How Does Hardy Use Language to Create...

b. Melancholy and Wistful Atmosphere?

        There is a clear contrast between happiness and sadness, or melancholy, this is most obvious between the first verse and the third. In the first stanza, positive words like lovers, twinkled, and laughed are used to give the reader an indication of the tone or mood. Whereas in the third stanza, negative words such as drowned, tired, hopeless and despair sets a dark and gloomy tone. When the reader finishes the poem, he or she feels wistful because the beginning of the poem is so happy and romantic but the ending is very depressing and horrifying. There is a longing for the past, as it was so much happier than the present.

c. An Ambiguous Tone Towards Love?

        In the beginning, we feel that love is a very positive thing, and that it can do many wonders. But that is not the only view on love that Hardy gives us, he shows us that love can make people do extreme things, such as dying for a loved one. The phrases that stuck out the most were “his arm around her, they laughed and leant.” , “Drowned herself for love of a man”, So much for love in this mortal sphere!” and “her arm dropt his as they wandered away.”, you can see that as the poem progresses there is a dramatic change in the way the poet sees love as being.

d. A Disturbing Suicide?

        Tension is built up when her suicide is described; the verbs in succession “climbed over; slid down; let go” makes it seem as what she did happened very fast because of the semicolons. It also involves the reader and it appears that they actually saw it happening, although the description is not very in depth, it gets its point across because when you read it, you get the ‘machine gun’ effect. The girl dehumanised by the vocabulary chosen to describe her, the way her arm upbore and how she was described as a dripping body. Usually the word upbore is used to describe animals or inanimate objects and body is used to describe dead things. In this case, the words dripping body emphasize the fact that she is lifeless. Lastly, the line “So much for love in this mortal sphere!” sounds like whoever is saying it is quite pessimistic toward humans and hates life, it also sounds like that they have given up on anything that has to do with love.