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Posted by Mary on September 21, 19103 at 15:15:06:
In Reply to: Hap by Thomas Hardy posted by alaina bertrand on February 13, 19103 at 16:39:03:
: I need a poetry ysis on the poem for a paper due tomorrow! asap
Poetry ysis of Thomas Hardy's "Hap"
By Chris Davidson
In his poem “Hap” Thomas Hardy writes about chance and the random nature of life.
In the first stanza he writes of his desire that “some vengeful god would call to [him]/ From up the sky and laugh.” He wishes that the god would admit to taking joy from the suffering of the lowly mortal. Why does Hardy ask for such a sadistic, vengeful god? Hardy gives his answer in the second stanza of the poem. He writes that the existence of such a god would allow him to bear his sufferings with a feeling of righteous anger, or “ire unmerited.” The existence of such a god would be useful to Hardy because he could direct all his anger created by suffering at one being. It would also ease his suffering to know that “ a powerfuller than [himself]/ had willed and meted me the tears [he] shed.” In other words, Hardy’s suffering would be reduced if only he knew that some force greater than he had caused the suffering he experiences. In the third stanza Hardy laments about the fact that the existence of such a convenient, vengeful god is “not so.” After he states that no malevolent god exists to deal out his sorrows, he asks, “How arrives it joy lies slain,/ and why unblooms the best hope ever sown?” Why should he not be happy if there is no malevolent force preventing it? Why should all his hopes be ruined? Hardy answers his own questions by writing that “Cr Casualty obstructs the sun and rain,/ and dicing time for gladness casts a moan.” In other words, Hardy is saying that only random chance is responsible for his suffering. In the last two lines of his poem he writes about the fact that random chance has indifferently given him as many blessings as sufferings in his life.