Fate and Freewill in Thomas Hardy

Here are some thoughts on a couple of Thomas Hardy’s poems.  Enjoy!

Thomas Hardy’s poetry plays with the metaphysical aspects of our world: time, fate, free will, among others.  By and large, the verdict seems to be against the will of man, and the events of our lives are but circumstances brought on by fate, mere consequences of a “Powerfuller” than ourselves’ tosses of his dice or whim.  Although, occasionally, human choice is championed, if not so far as to change our circumstances, certainly as far as adapting to such circumstances as may come our way.

First of all, Hardy’s “Going and Staying” gives us a glimpse of Hardy’s insistence on the transitory nature of the world around us.  Alternately, the reading could be that humans are the transitory objects. With either reading, humans have no choice in things.  In “Going and Staying,” a constant flow cannot be denied: the final lines of each stanza make that stance clear enough. “Going,” “staying,” “dissolving”—each of these imply movement; however, the movement is not relegated to either time or humans solely.  The first stanza seems to imply that it is time what moves, with the “sun-shapes” moving “on the spray,” and such thing were things that we (humans) “wished would stay;/ But they were going.” In this instance, we are stuck still while the things we want vanish. Their movement is not controlled by us, but it happens all the same.  The second stanza is similar. When the bad things come, we’re likewise stuck with them, and we wish they “would go;/ But they were staying.”  In this case, also, we’ve got no choice in the matter; we’re stuck with the bad. The metaphor can read either way: we’re stuck floating along in time without being able to choose where we stop or tarry, or we’re stuck in place, with time flowing around us, without our being able to control it.  The result is the same: we’re helpless, and all things, good and bad, just happen to us.  There’s hope, though, in the final stanza.  While all things remain transitory, this includes the bad as well as the good, and we are not doomed to spend an eternity enduring any one state.

“Coming and Going” isn’t the only piece of Hardy’s oeuvre which leaves us with a less-than-stellar view of our status in the universe. “Hap” also has a rather glib view of the ability of man to effect change in his own life.  Indeed, the title even lends itself to a certain bias: “Hap,” as in “happening” or “happenstance,” is already indicative.  Indeed, the poem leaves no large doubt as to its verdict: man is a plaything of the gods, and there’s nothing about his circumstance he’s in control of.  The third line gives the whole thing away.  “Know that thy sorrow is my ecstasy,” the speaker wishes the gods to say.  Similarly, the final two lines also succinctly give the answer to the question of man’s free will: “These purblind Doomsters had as readily strown/ Blisses about my pilgrimage as pain.”  In either case, human kind is really stuck with the predetermined events of our lives.  In fact, to make matters worse, the god he wishes would reveal himself as some grand tormentor doesn’t even exist.  The speaker wants a point to focus his angst, but even in admitting that such a point does not exist, he does not admit to having anything whatever to do with the events of his life.  God or no god, fate rules the day.

“Going and Staying” and “Hap” do not entirely agree, though.  The final stanza of “Going and Staying” offers us a place to focus our attention: on the revolving “ghostly arms” of Time.  “Hap” wishes for such a point, but states that point does not exist.  Despite the disagreement between the two poems on the existence of a specific higher power, they both relegate man to the position of passenger.  Man does not captain the boat on the river of time, and through the fjords of life.  Freewill, then, isn’t given a chance, and our lives are entirely predicated on fate. Right?

The second stanza of “Hap” while on its surface and continuation of the wishes for the god, that focusing point, actually gives a slightly different view of the role of man in the universe.  The message isn’t so much in the words themselves, as in their implications.  Upon hearing that all of the speaker’s problems are the cause of “some vengeful god,” the speaker “then would I bear, and clench myself, and die….”  The speaker would be “steeled” and “half-eased,” even.  What this implies is that even given what the speaker considers a negative situation, he would find some solace.  The only way, it seems, to find solace in an admittedly bad situation is to find it, which is an action, an exertion of force.  If that’s the case, even if the situation is out of one’s control, one can still choose how to react to such a situation.  The speaker is in what he sees as a bad situation; however, he has found a way by which he can find relief, even if he becomes “half-eased.”  Even though his method of escape from his problems does not exist in actuality, it does champion the human’s ability to hope, to see another side of one’s situation.

Overall, freewill isn’t really existent in these two examples of Hardy’s work, and the feeling is largely deterministic.  Time either moves on without you, or moves you on down, without regard to what you might want. The circumstances we find ourselves in have been predetermined, and there’s nothing that we can do about it, but we can find a method of escape. We can change our view and our feelings about the situation.  While we may not be able to captain the ship of our lives, we can at least choose our seat.