Speaker and characters

The most important characters in the poem “Batter My Heart” by John Donne are the speaker and God (as the speaker desires him to be).

The speaker

The speaker is a person going through an inner conflict. He could be seen as a lyrical alter ego of John Donne, who was a cleric and was very concerned with the topics of faith and religion.

This speaker’s conflict is caused by the fact that he wants to surrender to God and dedicate himself to divinity; but he is also attracted by non-spiritual aspects such as reason (l. 7) and an enemy (l. 8) which might be the devil, or simply the temptations of desire/lust and reason.

The speaker compares himself with a “usurpt towne” (l. 5) which is “weak or untrue” (l. 8), which suggests he feels guilty for not being able to completely embrace God and his absolute truth.

Still, the narrat...