A Mother In A Refugee Camp

Like ‘War Photographer,’ ‘A Mother In A Refugee Camp’ makes use of religious imagery too. The poet has also used the technique of foreshadowing, metaphors, enjambment, similes, juxtaposition, biblical references and sensory descriptions in the poem to convey his message. The first line, “No Madonna and Child could touch," displays an iconic religious image where Mary saw Jesus die on the cross — creating ominous foreboding. Achebe also combines the senses of touch and smell by using a technique named synesthesia in the line “the air was heavy with odors of diarrhea,” as “heavy” relates to touch and “odors” relates to smell. This makes the reader imagine the unhygienic conditions in the camp. There are a lot of death connotations used. “Ghost,” “skull,” and “tiny grave” are several examples. These connotations are used to foreshadow the …show more content…
MacNeice has also used internal rhythm, pathetic fallacy, modern lexis, monosyllables, assonance, oxymorons, paradox and an extended stage metaphor to make the poem like an actual prayer. Repetition of “I am yet not born” at the start of every stanza makes the poem like an incantation, referring back to the idea of a prayer. Furthermore, every stanza follows this clause with an imperative, illuminating the child’s plea’s desperation and his innocence. The first stanza depicts the imagination of the child, and childish horrors like a “bloodsucking bat.” This shows the reader that the child is scared, even before its birth (alliteration of ‘b’ is used in the phrase for emphasis). The harsh alliteration of ‘d’ in “drugs dope,” combined with the internal repetition of “tall walls” and “black racks rack,” generates a feeling of claustrophobia and oppression, indicating the hopeless task of escaping the conflict of the world. The personification of nature throughout the poem gives nature human-like properties, suggesting that the child prefers nature over humans, unsurprisingly