Paradox

"Batter My Heart, Three Personed God" has many instances of paradox present in the poem. First off, the speaker requests to be broken. This stems from the fact that the speaker feels without being broken down, they would not be able to live in union with God. Along those same lines, the speaker also wants to be broken down before being built back up. Drug addicts have to go through a simular proccess when they are trying to recover from the addiction. They must hit rock bottom before recovering to their origional state. The main character of the poem also feeds into the theme of paradox because he wants to be imprisoned by God in order to be free. The author feels that the only way they could live a chaste life and a life pleasing to God would be to be imprisoned by God. The character wants to be free from the devil.