Thomas Hardy's "Hap"

After reading Thomas Hardy’s “Hap,” I was left confused and curious with feelings of doom and questions of life’s sufferings.  I could not quite grasp what it is the author is trying to say due to either my unfamiliar with the language or the obscurity in his riddles.  With some research, I was able to better understand, or better come to an understanding of, Hardy’s message in this piece. 

Beginning with the title of “Hap,” and considering it the piece of “happening,” I read that this word was an archaic simile of “chance,” or “luck” (http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/hap). This is quite important in trying to dissect this poem in that Hardy questions whether the existence of such a “vengeful” god is the reason for life’s cruelties.  Hardy presumes that only with the existence of such a god could there be justification for allowing such evils in the world for their own pleasure and “ecstasy, that [the character’s] love’s loss is [the god’s] hate’s profiting.” (1073)

However, uncertainty in such the existence of a god is displayed as we identify the structure of the three stanzas (credit to danamercer.blogspot.com for seeing this).  The “If,” “Then,” “But not so” structure is like that of an argument, leading up to a conclusion.  The first stanza states that “If” there is such a god that has pleasure in his “suffering” and “sorrow,” “Then” he would “bear it, clench… and die” meaning he would accept it for he must submit to that which is more “Powerfuller” who has “willed” his “tears.”  “But [it is] not so.”  Concluding that there does not exist such a God or any God for suffering is but many of nature’s “Hap” events, and thus the importance of the title.  To the character, all of life’s pain and suffering is but a “dicing” or roll of the dice, a gamble rather.  He doesn’t believe in the existence of a god that has “joy [in life’s] slain” and that allows the “unblooms the best hope ever sown.”  What is the purpose of idolizing and turning to such a God that hates us so?  How can there be such a god that is so unjust and morbid?  The final answer is that it is just “Crass Casualty [that] obstructs the sun and rain” due to only chance itself.  This belief is reinforced as Hardy identifies the “Doomsters” as “purblind” as well as their reasons for his “pains.”  Why is “doom” what he encounters although he is searching for the light of god (“my pilgrimage”).  He is unsatisfied with the existence of such a god as he states “Steeled by the sense of ire unmerited.”  He feels so strong in the wrongness of a “vengeful” god that only by “bear[ing] it” and “die[ing]” would he accept this.

The poem is very dramatic as it represents the authors fight with faith and the existence of a God that could allow the sufferings of life.  Conversely, how can there be a God that controls everything, including the free will of humans.  That’s just one of many arguments against a God that would only allow evil as well as good in the world.  Because we are human, and because we have free will, we will always have two sides of the coin, good and evil.  And one cannot exist without the other, for they are dependently defined.  Hardy’s remaining answer is his realization that chance or “Hap” is the defining justification for life’s “Crass Casualty.”  Hardy’s style is indeed representative of the transition from Victorian/Romanticism to modernistic views in that the “good” does not always win and that “things [doesn’t] always happen for a reason” since he considers chance as one of the answers much traditionalist overlook when they consider “purpose” for the answer of all unanswered questions.

(All references are from the text page 1073)

Aside from the one reference of danamercer, all interpretations are those of my own.  The following references were only used as a spark to start my writing of a topic.

See the following references for some interesting views of this piece:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kMXkEroSwxc – Unknown author.  But this video gives a good analysis walk through of the poem and the reader’s own perspectives.

http://danamercer.blogspot.com/2005/03/hardys-hap.html - Blog that gives a detail analysis of the sonnet.