Birth by A. J. Cronin
Quick answer: Birth by A. J. Cronin, CBSE Class 11 Snapshots: Andrew Manson and the Morgans' stillborn child, the hot and cold water method, themes, character sketch and exam answers.
A young doctor walks home near midnight from a disappointing evening with the woman he loves and finds a miner waiting outside his door: the man's wife is in labour with their first child after nearly twenty years of marriage.
A. J. Cronin (1896 to 1981) took this chapter from his 1937 novel The Citadel; Class 11 Snapshots prints it as a story.
The story in brief
Andrew Manson attends Susan Morgan with the midwife and Susan's elderly mother. When the child comes at dawn it is stillborn, and Susan herself is sinking. Andrew chooses the mother first and revives her with an injection.
He turns to the child, laid among wet newspapers, and recognises asphyxia pallida. He calls for hot and cold water, plunges the limp body alternately into each basin, rubs it with a rough towel and presses its chest for what feels like an age. Then the child gasps, stiffens and cries. Soaked and spent, he walks home telling himself he has at last done something real.
The people in it
A doctor and a mining family.
Themes and meaning
Exam readings include professional dedication and perseverance against odds. The sharper point is that the chapter is about recovery from disappointment: Andrew arrives sunk in his own troubles, and the birth restores his sense of purpose as much as it restores the child. Cronin lets the doctor be healed by his patient.
The craft: two rescues, in order
Cronin makes Andrew choose, mother or child, so the reader watches character before technique. The turn is the second rescue, where a remembered case supplies the method and the prose slows to the rhythm of dipping and rubbing. The ending refuses a speech; Andrew's private thought is enough. A climax staked on an exactly described procedure is the kind that scores on Emotional Impact in the Writory Short Story Contest, because precision reads as care.
For the exam
Quick material for Class 11 tests.
What writers can take from this
- Present Andrew's choice between mother and child before describing the method; the choice is what examiners test.
- Name the condition, asphyxia pallida, and the method, alternating hot and cold water, in every answer on the rescue.
- Mention Andrew's state of mind on arrival so you can show the change by the end.
- Writers, slow the prose at the climax and let repeated physical action carry the tension.
- End on a private thought rather than public praise; Cronin's restraint is the model.
Try it yourself
Write a story in which a professional arrives at a crisis distracted by a personal disappointment and must make one hard choice before a second, harder rescue. Describe the rescue as a precise physical procedure and end with the character alone.
Questions
What is the theme of Birth by A. J. Cronin?
Dedication and perseverance in a doctor's work, and the way one act of service can restore a person's sense of purpose. Andrew Manson saves a mother and revives a stillborn child, and in doing so recovers from his own despair.
How did Andrew Manson save the child in Birth?
He recognised the condition as asphyxia pallida, called for basins of hot and cold water, plunged the baby into each in turn, rubbed it with a towel and pressed its chest. After long, seemingly hopeless minutes the child gasped, stiffened and cried.
What is the significance of the title Birth?
It refers to the Morgans' long-awaited child and to Andrew's own rebirth as a doctor. He begins the night sunk in disappointment and ends it convinced he has done something real at last.
By the Writory editorial team, reviewed by working writers. Updated September 2026.
Enter a Writory story contest
Enter the Writory Short Story Contest and have your own story read and scored out of 100. Entries close 25 November. That first entry makes you a Writorian.