First Assignment

Thomas Hardy's poem, "Hap" is an interesting one. Even though its language is a little difficult to interpret at first, Hardy certainly has a message he wants to get across to the public.

I first noticed the title, which immediately caught my attention, because "hap" isn't a real word. When I looked at it, I thought that hap could have been short for the words, "happy" or "happiness." However, Hardy only left the prefix. Since this poem explains a dichotomy between happiness and sadness, I thought that Hardy expressed that through the title of his poem. The rest of the word, "happiness" is gone, which struck me as a removal of happiness. "Hap" could represent sadness, because the rest of the word, "happiness" isn't there. You remember when you feel depressed more times then you do happy, so I thought that the title represented the lonesomeness or the depression that Hardy was feeling. Being lonely was greater than being happy. The poem reflects uncontrolled emotions and that good things and bad things happen due to chance. The quote, "how arrives it joy lies slain" means that happiness is punished and becomes ruined by an outside force.

Hardy is a pessimist and I found "Hap" similar to "Ah, Are You Digging on My Grave?." Both poems have a certain dark atmosphere surrounding them and both play on the elements of happiness and sadness. In "Ah, Are You Digging on My Grave," death is something that is depressing and sad, but the poem becomes darkly humorous in the end. Both poems lead to a harsh reality. In this poem, it's death and in "Hap," the harsh reality is that good things and bad things do happen to people. Death is uncontrolled and so are chance and time.