Naivety That Accompanies Childhood

Published Date: 02 Nov 2017

The simplicity and naivety that accompanies childhood is an inevitable and essential characteristic in the development of every human being’s advancement, as we progress through this stage in our life. In this piece I will analyze the themes of childhood, innocence and excitement in the 6 poems in "Section C" of the reading anthology. By exploring the themes that lie behind the book’s veneer, we can see how the writers had a clear objective when they wrote the poems: they hoped to achieve a wide symbolic scope. By unveiling and examining the themes that are present in the book, we can see what the writers promoted and what topics they had strong emotional connections to.

Firstly, Gabriel Okara, Chinua Achebe and Louis MacNeice’s poems are similar in the sense that they create an image of a better "other" life, in order to accentuate their criticisms of modern society in the poems "Once Upon a Time", "A Mother in a Refugee Camp" and "Prayer Before Birth". Furthermore, in "A Mother in a Refugee Camp", Chinua Achebe portrays actions that are considered horrendous and cringe-inducing to make the reader feel a connection to the poem. Moreover, Achebe depicts events that would normally be regarded as horrendous and terrifying, like a mother burying her deceased son, and compares that to daily mundane tasks, which are set in a better life, in an effort to show his readers the stark contrast between the lives of refugees and their own. In the line, "In another life this would have been a little daily act of no consequence before his breakfast and school; now she did it like putting flowers on a tiny grave" Achebe uses a simile, comparing a normal morning routine to putting flowers on a grave. Similarly, Gabriel Okara portrays the feelings of a lack humanity within people as they grow up, contrasting this with the concept of children being genuine and pure. This is clearly shown in the final stanza of "Once upon a time": Gabriel Okara shows the father asking his son to show him how to live and regain his true self. The persona says" So show me, son, how to laugh; show me how I used to laugh and smile once upon a time when I was like you". Okara does this to show that towards the end of the poem, the speaker entreats with the son to teach him to emote.

Louis MacNeice creates the image of his ideal world by describing a scene in which nature is of the essence, in contrast to the mechanical life style in the rest of the poem. MacNeice uses a single stanza (the 3rd) to express what he feels is a perfect world, and since this stanza is so different to the despairing tone of the rest of the poem, it makes a greater impression on the reader. In "Prayer Before Birth", MacNeice uses a wide range of techniques to convey the theme of a harsh modern society, including strong and powerful rhymes and alliteration, repetition of words like "me" and driving rhythms. However, in the third stanza of the poem, MacNeice decides to use weaker sounding rhymes and alliteration, which softens the overall tone of the verse, and the proceedings are much more positive, contrasting with the events in other stanzas, for example the use of "sing to me" instead of "strong. This creation of a "better life" makes it clear to the reader the persona’s stance on modern society, because he shows both sides of his point of view; what he wants, and what is there.

The poems we have studied all share the portrayal of childhood as a time of simplicity, innocence, excitement, naivety and purity. This point is most exemplified in the poems "Half Past Two" and "Hide and Seek" which help to convey the excitement of childhood, while the purity and innocence of children is more subtly implied in "Prayer Before Birth" and "Once Upon a Time". This is clearly evident in the neologism (the mashed-together word) "gettinguptime", and the capitalization of "She" and "Something Very Wrong" and the sense of hyperbole and awe at escaping "into ever". The neologisms "gettinguptime" and "timeformykisstime" help to create a sense of naivety in the child, as the impression is that he is unable to properly break up the phrases he has heard from adults into specific words, thus he treats them is independent words and ideas. This idea of a child’s naivety and confusion is again expressed in the capitalization of the word "She" when referring to the teacher, showing the child’s deference to figures of authority. This idea is accentuated by the hyperbolic fear the child experiences when he believes that he has done "Something Very Wrong", showing his intense fear of punishment from an authority figure. This can be easily identified in the tone of barely contained excitement in "Hide and Seek", the use of colloquial contractions "you’d", "they’ll", and the fast pace.

Additionally, the use of the exclamation marks at the beginning of "Hide and Seek" in the child’s dialogue gives a sense of a child’s excitement, as in the quotation, "I’m ready! Come and find me!" which is indicative of his excitement and anticipation of being found. This is a major point explored in this poem. The poem switches between a first-person and third-person narrative, which could be a method of presenting the scene to the reader from different points of view, as though the author was looking back from the present, whilst also including speech from the child’s viewpoint. The fast pace comes in the form of very short sentences without detailed descriptions, and this seems to create a sense of anticipation and fear.

Conversely, the innocence of childhood is more subtly implied in "Prayer Before Birth" and "Once Upon a Time". The childish fears displayed by the persona of "bloodsucking bats" and "club-footed ghouls", and the gentle verbs "dandle" and the image of a "white light". In "Prayer Before Birth", the use of the words "bloodsucking bats" and "club-footed ghouls" by the character displays childish fears felt by the unborn child, whilst the use of alliteration in phrases such as "bloodsucking bats" and "blood-baths" emphasizes the fear the child experiences. In addition to this, the repetition of "me" gives the reader an impression of a person under threat, with their pitch increasing hysterically. These somewhat immature fears contrast directly with the serious and morbid themes featured throughout most of the poem. The authors portray this through the use and repetition of the words like "laugh" and "smile" in "Once Upon a Time" and "Prayer Before Birth". The writer demonstrates this in "Once Upon a Time" where the poem tells of a conversation between what seems to be a father and son, in which the father wishes to learn from his son how to go back to normality and no longer be phony. The poem "Once Upon A Time" starts by the father telling his son how the people, or "they", "used to laugh with their hearts". I consider that the word "they" refers to western people who are white, also this description in the poem gives the impression of genuine emotion given off by the people.

However, in contrast to the celebration of childhood, which was evident in "Half Past Two" and "Hide and Seek", it appears that the innocence and purity of children and childhood is under threat from the harsh adult world in "Prayer Before Birth", "Once Upon a Time" and "A Mother in a Refugee Camp" where the very real, horrific and inhumane conditions suffered in refugee camps in Nigeria during the civil war are exemplified. The shocking and merciless conditions seen in "A Mother in a Refugee Camp", where the victims of war suffer not only from the diseases and inflictions caused by poverty, but also from the apparent neglect shown by most mothers, as if they had given up on life, are vividly revealed. The author illustrates this in "A Mother in a Refugee Camp", to show the situation in which the refugees find themselves being described as having "air heavy with odors of diarrhea", making clear the lack of hygiene, which in turn is producing "unwashed children with washed-out ribs" and "blown-empty bellies". While these problems do contribute to the children’s dire living conditions, the main cause is that their mothers "had long ceased to care", however, the poem focuses on a mother who still tries, and although this woman presents a change in the morbid tone of the rest of the poem, sadly it is still stated that her children had died. This makes their situation seem hopeless.

In contrast to the physically harsh realities of refugee camps, the threats in "Prayer Before Birth" appear to be more universal and abstract and not directly aimed at children; for example, the loss of identity and individuality. The child feels threatened by the world into which he is being born in "Prayer Before Birth", the persona mentions his fears, and how he is, and will constantly be, under threat from these fears, exemplified when he says, "Console me". This is evidence of the persona’s constant feeling of fear and being under threat. He then goes on to list the fears he holds of the human race changing, destroying his identity, saying, "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." The character presents most of the things he feels are wrong with the world in the form of lists, in which the rhythms he uses emphasize their meaning, reminiscent of a chant or a prayer, forming the religious connection with the reader, hence the title "Prayer Before Birth".

Similarly, in "Once Upon a Time", Okara explores more broadly the loss of cultural identity and the genuine human emotional connection. Gabriel Okara describes these broken human connections and the degradation of true cultural identity throughout his poem, seeming to suggest that the changes in the world he grew up in were merely a result of aging and, possibly, westernization. Once upon a time people used to smile and shake hands with their hearts. Though they were rooted in primitivism, the emotions they embodied were genuine. Now, in the contemporary post-colonial context, the smile is purely plastic as it reveals only the teeth. The eyes are devoid of emotion and phrased as "ice-block. They appear without the slightest trace of warmth and humanity.

Fundamentally, Gabriel Okara, Chinua Achebe and Louis MacNeice all believe that childhood is a time of naivety and innocence and that as one grows older the mind starts to get polluted and impure. Similarly, it is worth mentioning that the writers also believe that a child has the unenviable and seemingly impossible task of retaining their innocence and their purity of thought as they get older. Moreover, Louis MacNeice believes that a child is not corrupt or biased, but as the child grows up the people they meet influence them to become part of a faceless automaton. Furthermore, Okara describes a child as being genuine and pure and Achebe similarly believes that children can make the most of their surroundings and have the ability to find happiness in a hopeless and damning place such as a refugee camp.