How Hardy Reflects On Darwinism and Examines The Existence Of God

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Happenstance is a word combining happen and circumstance; Thomas Hardy shorthanded the word to “Hap” in order to title a poem, he wrote in 1866 which was not published until 1898. This piece of work is a sonnet, although it is depicted as three stanzas, differing the traditional form which is divided into two, four-line stanzas and a sestet. In “Hap” Hardy reflects on Darwinism and examines the existence of god, but ultimately concludes that god is phantom, leaving life determined by chance.

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The speaker begins the poem questioning whether or not god actually exists. Lines one and two state, “If but some vengeful god would call to me / From up the sky, and laugh; ‘Thou suffering thing.’” Using the word “if” not only contributes to the structure of the poem, but also states that this vengeful god is hypothetical. If you look at lines two and three, “Know that thy sorrow is my ecstasy, / That thy love’s loss is my hate’s profiting!” Hardy is continuing to describe god as someone who takes delight and profits in our pain, and in a way mocking his existence.

Moving on to stanza two, Hardy begins with “then” saying that if there was a god, then he would have someone to blame his pain on. The full line is, “Then would I bear it, clench myself and die”. This line can seem a bit melodramatic, that he would rather die hating god than having no one to blame for his misfortune. But he is trying to feel some emotional consolation, feeling “Half-eased” , in admitting that his pain has been desired by forces in the universe that are greater than himself, and that he has utterly no influence over it.

In the first line of the last stanza, Hardy begins with, “But not so” which is him coming to the realization that god cannot be seen as vengeful because he also brings happiness and “joy” . The speaker points this out to say that having hatred towards god would be unjustified. However, in the volta of the sonnet Hardy says that life is determined by “Crass Casualty-” and uses the word casualty to mean luck, or rather insensitive luck. He describes waiting for the good in life as “dicing” or a gamble that causes us mortals to “moan” with impatience. The next line talks about how “these purblind Doomsters” which literally means “these blurred visions of doom” are no longer as “strown” or scattered, all over the place. He concludes with the line, “Blisses about my pilgrimage as pain.” Using “pain” as the last word emphasizes that Hardy is not particularly happy with his luck or chance, but he will accept it and continue his journey.

Going back to the title, “Hap” is critical to the pessimistic and interpretative tone, because it introduces us to the theme of chance. Published in 1859 was Charles Darwin’s “The Origin of Species” and this poem can be seen as a response to the essential concepts underlining Darwin’s work. Hardy had no desire to dismiss what he believed to be the theory of Darwinism, but he wished to accept it. The structure of this sonnet is in relation to how we process information, “if, then, but” and serves as a reflection of Hardy’s personal, impetus thoughts.

The poem is a hybrid of the Italian and English sonnet forms, opening with a rhyme scheme of ababcdcd rather than abbaabba. The poems rhyme scheme leaves us with an air of uncertainty which benefits the theme of happenstance. When the poem begins, Hardy describes god as vengeful then moves on to conclude there is no god wreaking havoc and gratifying on the pain of humans, but that life is governed by pure chance. These ideals are what Hardy interpreted from what Darwin was presenting in his most recent work at the time.