Stobhill and Unto Us Critical Essay

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Two poems I have studied and read in class are, ‘Stobhill’ by Edwin Morgan and ‘Unto us...’ by Spike Milligan respectively. This essay will focus on the poets’ views on abortion. My personal view of this topic is that it should only be allowed in extreme circumstances, just like the circumstance in ‘Stobhill’. ‘Stobhill’ is about a young lady who gets raped and turns out pregnant from it, but decides to have an abortion. This poem explain the feelings of, the docter, who seems immune to what’s happened, and speaks formally, the father who speaks less formally than the doctor, the mother who is clearly scarred because after the abortion she doesn’t want to have children anymore and is scared about what her father would say if he knew, the porter who seems to be more worried what would have happened if the boiler man had placed the foetus in the fire and they then later found out it was alive when they put the foetus in the fire, the boiler man who speaks the least formal out of the five, but he is also scarred about the incident as he has nightmares for nights afterwards. ‘Unto us...’ is about a foetus who is wishing to be alive, the further the poem gets, the more the foetus expresses its love for the mother and as its love grows it’s suddenly aborted and is dropped in a sterile bin, and at the end of the poem the foetus believes its mother is not a real woman. ‘Stobhill’ uses the form of dramatic monologue which I prefare to the first person narrative technique used by Spike Milligan. Some quotations in ‘Stobhill’ are: ‘Her career would be jeopardized ... fear of her father’ This is said by the doctor, this expresses how the doctor doesn’t care about the foetus’ welfare this only shows he doesn’t care much about the mother, but still cares enough to contemplate the fact her career would be jeopardized. ‘I have sometimes wondered how he got over conceiving me, or
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