Prayer Before Birth Poem Analysis

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Explore how the poems Prayer before Birth, Mother in a Refugee Camp, War Photographer and three other poems consider the trials and/or fears of life.
The trials and fears of life is something that is explored throughout literature and poetry. It is something very powerful and there are many poems that reveal a whole new world of fears and trials of life. The poems: ‘Prayer before Birth’, ‘Mother in a Refugee Camp’ and ‘War Photographer’ are poems that are just as strong as the fears and trials of life shown in poetry. In ‘Prayer before Birth’, written by Louis MacNeice during the Second World War, the persona (an unborn child) shows its fear of entering the world and is scared of what the world can do to innocent people: it does this through a form of a prayer in which it pleas to be turned away from the danger that the future may hold. ‘A Mother in a Refugee Camp’, written by Chinua Achebe, talks of the mother of her dying child who continues to take care of him. The poem talks of the horrific conditions in which they had to live and it depicts the death that cannot be avoided and the loss of loved ones. ‘War Photographer’, written by Carol Ann Duffy, describes the inner battle within a war photographer as he returns back home to England after he had completed a tour. He finds it difficult to keep in his feelings as the horror and terror he witnessed resurface in his normal life. W. H. Auden wrote ‘Refugee Blues’ where the persona talks to his wife about how they do not belong anywhere as they are Jews. ‘The Seed Merchant’s Son’, written by Agnez Grozier Herbertson, talks of the loss of his son however, nearing the end of the poem, there a positive ending as the Seed Merchant finds himself amongst nature. Finally, ‘The Target’ w...

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...hows great love for a child and a sense that the mother will never give up on her child even though he is unfortunately dying. In ‘The Seed Merchant’s Son’, the seed merchant lost his son to the war and this has made a huge impact on his life. Similar to ‘a Mother in Refugee Camp’ the Seed Merchant is unable to let his son go and he has been affected worse than his son who died. Another poem ‘the Target’ is very strong because it shows how ineffective war is. It shows that the soldiers who are fighting in the war do not want to fight each other and that war is something that people are fighting for although it may be something that they do not necessarily agree with. Last but not least, ‘War Photographer’ is a poem that shows Carol Anne Duffy’s reaction to all the suffering and how humans are selfish because their sympathy for the ones suffering does not last long.

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