

Free verse

The central metaphor of the poem is about free will. The speaker uses a number of images (a cog in a machine, a soldier, a stone, and water spilled from someone's hands) to represent the lack of free will and autonomy people have in contemporary society.

The most alliterative stanza appears early in the poem, when the speaker says, "I fear that the human race may with tall walls wall me, / with strong drugs dope me, with wise lies lure me, / on black racks rack me, in blood-baths roll me" (5-7). The internal rhyme and alliteration in these lines adds a sense of relentlessness to the speaker's sentiments, suggesting that this torture the speaker imagines will be inevitable and ongoing.

The central irony of the poem is that the speaker, an unborn child, is rejecting the society into which they are yet to be born.

Lyric poem

The poem is not set in any particular place, but criticizes contemporary society in the midst of World War II.

The tone of the poem is fearful, critical, and resigned.

The protagonist of this poem is the speaker and the antagonists are those who spread corruption in contemporary society.

The major conflict of the poem is the speaker's knowledge that the life they are about to lead will be fraught with fear, manipulation, and suffering. Instead, the speaker chooses death as their fate to spare them of this life on earth.

The climax of the poem occurs in the final couplet, when the speaker says, "Let them not make me a stone and let them not spill me. / Otherwise kill me" (38-39). Here, the speaker expresses for the first time their alternative to living life on earth – dying before they have the chance to experience the pain and suffering they know awaits them.

The speaker foreshadows their criticisms of society by first expressing their fear of bats, rats, stoats, and ghouls – creatures that come to represent the corrupt figures in a contemporary and war-torn world.

The poem does not make much use of understatement, as the speaker is trying to convey their absolute terror over their impending doom as part of society.

The speaker alludes to World War II when they express fear of being turned into a "lethal automaton" (30). This term is a euphemism for a soldier, who kills at the command of someone else.

"Hands" is used as a metonym for another person's control. The speaker compares themself to water that will be spilled from someone else's hands, suggesting that they will be used and manipulated without free will.

The speaker uses personification when describing the nurturing provisions of nature, saying, "provide me / With water to dandle me, grass to grow for me, trees to talk / to me, sky to sing to me, birds and a white light / in the back of my mind to guide me" (8-11). By personifying nature, the speaker suggests that this vision of a nurturing life is merely a fantasy.

In many ways, the poem relies heavily on hyperbole in order to emphasize the speaker's fear and critique of what awaits them on earth. By imagining that they will be rolled "in blood-baths," for example, the speaker paints an exaggerated portrait of their fate in order to show how life on earth is inherently a torturous experience (7).

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