In “Going and Staying,” Hardy gives us his view of time, and its nature. This lovely little poem is not a mere observation of time, the constant of life, but it is a roadmap, a guidebook to the intricacies of time. It shows us how time flows, its nature, its effect of us, its effect on the world, and even its tripartite structure. The poem, though it is a short 15 lines, packs all of these elements into its metrical form, its formatting, and its other metaphorical and poetic mechanics.

Beginning, the overall theme of the poem, if taken as a whole, is clearly time. Time is the ever-flowing part of our lives, and Hardy gives us that image in the first stanza. Each piece of the poem has something to do with movement or with something temporal. The “moving sun-shapes” let us infer the movement of the sun as a day passes, the brook is flowing, the “moonlit May” again instills the idea of all things being trapped in a temporal universe (ll. 1-5). These images continue in the second and third stanzas with the mentions of “seasons,” “bleed,” and not to mention the words reused from the title: going and staying (ll. 6-7). The third stanza is the most blatant use of time-related language. Hardy confronts time head-on, and even describes Time as something ethereal, something just beyond our grasp, but still active in our lives.

While the words themselves lend us the thematic concerns of time, we can extrapolate that theme to the layout of the poem as well. The poem is in three stanzas, representing the three parts of time: past, present, and future. The first stanza gives us the feeling of good times, of outdoor activities as the sun casts long shadows, the pleasant murmuring of the brook, the cool Spring evenings, “but they were going.” These are pleasant memories of the past, of things since ended. The second stanza takes us into the winter, into the cold and bleak time of year. Everything nice has faded, and in the present, cold reality is what stares us in the face. The final stanza looks forward to the foggy future, and it realizes that what was good then has faded. What is bad now will fade. And in their due course, all things good and bad will fade as one. Hardy’s tripartite poem seems directly related to our attitudes toward tripartite Time. Don’t we often wish for the simpler days of the past, in lieu of the difficult times we are facing now? How much easier is it to cling to the pleasantries of the past instead of focusing on what’s in front of us now? The future, then, is ethereal, is unattainable. We can never live in the future, only in the present, and Hardy’s exactly right: the niceties of the past and the harsh reality of the future will both be obscured by time. The good will be replaced by bad, the bad will be replaced by good, and, to steal from Browning, “God’s in his heaven, and all’s right with the world” (“Pippa Passes”).

Hardy’s meter also gives us a view of his thoughts on the nature of time. Not only do his stanzas tell us of the tripartite structure of time, but also do his metrical tendencies show that tripartite structure, and the subtle differences in those parts. The meter tells us that time is, by and large, regular, plodding ever onward without change; however, sometimes, it may not seem so. Sometimes things take longer than we’d expected. The meter in the first and third stanzas is exactly the same: iambic tetrameter in the first line, the same plus an extra short syllable in the second, iambic tetrameter in the third and fourth lines, and two iambic feet and an extra short syllable in the fifth. The sameness of these two stanzas is akin to the steady pace of time for eternity past and eternity future. In either case, time is fixed, and nothing can make past events closer to the present, and nothing can make the events of the future further away. It’s even, and it’s symmetrical. The further away the past, the closer the future, and vice versa. The middle stanza, however, is unique from the other two.

In the middle paragraph, the measured, symmetrical meter gives way to a more chaotic beat. This stanza has the same basic pattern, but there are a few anomalies. The first line begins with an inverted iambic foot. The second line is almost metrically the same, but just before the last foot, Hardy has added an extra short syllable. Rather than having nine syllables, this second line has ten. The fourth line is almost entirely metrically different. Rather than the strict iambs of the other stanzas, this line is setup this way: inverted, inverted, double long, iamb. Changing the meter for only this stanza, the stanza on the present, shows us that while the underlying structure of Time is the same, the present is chaotic and dynamic. In contrast to the evenness of the past and the future, the present is able to be grasped, to be controlled, and while Time itself will always continue on, the present is less stable than either of the other two pieces of the structure of time.
The rhyme scheme, too, gives us a clue about where to find another statement about the nature and persistence of Time. Each of the three stanzas follows the same rhyming pattern, ABAAB, but the A rhyme is replaced in the two other stanzas. The B rhyme is repeated throughout the poem, and like Time, remains a constant in all parts of our lives. The B rhyme also falls on the same lines in every stanza. This measured consistency is another indication of the easy, measured consistency of Time. Time never changes, its ever-presence

The persistence of the B rhyme is, in itself telling, but it signals another interesting element of the poem which, in yet another way, illustrates Hardy’s insistence that Time does not stand still and is always flowing. Looking at the B rhymed words, all of them end with –ing. Grammatically, verbs ending in –ing are participles, which implies a continuation of action, whether relegated to the past, or continuing from past to present, or even continuing from the present on into the future. It’s this repetition of description of continuing action that gives us the sense that all of these events are taking place in some temporal structure, and the fact that it’s continuing necessarily means that time is moving around and through whatever action that may be. The repeated participial verbs give the poem a sense of motion, and that motion is the inescapable flowing of the great river of Time.
Hardy wanted to illustrate to us the nature of Time, and its multi-faceted structure. Hardy’s comments on time permeate the poem, from the overt in the diction itself to the clandestine and subtle in the rhyming pattern, the meter, even in individual metric feet. The poem is rich with comments on time, and what may seem like a simple musing on the flow of time, is actually a deep, meditative, intentional look at time, its features, its nature, and its structure.

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.

Just recently, I finished reading Ray Bradbury’s Dandelion Wine. The novel is a touching picaresque jaunt through the summer of a twelve-year-old boy in Green Town, IL. Douglas, the boy, is like any young boy, wanting adventure and fun, seeing magic in everything and being often faced with situations with which he suddenly sees differently than before.

In fact, Doug Spaulding documents his new wisdom in a “yellow nickle tablet,” labled “Discoveries and Revelations.” This something old / something new notebook opens a gateway into the mind of the young boy, as stated with the notebook’s introduction in the book:

The reason why grownups and kids fight is because they belong to separate races. Look at them, different from us. Look at us, different from them. Separate races, and ‘never the twain shall meet.’

A little later, after in incident involving one of the town’s nonagenarians, Tom comes to a “revelation” about the nature of older people:

‘…That’s brilliant! It’s true. Old people never were children!’
‘And it’s kind of sad,’ said Tom, sitting still, ‘There’s nothing we can do to help them.’

The fact is, really, in the eyes of most children, they’re right right. Adults and children really are two different races, and they never resembled each other, but what happens over the course of the novel, Douglas finds himself in situations in which his revelations are more and more “Adult” race and less and less “Child” race.

In a couple days, I’ll outline some of the changes, so check your feeders for part 2, coming soon.

In The Awakening, Kate Chopin paints a masterpiece of the Creole culture, and one woman’s struggle to survive in it. Edna Pontellier, the story’s protagonist, undergoes an awakening. She is transformed from the confused, soft, delicate, little flower of LeoncePontellier into an independent, artistic, free woman of the world. Almost. Edna, even when she asserted her freedom, was powerless, unable to overcome her culture. In her desperation, she takes the only action she feels that she has left: She swims way out into the ocean to drown. Her suicide depicts the hopelessness of the whole struggle, of her inescapable powerlessness. What if, however, Edna wasn’t so powerless after all? Edna’s position as a woman afforded her great power, not a dearth of it. She held sway over men more than she was aware, and her suicide was a rash decision, which ultimately made Edna her own greatest foil. Chopin goes to great lengths to impress upon her audience the stark hopelessness of the woman of that culture, but the text unravels around the assumed helplessness of women, showing Edna to be, in fact, a woman of great power, even if she never realizes it.

The Awakening is really told in three parts. The first details the, ostensibly, sleeping Edna Pontellier. She is quiet, submissive, if a little lost in the Creole culture in which she’s found herself. She has within her “[a]n indescribable oppression, which…” sets as early as the third chapter the tone of her hopelessness and her powerlessness. The oppression she felt was involuntary, a result of her husband’s reproach of her “habitual neglect of the children,” (8). She was supposed to be, according to her culture, the quintessential “mother-woman,” who “idolized [her] children, worshiped [her] husband, and esteem[es] it a holy privilege to efface themselves as individuals…” (10). The whole of the culture told her she was powerless, but at the same time, Chopin tells us that Mr. Pontellier is discouraged that his wife, “the sole object of his existence,” sometimes failed to pay the utmost attention to him. Traditionally, the reading of that passage places Edna no higher than an esteemed possession (Pokin), especially in light of Leonce’shaving looked at her like “one looks at a valuable piece of personal property which has suffered some damage.” Leonce is merely making an observation on her appearance, and as such, an appraising look is certainly not inappropriate. If Leonce is discouraged by her inattention, he cannot really view her as a piece of furniture or property. One cannot reasonably expect property to be attentive, as it just exists. If that is the case, Leonce cannot think that way about his wife.

As for being the “sole object of his existence,” Edna, then, holds an extremely powerful position in regard to Leonce. Rather than being merely an esteemed possession, she is the very anchor to Leonce’s existence, and without her, his very self would be in jeopardy. Edna has much more power than she thinks she does, especially over the men in her life, who were supposed to be the objects of her worship and adoration. It seems the tables could easily be turned, and Edna could be the object of such adoration, but she just doesnot know it.

Next, we see the awakened Edna Pontellier. During Edna’s awakened period, the narrator of the story grasps the power that Edna really has. Chapter XXXVI contains the small, but in no way insignificant paragraph around which the whole of the story deconstructs. The narrator says, “Her seductive voice, together with his great love for her, had enthralled his senses, had deprived him of every impulse but the longing to hold her and keep her.” Even with just the power of femininity, Edna had Robert, as it states, enthralled. She holds a lot of power over the men in her life. In light of this passage, Edna’s importance in Leonce’s life is made even clearer. The real problem, though, is Edna doesn’t realize her power. She doesn’t realize the sway she holds over men through her femininity, and as a result, she endures undue and ultimately meaningless feelings of oppression. She lives her life in constant unhappiness because she’s trapped in her situation, but in reality, she is not trapped at all; she just does not know what power she holds.

The final part of the story is Edna’s refusal to recognize her power and her subsequent suicide. She becomes so disgusted with her life that she swims as far out into the ocean as possible and drowns there. She threw away any power that she may have held, in favor of death. That teaches nothing and holds no significant meaning to life or to anything else. She was merely another person who gave up on what she saw as an impossible situation. She was not as powerless as she thought she was, nor was she as powerless as Chopin would make her out to be, but she gave up anyways. This is not so much a story about the plight of women, then;rather, the story is an exercise in futility.

Another aspect of the story which raises questions of the validity of its meaning is the contradictory advice that Edna receives from Mms. Reisz and Mrs. Ratignolle. On the one hand, Madame Ratignolle speaks of duty and the proper place of a Creole wife, but on the other hand, Mme. Reisz tells Edna that she should follow her dreams, and express herself. This inner struggle is key to the progression of the novel as Edna begins to follow the latter piece of advice instead of the former. Of course, Edna cannot know the result of choosing one over the other; however, the reader is able to glean the lesson: the situation is utter hopelessness. The choice, then, is merely semantic. If she stays with Leonce, she is stuck with a life of dissatisfaction, oppression, and desperation. If she goes out on her own to live her life of freedom and art, she is doomed to poverty and ostracism, and ultimately, death. The choice presented is a false dichotomy, and as such, the very notion of “choice” is meaningless.
The choice is meaningless because the very concepts that Mrs. Ratignolle and Mms. Reisz are trying to extol upon Edna are so indefinable that they really say nothing at all. “Duty” and “art” are dynamic and fluid terms and as such, cannot impart any universal truths. Edna Pontellier died for the sake of nothing.

Even if Edna held no power but her femininity, she still had control over her own life. Even though the choice between oppression and death is meaningless, the actual act of committing suicide shows a great force of power. The choice to live or die is entirely hers, and no one can take that away. The novel portrays her suicide as being an act of desperation, of hopelessness, of giving into her powerlessness. In actuality, that’s the greatest amount of power a person can have. She had the power over life and death, and she exercised that power. While her death may have been for a meaningless cause, it still shows a great amount of power in her life, which contradicts the privileged message of the text.

If the story was supposed to impart the “truth” of the hopeless plight of the women of the Creole culture, it has failed. The story, through its ambiguities and contradictory language, has, in fact, shown how empowered Edna Pontellier was, not how oppressed and helpless she was. Her power lay in her womanhood, she just never realized it. She was also led astray by two women who filled her head with notions of “duty” and “art,” and while the art was more appealing, neither of them held any real meaning. Who can define art, beauty, freedom, duty, or oppression, for that matter? The standards of all of these words have changed repeatedly though history, and what force makes them solid, concrete now? Cannot art be the proper rearing of one’s children? Cannot oppression be living a life alone? Cannot duty be doing what’s best for one’s self? The language is ambiguous, and the story contradicts its own purported meaning by giving Edna Pontellier immense power over her life. In the end, The Awakening says nothing because its foundation is too shaky to support the weight of any real truth.

If you’ve got any suggestions or questions, feel free to email me at tyler (at) tylerfontaine (dot) com.

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