Thomas Hardy

Thomas Hardy’s pessimism directly contrasts the optimism of the Victorian age. Whereas they saw progress, he saw, as mentioned in podcast #14, that “there is no bad without a worse.” His pessimism could stem from his lack of faith; again, a quality that puts him at odds with the Industrial society and its firm beliefs. His occupation as an architect that renovated churches is especially ironic, considering his religious views. However, his lack of faith was accompanied by a strong desire for faith. He wanted the religious comfort that the believers enjoyed. Instead, he was constantly torn between his desire for belief and his view of the universe as uncaring.

Hardy evidences this struggle in “Hap.” The title is a reference to Hardy’s worldview; his lack of faith has led him to believe in a lack of purpose as well. If there is no guiding principle, all is just happenstance, or “hap.” Hardy’s pessimism is exposed in the first stanza, “If but some vengeful god would call to me. From up the sky, and laugh: ‘Thou suffering thing,/Know that they sorrow is my ecstasy,/That thy love’s loss is my hate’s profiting” (lines 1-4). He longs to know that what he goes through in life is worth something, even if he were nothing but a marionette. The idea that human beings simply live and die is intolerable to Hardy. There is too much feeling involved in the process for it all to amount to nothing; wasted emotion is very frustrating. Suffering, sorrow, and love are some of the deepest human experiences, and they seem to lack a point if the end is to be six feet underground rotting away.

Hardy discusses the comfort he seeks in the second stanza. He explains that knowing of a divine plan would make life much more bearable, “Then would I bear it, clench myself, and die,/Steeled by the sense of ire unmerited;/Half-eased in that a Powerfuller than I/Had willed and meted me the tears I shed.” (lines 5-8). The reassurance he searches for comes from surrendering his life to a higher power’s whims. What scares Hardy, surprisingly, is the idea he might be in charge of his own life. He could deal with it if his misfortunes were dealt by some being with power over him. However, the idea that perhaps he made his own destiny does not cross his mind. Maybe he feels that there were events in his life that he had no control over. Yet the fact remains that people make a good many choices every day: what to eat, whom to talk with, when and how much to exercise, what to read, whether to pray and about what to pray. All of these daily decisions have profound impacts on our health, be it physical, social, mental, or spiritual and our fitness in each of these areas greatly affects our overall mood and outlook on life. I think part of Hardy’s problem is that he has a victim complex and does not want to own up to the decisions he has made and their direct impacts upon his life.

The final stanza explains Hardy’s current faithless, pessimistic worldview. He has found no evidence of purpose, and it depresses him, “But not so. How arrives it joy lies slain,/And why unblooms the best hope ever sown?” (lines 9-10). Instead of a religious god or gods directing events on earth, Hardy instead personifies Causality and Time signifying again that everything happens by chance. Causality, or the cause and effect relationship, is “crass” and “obstructs the sun and rain” (line 11). Hardy is offended that the universe is insensitive and there seems no pattern to the sun and rain. Time does not seem to care at what stage of life one is at, “dicing”, it “for gladness casts a moan” (line 12). Hardy sees Time as a gambler who rolls dice to decide his life’s direction. Any chance that the reader thought Causality and Time had any sympathies for the human condition are dispelled with the christening of the pair as “purblind Doomsters” (line 13). They are not attentive to the human condition, as they can only see half of it, being “purblind.” Indeed, they really cannot see what they are doing and so have “as readily strown/ Blisses about my pilgrimage as pain” (line 14).

Yet Hardy’s hope for faith is present even as he explains in the final line that blisses and pain are doled out at a happenstance, because he describes life as a “pilgrimage.” If Hardy truly believes life is nothing but chance, why call not call it a journey or an excursion or some other such synonym? The word “pilgrimage” has religious and purpose-driven undertones. Pilgrimages are acts of devotion, with a specific deity and destination kept constantly in mind. So although Hardy maintains throughout the poem that life has no real meaning, his indecision comes out at the end. He believes in chance and yet clings to hopes of order and purpose.

* “Hap” is on page 1073 of our anthology.