Compare and contrast After A Journey and The Voice We have been looking at two of Hardy’s poem s in great depth, The Voice and After A Journey.
Compare and contrast After A Journey and The Voice
We have been looking at two of Hardy's poem s in great depth, The Voice and After A Journey. Both of these poems were written by Thomas Hardy, who besides an author was also an architect.
The two poems are set in the countryside. In The Voice, we can see this because of the kind of climate described,
"Wind oozing thin through the thorn from norward."
In After A Journey, we know the poem is set in the countryside because of the scenery described.
"Up the cliff, down, till I'm lonely."
As the poems are set in the countryside it emphasis the fact that we are close to nature. In Hardy's poems, he uses the natural surroundings and happenings to describe the love between the ghost and the speaker, for example, in After A Journey;
"Summer gave us sweets, but autumn wrought division?"
This means that the relationship between the ghost and the speaker was a settled one during summer, but in autumn, they had been separated. This technique is called 'pathetic fallacy'. The setting shows his feelings towards the ghost and the state of mind he is in.
In both the poems, the characters are the same. There is a speaker and a ghost- whom the speaker is talking to, and about.
In, The Voice, the speaker is still in love with the ghost, and he goes to the places where he used to with his love. When he is at the place, he forgets about reality and visualises a scene with his loved one.
He is being led on throughout the poem until he comes to a dead end.
"Woman much missed, how you call to me, call to me."
The speaker comes out of the dream, and breaks it by talking about reality.
"Or is it only the breeze in its listlessness, travelling across the wet mead to me here."
After A Journey, is a poem in which the speaker travels to the past, to finish off an unfinished business. Again, he is still in love with the ghost. He is led on by the ghost, to places which they went together.
"I see what you are doing: you are leading me on, to the spots we knew, when we haunted here together."
The relationship between the ghost and speaker in, After A Journey is a lot more ...
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"Or is it only the breeze in its listlessness, travelling across the wet mead to me here."
After A Journey, is a poem in which the speaker travels to the past, to finish off an unfinished business. Again, he is still in love with the ghost. He is led on by the ghost, to places which they went together.
"I see what you are doing: you are leading me on, to the spots we knew, when we haunted here together."
The relationship between the ghost and speaker in, After A Journey is a lot more positive then the relationship between the ghost and speaker in The Voice. The relationship between the ghost and speaker has been described using the natural climate in both poems. I know that the relationship between the two is a lot more positive in After a Journey then The voice, because the climate used to describe the relationship in After a Journey has a lot more of a loving meaning to it. Whereas in The Voice the climate used to describe the relationship, gives it a disappointing meaning.
" You being ever dissolved to wan wistlessness."
In, After A Journey, the speaker is bought back to the present, and the first thing he talks about is the natural surroundings.
"The waked birds preen and the seals flop lazily".
The main theme in The Voice is obsession. Hardy uses the word 'you' and the words that sound like 'you', such as, 'view, knew, blue', to draw the obsession to our attention. The speaker is so obsessed with the ghost that the words that come out of his mouth show us how obsessed he is.
In After a Journey, the main theme bought up is relationship.
"But all's closed now, despite time's derision".
The speaker believes that once they had a good relationship between them, once they had a bad relationship between them, and now they have no relationship between them. At this moment, the speaker feels very angry and helpless, due to his old age. The speaker feels that as he has grown old so has the relationship he had between himself and the ghost.
Two themes bought up a great deal in both poems are memories and the weather. After a Journey and The Voice are two poems that look at memories of the past with loved ones, and the relationship in both poems has been described in terms of weather and climate.
"And the unseen waters' ejaculations awe me".
This specific quote from After a Journey suggests that there had been misfortune in the relationship between the ghost and speaker, because the quote itself means, the water is being smashed against the rocks. This symbolises the misfortune there might have been in the relationship.
Both of the poems are monologues. Usually a monologue is piece of writing in which somebody has to come to terms with the fact that they are alone. There is a big difference between being alone and lonely.
The ghost in Hardy's poem always reminds the speaker that he is alone and therefore lonely. These poems are monologues, which actually want to be dialogues. He wants to be heard and spoken to.
Hardy uses his architectural skills to help him with his writing.
The structures of the poems are different to one another.
The poem After a Journey is longer then The voice. But crucially, the last stanza in The Voice has a very different structure to rest of the stanzas in the poem. This is because the speaker takes his anger at his old age and weaknesses out on the structure of the poem. Another reason is that, this is the only stanza in The Voice that the speaker talks about himself. Hardy breaks the pattern of the poem to draw our attention to the final stanza, maybe because is has a real feeling to it.
In both poems, the poet uses words and letters repeated often to reveal a sound or an effect. This is called alliteration.
A example of alliteration in After a Journey,
"Whither, o whither".
This expresses the frustration and irritation the speaker feels.
A example of alliteration in The Voice, is:
"Faltering forward".
This shows us the anger the speaker feels towards his old age.
In The Voice, Hardy mis-rhymes the words 'were and 'fair' to emphasise the fact that the speaker has misunderstood something the ghost is saying about their relationship.
After a Journey is a poem with a variety of feelings in it. In the past, we can see that the speaker was deeply in love with the ghost, and there is still no denying that he is. Therefore, he was happy. However, the speaker is very sad in the present because he has no love to cherish and therefore cannot be happy.
Besides happiness and sadness, there is some excitement and gladness involved.
"The bringing me here; nay bring me here again"!
One of the negative feelings is anger, the anger the speaker feels towards his old age.
"Thus I; faltering forward".
In The Voice the second stanza, all the sentences end in 'n'. The 'n' sounds express moods of depression and drowsiness. In this poem there is a point when the speaker sounds very excited.
"Can it be you that I hear"?
But then sounds very depressed again.
"Or is it only the breeze in its listlessness".
Overall, in terms of mood I think it is After a Journey that ends on a more positive note, toward feeling happy.
"Our days were a joy, and our paths through flowers".
Compared with The Voice;
"You being ever dissolved to wan wistlessness, heard no more again far or near."
Both of these poems tell the reader about a particular ghost in the past, which was once loved and cared for. The ghosts in Hardy's poems are different from other ghosts, because they have not come to haunt anyone viciously or violently or for revenge. They have come back for reassurance, unfinished business and to sort out any problems. Ghosts who do not like the sight of anything are normally the ones who come to haunt, but in this case it is a ghost who has passionate feelings for a person, who has come to haunt their minds. At all time through the poems it has been the minds of the speakers controlling the actions taken forward against the ghost. The speakers in both poems have had their minds controlling their thoughts and actions taken towards the ghosts. At all times, there have been visible scenes of the ghost in places where it use to go when it was alive, developing in the minds of the speakers in both poems
"I see what you are doing; you are leading me on the spots we knew, when we haunted here together".
IRAM JANJUA 10S
