How Does Hardy convey his reaction to Emmas death in the poems: The Going, After A Journey and I Found Her Out There?

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How Does Hardy convey his reaction to Emma’s death in the poems: “The Going”, “After A Journey” and “I Found Her Out There”?

Thomas Hardy met Emma Gifford on the Northern Cornwall Coast just outside Boscastle. He married her 1874 and was with her till her death in 1912. The majority of his poems explore the mixed feelings he had about her death, mainly blame and disdain for her “leaving him”, remorse for not being more attentive to her and finally letting her go and moving on.  In the three poems “The Going”, “After A Journey” and “I Found Her Out There”, Hardy explores those three emotions respectively, questioning his marriage’s slow downfall and commenting on what became of the Emma he fell in love with.

Hardy expresses his shock over Emma’s death in “The Going”. This is shown through his choice of diction, as he addresses her directly as if she were still alive, suggesting that he is in a state of denial over her untimely passing. He questions her harshly throughout the poem, beginning with the first line, “Why did you give no hint that night…You would close your term here, up and be gone where I could not follow…?” He argues with Emma as if she were with him, accusing her of abandoning him on purpose in order to escape their failing marriage and his neglect. He chides her for never telling him that she was ill, or that she would die, “Never to bid goodbye…”

Hardy explains the pain he feels and the control his wife still has over him, even in her death, as she haunts him. He still feels that she is with him, taunting him and even revealing herself to him, “Why do you make me leave the house and think for a breath it is you I see…?” This shows that though their relationship had failed, he was still tied to her and perhaps resented her even more for that. This contrasts with the younger Emma with whom he fell in love, and describes as, “she who abode by those red-veined rocks…the swan-necked one…reining nigh me…while life unrolled us it’s very best. “ He references the day they first met at Beeny Crest and their return to Cornwall, the former being mentioned in Emma’s own notes; “Scarcely any author and his wife could have had a more romantic meeting”.

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Hardy then reveals his disappointment over not being given the chance to remedy their marriage, this time not only blaming Emma, but himself as well. He again questions her lack of communication; “Why then, latterly did we not speak..?” and entertains the idea that they could have rebuilt their relationship by revisiting “those places that once [they] we visited.” He seeks closure from Emma, wanting to know whether they could have been happy in the end if he had just been given the chance. But he understands that Emma would have withered away even if she had stayed alive, ”Darkening... ...

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