Thomas Hardy
Thomas Hardy had an interesting view on things. Many people today believe that if something happens, it happens for a reason. With Hardy’s expression through his poem “Hap” he would NOT be satisfied with just anything taking place in his life. If something took place, it had to take place specifically for him because that’s what made him unique and what made it special. He voices in the first stanza that a ‘god’ could cause vengeance that was specifically for him and it’d be a profit…
If but some vengeful god would call to me
From up the sky, and laugh: “Thou suffering thing,
Know that thy sorrow is thy ecstasy,
That thy love’s loss is my hate’s profiting!”
To gladly accept the intentional suffering of a ‘god’ for personal betterment seems to be a bit of a stretch. For one reason, any type of suffering should not be amusing to God, but then again I am speaking from the beliefs of a Christian. On another note, Hardy seems to have some humor in this piece with emphatic use of enduring pain. For God to powerful, and humans to be weak, it’d be a little ironic for Him to take pleasure by us suffering and make Him weak. And for a human to be “all-powerful and mighty” because he accepts specified suffering seems to be a clever literary spoof on an opposition of roles. Mr. Hardy chose his words carefully and cleverly and I applaud him for this piece. Maybe I’m looking at it wrong, but I feel he did a very good job at being sarcastic on a controversial issue.
3 comments:
LaDonna,
Your post is a bit confusing. I was not convinced by your claims about Hardy's meaning in "Hap," and at times you seemed to project your own religious views and assumptions onto Hardy (though they are probably quite dissimilar).
Hardy wanted someone to blame for his suffering and by blaming God he could justify it by telling himself that he had no power over what God chose to do. But in the end, he decided that plain old dumb luck was the culprit. It was by happenstance that his life turned out the way it did and it was not the work of God.
Sometimes it is too easy to just blame God and I think thats what Hardy was making fun of. When he said he accepted the punishment of God as a building moment I beleive he was making fun of the people who find something positive in all tragic events.
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