Comment closely on the following poem (The Self-Unseeing by Thomas Hardy), paying particular attention to its presentation of memories.
by
moore_orionyahoocom (student)
The Self-Unseeing portrays Hardy reminiscing over his childhood life with his parents. In the first stanza, the setting - their old house - is described in a way that conveys a sense of age and weariness, through such words and phrases as ‘ancient’ (emphasizing the age), ‘footworn and hollowed and thin’ (alluding to the emptiness which has overtaken it through the passage of time after it has been abandoned), ‘former’ (revealing the extent of change in the house, eg. by the door no longer being there), and ‘dead feet’ (those of his parents). At this point in the poem Hardy speaks in the present tense from the outside of the house, in order to convey its emptiness to the reader.
The second stanza ignores these aspects of the house, instead focusing on his memories of his parents, which contrast with the first stanza by filling the house with life and action. A happier mood is created here, through a sense of warmth created by the fire, and his mother’s smile, which, along with his father’s playing the violin (‘bowing it higher and higher’), shows the happiness he felt while living with his parents. The musical effect of the violin is also complemented by that of the smooth-flowing ‘abab‘ rhyme scheme. The present tense verbs ‘smiling’ and ‘bowing’ imply that these memories were vivid, as if by introducing the setting to the reader he is reliving them. Hardy’s reference to his parents using the pronouns ‘she’ and ‘he’ rather than their actual names transforms the personal tragedy of the death of his parents to a universal one to which the reader can more easily relate. However, this tragedy is buried beneath the warm, welcoming mood established by the aforementioned use of language in this stanza. Hardy illuminates these memories in the final stanza with light imagery - ‘blessings’ (which tend to be associated with heaven and therefore light), ‘day’, ‘glowed’, ‘gleam’, which underscore the joyful feelings previously evoked. This use of light imagery serves as a metaphor to reveal how Hardy, ‘childlike’, ‘danced in a dream’, and overall, the diction shows that his memories had a dazzling and pensive quality.
