Thomas Hardy’s Pessimistic Views in His Poems

As human beings, each individual has a different perspective or stance at attaining life. Our attitudes and our mindsets are shaped around our surroundings, and the attitude we choose to follow in life remains difficult at times due to those surroundings. Even though our personality and our stance at life is shaped according to the environment we live in, it is still an individual’s choice to either live with a pessimistic or optimistic view. Many people channel a pessimistic view in life due to the trepidations they have encountered in the world. A common example used to describe this would be if the individual sees the glass as half full or half empty. A pessimist would view the glass as half empty. A pessimist’s nature leans towards a negative perspective while an optimist is considered to have a positive perspective toward situations. There have been many morbid circumstances mankind has encountered, from killings and terrorism, all the way to the terrors of war which could lead to a pessimistic viewpoint. With all these tragedies human beings have encountered throughout time, is pessimism considered as a negative perspective or is it a step towards ‘realism?’ Thomas Hardy’s perspective on life was purely based through an absolute pessimistic view where he believed that human problems are insolvable. With an the element of an ironic twist in each poem, Thomas Hardy portrayed his absolute pessimistic views about humanity in four poems titled “Ah, Are You Digging on My Grave?,” “New Year’s Eve,” “Channel Firing” and “In Church,” to bring forward what he believed was ‘realism’ and a critique of mankind.

Thomas Hardy’s poem “Ah, Are You Digging on My Grave” emphasizes on the themes of death and disappointment. When thinking of the afterlife, an individual would recognize it as being peaceful, however, Hardy’s depiction of the afterlife gives an insight to darkness even after death, not caused by the persons misdoings but by the egocentrism of human beings. The poem concocts a paradigm portraying the negativity human beings keep releasing into the world. The structure of them poem allows the reader to visualize the circumstances the narrator was in and how it led to the perturbing conclusion. The title of the poem explains the situation of the narrator. A woman who has already faced the reality of death has been woken in her grave due to someone disturbing it. “My loved one? — planting rue? — No: yesterday he went to wed”. When the woman is first disturbed, she believes that it may be her husband, however, her husband already ‘went to wed’ yesterday. Her husband believes that since she is dead “it cannot hurt her now.”

The first stanza opens with showing the selfishness of a human being and the reality the woman had to face of her husband with another woman not caring about his dead wife anymore. The woman tries to guess another time by assuming it is her “nearest dearest kin” however, she is disappointed yet again due to the selfishness of a human being. “No tendance of her mound can loose Her spirit from death’s gin.” Her children believe that there is no point of visiting and bringing flowers to her grave as it will only bring them pain and not her back. “She thought you no more worth her hate”. Thomas Hardy continues with the woman guessing if it was her enemy but even her enemy believes that since she is dead there is no reason for them to waste their thoughts on her. Beginning from stanza 4 ending at stanza 6, Thomas Hardy uses the element of irony to demonstrate his message. The woman has given up in guessing who is digging at her grave and her question is answered by a higher power I believe. Hardy uses God to highlight the great disappointment and who the woman had to turn to, to get her answer. These stanzas are significant to the poem due to Hardy bringing the aspect of a dog digging at the grave. “That one true heart was left behind!”. At first it suggests a hopeful message as dogs are considered to be the most loyal animals, ones that are full of compassion and are known to be a man’s best friend. They are known to be noble, especially compared to human beings and that is what the woman believed as well. “A dog’s fidelity!”. However the dog represented in the poem depicts the same nature as that of selfish human beings and shows an ironic twist in events. The dog was digging at the grave by chance to hide a bone along his way in case he needed it later and he did not even remember that it was her grave. “I quite forgot It was your resting place”. Thomas Hardy’s use of irony portrayed a significant message on the outlook on death. The woman remembered her husband, her nearest dearest kin, her enemy and her dog however now that the woman is dead, no one remembered her or kept her memory alive by visiting her. It shows that once a person is dead, he no longer is of significance to the world, however, the world continues to disturb their graves for their own selfish reasons.

With Thomas Hardy questioning the existence and the selfishness of human beings, his relationship with God can be seen to have hit a stop point. In his poem entitled “New Year’s Eve” he brought forward a message of human existence. The poem is written as a dialogue between God and the narrator which portrays Hardy’s instability of maintaining a relationship between his God and himself as he begins to question one’s existence. “In grey, green, white, and brown; I have strewn the leaf upon the sod, sealed up the worm within the clod”. The first stanza begins with God having finished another successful year of earth, setting up the seasons, the leaves and the living and sealing them in the ‘clod.’ The first stanza opens the readers to power of God, where he arranges and manages a whole universe and it seems so simple. “And what’s the good of it”. The shift in his relationship with God can be seen with the second and third stanza’s where he questions the need for human beings. I believe this thought derives from his pessimistic attitude in life as it has influenced his views on God. “What reason made you call From formless void this earth we tread”. He questions why God would create human beings if human beings are the problem and their problems remain unsolvable. “Such joy no man had wished to win if he had never known!”. Through these lines, you can see that Hardy has portrayed the narrator in a way where he believes that if humans had a choice they would wish not to exist. Through the narrator he brings forward his negative and pessimistic portrayal of the world, where the joy of life is no longer worth living for. When presented with these questions, God seems to have no answer and instead is appalled how he “evolved a Consciousness To ask for reasons why” and how his creation has exceeded even his limits by “use ethics tests that I never knew, Or made provision for.” The last stanza of the poem shows Hardy’s true perspective on God as even after the narrator questions the reason for human existence, God continues to have no answer and “went on working evermore In his unweeting way.” For most people, religion acts as a blanket of comfort providing you with answers for all the obstacles and worries you face in your life. Religion can set up the basis of our morals and values. However ironically, the perception of God portrayed in “New Year’s Eve” represents a version that is not interested in the issues humans have created in the world and proves to be someone who can give no answers to the mess he has created, rather, he is focused on getting his job done in his ‘unweeting way.’

An absolute pessimistic narrative is portrayed in most of Thomas Hardy’s works as he believes human problems are insolvable. With the poem “Channel Firing,” Hardy depicts the underlaying issue in the world and that is human beings themselves. Human problems remain insolvable as human beings continue their ways of spreading negativity onto the earth which other individuals also encounter and then spread. Its like an epidemic in his eyes, it keeps spreading on to the next individual, but how do we stop this perception and actually use human beings for something beneficial to the environment and earth. The poem begins with the lines “That night your great guns, unawares, Shook all our coffins as we lay.” The dead have woken up in their coffins due to the uproar caused outside leading them to believe that Judgement day has arrived. However, after having spoken to God, he claims its ‘gunnery practice out at sea.” The loud clamors of firing caused by human beings disrupted the dead and the animals surrounding the area so significantly that it breaks windows and causes animals to howl and scurry from what they’re doing to find a safer space. It shows how significant the impact of the firing is to have caused so much disruption. Hardy uses the narrative of the dead, just like he did in “Ah, Are You Digging on My Grave,” however, he shows a different aspect to human selfishness and disappointment through “New Year’s Eve.” “Just as before you went below; The world is as it used to be:”.

Human beings in this poem are seen to be what they always are and ‘the world is as it used to be,’ showing that the same issues people preached in the past are still the same issues individuals are preaching yet not pursuing in the future. “All nations striving strong to make Red war yet redder. Mad as hatters They do no more for Christes sake Than you who are helpless in such matters.” Nations and individuals continue to put salt to the wound and continue to make red wars even redder leading to more bloodshed and violence. He shows that the human beings walking around on earth are as incapable of spreading Christs message of peace and love as the human beings buried underground are. And God states that if this was judgement day, then human beings would all be in hell due to their heinous sins made in earth. There is irony present in the sixth stanza as it shows a humorous side to God and him stating ‘if indeed I ever do’ to a day all human beings know of contradicts what people believe. The dead are told to go back to rest but continue to wonder whether the world “Will the world ever be saner” implying that individuals face the same issues they did centuries ago however they remain ‘indifferent’ to it. “In our indifferent century”. This poem was written before World War One and Hardy’s message was to show that our world has been indifferent to the violence, we live in it yet choose to do nothing about it as war was present in the past as well as the coming future with human beings continuing to repeat their mistakes. Hardy brings forward a realistic approach to identifying the main issue and accepting the fact that the nature of human beings has not changed.

We choose to believe that important figures we look up to in our lives are people of stature, they are noble, and they are truthful. However, Hardy wanted people to realize and get out of their positive perceptions of beings so that they can focus on what is real and in dire need of attention. Through the poem titled “In Church,” Hardy struck a negative situation for people to actually take into account the saying ‘don’t judge a book by its cover.’ A human being can wear several masks on their face to cover up their true selves from other people, however, behind closed doors in one’s privacy, they are permitted to behave as they please. Now this perception can be seen as negative or positive. Not all individuals are bad, and not all individuals will behave in a peculiar way, however, Hardy wanted to highlight that there are some people who will behave in an unusual manner. “And his voice thrills up to the topmost tiles: Each listener chokes as he bows and bends, emotion pervades the crowded aisles.” In the first stanza of the poem renders a powerful image of God and his people, specifically the preacher who has made a significant impact on the crowd with the words of God. In this stanza the preacher is seen as highly as God which personifies him to be a person of stature, noble, and most of all truthful as he is a person of God who people rely on. “And shuts it, and thinks he is seen no more.” However in the second stanza shows an ironic twist, once the preacher is behind closed doors he behaves as his true self as he believes no one can see him. When the girl who takes his Bible class see’s the preacher reenact the sermon she is left baffled as she idolized him and perceived him to be noble, truthful and of stature, to be one “without gloss or guile”. The preacher in the first stanza is characterized in a perspective that makes you perceive him as a person of high stature and isn’t portrayed as deceitful, however, that same person showed a side that was real to him but a mockery to the girl who idolized him as she believed him to be an honest man who knew what he was teaching. Hardy’s use of the character of a preacher is to highlight the significance of the downward spiral human beings are on. Someone who is so highly noted can also be seen taking part in a deceitful activity leaves no hope for regular people.

Throughout time, individuals have been told that it’s okay to make mistakes as we learn and grow to become a better people from those mistakes. However, in Thomas Hardy’s perspective, he believes that human beings are incapable of learning from their mistakes therefore their problems remain unsolvable. Through the four poems titled “Ah, Are You Digging on My Grave?,” “New Year’s Eve,” “Channel Firing” and “In Church,” Thomas Hardy conveyed messages and issues that are important in the world. These four poems weighed heavily on a pessimistic perspective, presenting different cases on how human beings are the problem for their own issues. Many refer to a pessimistic approach as a negative approach, however, with these poems Hardy presented a narrative of realism with the use of irony, trying to evoke the society of the harsh reality of individuals. The element of irony plays a significant impact to the structural stance of the poems as it creates elements of hope but brings it down to shreds with humor forcing us to realize the true nature of a being. Each poem depicts a time in his life where he was questioning himself and his beliefs due to the menace that’s about to strike and he brings his viewpoints forward with a realistic and pessimistic approach.