Some Compiled Critical Notes

on
“Prayer Before Birth” by Louis MacNiece

“Prayer Before Humanity” is a bleak poem written from the perspective of

an unborn child. The speaker makes a desperate plea (most likely to God, given
that this is a “prayer”) asking for strength and guidance to navigate the world—
a frightening, violent place in the poem, full of cruelty, greed, and outright evil.
Through this prayer, the poem implies that humanity has lost its way, becoming
stuck in a cycle of hatred, destruction, and denial that threatens to corrupt the
innocence of each new generation.
The fact that the speaker is an unborn child means they’re currently
protected from humanity, safe inside the warmth of a womb. But the speaker
knows that, in being born, they will become part of the human family—a
prospect the poem presents like something out of a horror movie. The speaker
begins by asking for protection from “bloodsucking bat[s]” and “ghouls” before
moving on to concerns that are less macabre, yet no less terrifying. The poem
refers to imprisonment, drugs, lies, murder, and torture as inevitable parts of the
human experience.
The issue isn’t only that the speaker is afraid of these things themselves,
either; the speaker anticipates how there will be a conflict between the speaker’s
innocence and the corrupting influence of the humanity. That is, the speaker
understands that in being born to the human world, the speaker will become a
member of the “human race”—that same race that the speaker fears will drug,
lie to, imprison, and torture them.
Before even being born, the speaker, thus, asks for forgiveness for the sins
that the world is going to make the speaker commit, for the inevitable “treason”
that comes from getting by in such a world. The speaker asks for practice when
it comes to “the parts [they] must play” and “the cues [they] must take” in
responding to the horrors the speaker will face, implying that a loss of
innocence is practically inevitable and inescapable.
Yet even as the poem has an atmosphere of hopelessness, the speaker
maintains a degree of grit and determination. The speaker asks for the
“strength” to combat “those who would freeze [the speaker's] humanity,” for
example. It isn’t that humanity is inherently corrupt, then, but that it
has become corrupt. Perhaps, if humanity had to become a self-destructive, there
remains the possibility of change—the faintest glimmer of hope for a better
world.
 That said, the speaker senses that the chance of human civilization changing
its ways is remote. The speaker wishes to retain their innocence—to not be
made into a “stone”—but most of the poem suggests that this is near-
impossible. In the poem’s powerful last line, the speaker states clearly that they
would rather die than live in a world in which their innate humanity has to be
corrupted, casting doubt on whether the speaker really wants to be born at all. In
the end, then, the poem asks whether it’s fair to bring new life into a world so
full of death and destruction.

1-1-Thematic Concerns: Nature Vs. Industrialization

The poem’s speaker—an unborn child—ask for future help, strength, and
guidance in the life that they’re about to lead. The speaker’s prayer is mostly
defined negatively—that is, by things that the speaker actively wants to avoid,
to be strong against. But there is one thing the speaker actively wants: a close
relationship with the natural world. The poem implies that nature, unlike
corrupted human society, is a loving, nurturing influence.
The poem then contrasts this powerful vision of nature with the harsh,
unforgiving trends of industrialization and mechanization—a seismic societal
shift that was, of course, caused by humanity. Given nature's nourishing power,
the poem implies that industrialization—and people’s resulting distance from
nature—is in part to blame for humanity’s dismal state.
Even as the speaker wants to avoid most of the world, the speaker prays to be
“provide[d]” with water, grass, trees, the sky, and birds. Water will “dandle” the
speaker—that is, swing the child playfully and lovingly. Trees will “talk” to the
child, probably teaching better lessons about care and compassion than most of
the human world that surrounds them. The sky itself will “sing” to the speaker,
suggesting joyfulness and aesthetic beauty. Together, these aspects of nature
would make the speaker a stronger and better person.
This relationship with nature, the speaker feels, goes hand-in-hand with a
“white light / in the back of my mind to guide me.” White light here refers a
kind of moral strength and virtue—one that, not incidentally,
is symbolically linked to the warmth and life-giving light of the sun. The poem
thus clearly portrays the natural world as a positive influence. In a poem mostly
concerned with the worst aspects of humanity, this is a much-needed moment of
hope.
But, as the speaker is fully aware, nature is just one of many potential
influences on a new life. The speaker knows that the world in which they are
about to arrive for the most part doesn’t prioritize nature. Instead, it’s full of
damaging industrialization—factories, pollution, mass reproduction, the thirst
for profit, and so on. This industrialization doesn’t just have a damaging effect
on nature, but on people too.
Towards the end of the poem, the speaker asks not to become “a lethal
automaton” nor a “cog in a machine.” Both of these images depict the way the
modern world can dehumanize people through technology, by turning an
individual into a kind of unthinking killing robot (the poem seems to be
referring to soldiers) or just a part in some larger contraption built for hatred and
violence. The poem, thus, clearly equates humankind’s appetite for destruction
(remember, this was written during WWII) with the trend towards
mechanization. Losing touch with nature, then, means losing touch with the
better aspects of humanity itself. Perhaps that is why the poem turns once more
in its closing lines to an image of nature. The speaker seeks strength against
those who “would / blow me like thistledown hither and / thither” or spill the
speaker like water. Thistledown is the feathery material on thistles that gets
blown about in the wind (to aid the spread of its seeds). The poem refers to it
here as a symbol of the fragility of nature which, of course, relates to the unborn
child’s own vulnerability. It’s a slightly confusing image because being
“blown” is exactly what the thistledown is meant for, but it clearly refers back
to the earlier vision of nature. The reader, then, is left with the impression that
the natural world—like humanity itself—is under threat.

1-2-Thematic Concerns: Modernity, Conformity, and the Free Will

While the poem for the most part focuses on humanity's capacity for
violence and self-destruction, another concern is the way that the modern world
erodes people's individuality and free will. The speaker fears that the world that
they will be born into only allows for one type of person—a kind of mass-
produced individual who does what they're told and never questions the larger
systems at work around them.
The speaker fears being imprisoned, drugged, lied to, and tortured—but also
fears becoming the perpetrator of such terrible acts. The speaker separates
themselves from any actual agency, however, saying that the world will commit
"sins" through the speaker, that an ambiguous "they" will "murder by means of
my hands." That is, the speaker will become a helpless tool of the corrupt
modern world, a kind of puppet forced to do terrible things just to conform and
survive.
The idea that modern society demands total conformity finds its fullest
expression in the fifth stanza, as the speaker asks to be "rehearse[d]" in the role
that they must play in society. Life here is presented as something that
happens to the speaker, and which requires certain "cues" and results in
unavoidable "folly" and "doom." The speaker anticipates being a kind of passive
witness to their own life, following all the expected steps and unquestioningly
putting up with all the expected indignities of the modern world. In other words,
the speaker would be little more than an actor in the play of life, with no real
agency or individuality.
The poem goes on to argue that there are those out there who would wish to
turn the speaker into an unthinking killer (a "lethal automaton") or make the
speaker a mere "cog" in some larger "machine" of death and destruction.
Modern society threatens to completely efface the speaker's humanity—to turn
them into an object, a "thing," that only deserves to exist so long as it can
provide something useful to the larger contraption that is human society.
"Prayer Before Birth" establishes its unique perspective right away: that of
an unborn child ("I am not yet born"). Immediately, then, the poem confronts
the reader, asking them to suspend their disbelief and understand that the
following "prayer" will be more symbolic than literal.
The speaker fears being born, and feels the need to pray—possibly to God,
but maybe also to humanity itself—for future assistance, guidance, and
protection. The particular fears contained in this stanza feel like they've been
taken from a horror movie, however. Few people, generally speaking, are
genuinely afraid of bats, rats, stoats, or "club-footed ghoul[s]"! These are more
childlike fears, the stuff of ghost stories. The poem lures the reader into a false
sense of security by suggesting that the speaker's fears are unfounded—that
speaker's concerns are akin to those of a child scared of monsters in the closet or
under the bed.

2-Symbols in “Prayer Before Birth”

2-1- Nature
Nature in the poem represents nourishment and compassion—a harmonious,
peaceful, and moral world that contrasts sharply with the many horrors of the
modern industrialized society. In the third stanza, the speaker prays for: 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. This section proposes an alternative idea of
what it means to be human that contrasts with the bleak vision of conformity,
alienation, and violence offered elsewhere in the poem. The natural relationship
depicted here is joyful and nurturing. The grass grows "for" the speaker, and
the personified trees and sky talk and sing to the speaker—because this is a
vision of life lived in partnership with nature. Where humanity is filled with
deceit, torture, and violence, nature is generous and loving, uncorrupted by
humanity's greed and appetite for destruction.
The "white light" is the speaker mentions here is more
specifically symbolic of a kind of moral backbone. Both the color white and
light itself typically represent purity and morality in literature, and the speaker
hopes to be guided by such morality upon navigating the decidedly immoral
human world. The poem returns to nature towards the end, comparing the
speaker to the fine feathery material on a thistle (which gets blown about by the
wind). This maps nature's fragility—in a world full of human violence—onto
the speaker's own vulnerability as an unborn child.
2-2-Machinary
One of the speaker's main fears about being born is that the world will deny
them the best attributes of humanity (comparison, creativity, free will, and
communion with nature) and emphasize the worst (violence, conformity,
deception, and so on). The poem makes a clear link between these worst
characteristics and modern technology, with an eye specifically on the
technology-enabled horrors of war. Modern machinery in the
poem symbolizes the erosion of free will, individuality, and humanity itself.
In lines 30 and 31, the speaker asks for "strength against those who [...] would
dragoon me into a lethal automaton." Likewise, the speaker fears those who
"would make me a cog in a machine." Both images relate to mass production,
mechanization, and modern industrialization.
The poem further associates the cold efficiency of modern technology with
humankind's ability for self-destruction. The poem relates machinery—which
can only do what it is specifically designed to do—with a fear that people will
no longer think for themselves; that instead, they will simply do whatever
they're told, like a programmed bit of machinery. This is what the speaker
means in talking about being a "cog in a machine," a worry that human life has
no value other than its usefulness in serving the status quo.
The poem is a dramatic monologue told from the perspective of an unborn
child. It lacks a specific form beyond this, however, with its 39 lines broken
into eight stanzas of varying length. Despite this lack of stanza consistency, the
poem feels very structured and repetitive. This is thanks in part to the fact that
every stanza except for the last begins with the poem's refrain: the phrase "I am
not yet born" followed by a request for help in the form of an imperative verb
(e.g., "hear me").
The refrain has a somewhat hypnotic effect. The intense use of repetition and
sonic devices like alliteration, consonance, and assonance throughout also make
the poem feel like a spell or incantation, as though the speaker is trying to
conjure the kind of God they need in order to have their prayer heard. One
stanza breaks with the refrain formula established by the rest of the poem: the
last. This is a dramatic moment that relates what the speaker desires if their
prayer can't be granted. The speaker says they would rather die than be made
into a "stone" (an unfeeling person) or spilled like water (lose their sense of
individuality and will). It's an unquestionably bleak moment, one that offers no
suggestion that the speaker's prayers can be answered.

3-Literary Context
"Prayer Before Birth" was published in Louis MacNeice's 1944
collection Springboard, but had been written in 1943—at the height of World
War II. At the time, MacNeice was supporting the British war effort by writing
and producing radio plays for the BBC aimed at bolstering public opinion in
favor of the war.
MacNeice is considered a member of the Auden Group, a group of British
and Irish writers including Stephen Spender, Cecil-Day Lewis, and, of course,
W.H. Auden himself. The Auden Group (also called the Auden Generation) was
lumped together based on being about the same age, having gone to Cambridge
or Oxford, and leaning left in their politics.
MacNeice's work wasn't overtly political but often expressed a keen social
awareness and used emotional, accessible language that proved very popular in
his own lifetime. MacNeice also opposed totalitarianism, and while this poem
doesn't mention war explicitly, there are clear gestures towards humankind's
capacity for violence and self-destruction.
Accordingly, it is worth looking at the poem alongside with the work of
some WWI and WWII poets. In its unblinking bleakness, "Prayer Before Birth"
has more in common with the poetry based on the direct experience of war's
horrors—from poets like Siegfried Sassoon ("Suicide in the Trenches” "),
Wilfred Owen ("Anthem for Doomed Youth” "), and Keith Douglas ("Simplifiy
Me When I’m Dead” ")—than it does with more jingoistic poets like Rupert
Brooke and Jessie Pope ("Who’s for the Game?”). But the anxieties of "Prayer
Before Birth" stretch far beyond any particular conflict, and confront readers
with questions about modern life itself.
It is worth acknowledging that the poem is titled as a prayer and borrows
snippets of biblical language. The most obvious of these is in the phrase "Let
not" / "Let them not." This evokes the book of Job, in which the title character
curses the day that he was born: "Let the day perish on which I was born." This,
of course, ties in with the speaker's question about whether it's a good idea to
enter the world, or if it would be better to die in advance.

4-Historical Context
"Prayer Before Birth" was written in 1943, at the height of World War II.
The poem doesn't make specific reference to the conflict, but it certainly lurks in
the background. World War II was a devastating conflict that killed an
estimated 85 million people worldwide. And it was, of course,
the second incredibly deadly conflict of the century. Though humankind had
made huge technological and intellectual progress in the preceding centuries,
that such brutal wars could take place undermined the sense that this was
progress at all. Many felt that perhaps technology had merely made humankind
more efficient and creative in its own self-destruction (a sentiment echoed in
"Prayer Before Birth").
The poem also makes reference to the industrialization of the modern world.
The 20th century saw big leaps in mass production and globalization.
Fordism—the work philosophy pioneered by famed automaker Henry Ford—
created jobs that were incredibly repetitive and time-pressured. The poem's
speaker worries that being "a cog in a machine" will erode their sense of
individuality, thereby implying that these societal trends threatened the nature
of humanity itself.

Reference:
These compiled Notes are taken from:
https://www.litcharts.com/poetry/louis-macneice/prayer-before-birth
Access: 28/02/2024