To explore the portrayal of society through the poets’ use of voice in the poems Prayer Before Birth, Born Yesterday, Telephone Conversation, Hide and Seek, next to of course god america i and Hawk Roosting.
The use of voice is significant throughout all six poems. However, the portrayal of society and the characters’ attitudes towards it differ. Both Prayer Before Birth and Born Yesterday present the hopes and expectations of children about to enter the world. Telephone Conversation describes a conversation between a white lady and a colored man, which casts a light on society’s racial prejudice. Hide and Seek emphasizes the importance of recognizing opportunities life presents one, hidden within the detailed description of a familiar childhood game. Unlike this, E.E. Cummings unnamed poem opposes the idea of blind patriotism, while the poem Hawk Roosting indeed takes on the perspective of a hawk that could be seen as hunting for prey but far more depicts the narcissistic side of individuals in positions of power. The poem Prayer Before Birth presents society as cruel. The persona, a fetus with a conscious mind, articulates his prayers and hopes for
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The line implies that the world is such that the poet does not think that even an infant can remain untainted from its cruelties and will, in fact, commit cruelties itself. The author knows that no human being has the power to avoid all sin, and therefore uses the voice of the newborn to ask for forgiveness for his words, thoughts, treason and even murder. The anaphora of ‘I am not yet born’ at the start of each stanza makes the poem seem as if it’s an incantation, which relates back to the idea of a prayer. British people enduring the Second World War were to the greatest part faithful Christians. This may make one infer that they could identify themselves as the fetus, who desperately asks for forgiveness and