The Going - Poetic Method

The Going

Poetic Method:

Narrative Voice (Point of View):

This poem is narrated by Hardy, addressed to his late wife Emma and concentrates on her sudden, unprecedented death. It is almost like a monologue, which poses rhetorical questions throughout. An accusatory and urgent tone persists in almost every stanza.

Structure and Form:

The poem follows a trochaic rhyme scheme, which ultimately breaks in the penultimate stanza. Lines 5-6 of every stanza use an iambic dimeter, and this results in the quickening of pace, thus leading the reader to anticipate a feeling of desperation in the narrative. It is an elegiac poem, as it laments the death of a loved one, and the ambiguous ending of the poem completes the elegiac cycle.

Setting:

Stanza three of the poem talks about the setting of a house; “Where so often at dusk you used to be,” where Emma would stand near an alley in isolation. Again, we are left to determine he In stanza four, Hardy talks about his and Emma’s courtship, and described here are “red-veined rocks far West,” which leads to believe they are journeying on a rocky terrain, somewhere in the west of England.

Language:

The very first word of the poem, “Why” leads us to believe the poet is accusing or blaming someone. The title, “The Going” has connotations of loss and despair, and this suggests Hardy is blaming his wife Emma for her sudden death. The lines “And calmly, as indifferent quite,” implies Emma was simple and not fussy, even in her death. Guilt and remorse fills Hardy when he says, “Unmoved, unknowing,” – it is interesting to note the use of the word ‘unmoved.’ One could argue that this implies Emma’s still figure in death, or that it could also mean the numbness that Hardy felt after her demise.

Hardy uses euphemisms throughout the poem, adding to the colloquial style of narrative. Phrases like, “Where I could not follow,” “You used to be,” and “Close your term here,” clearly show Hardy’s belief in the existence of after-life. We see that Hardy and Emma are on either side of the life-death divide. The theme of loss and death is persistent throughout the poem. The repeated use of ‘you’ in the poem betrays Emma’s isolation in both life and death. We see negativity and darkness in the poem with the lines, “Till in darkening dankness / The yawning blankness” – the lack of punctuation in these rhythmic couplets emphasise Hardy’s emptiness.

In stanza four, Hardy once again analyses the power of nature, and the effect it had on his and Emma’s courtship in happier days. The “red-veined rocks” signify the permanence of nature; one could say that the ‘red-vein’ has connotations of blood continually flowing through a ‘vein’ in the rock, indirectly saying that the rocks are indestructible and will forever remain witness to his love. It is also curious that only once has Hardy physically described Emma in the entire poem – he calls her “swan-necked” – this shows how jumbled his memory has become with age, and to establish this point he personifies “Life”; because those days were the prime of his life. This again brings out the theme of self-pity and we sympathise with the poet.

When in stanza five, Hardy talks about the latter half of the Hardy-Emma relationship, we see a repeated use of the word “we”. This repetition is an authorial intent; the word “we” apportions half of the blame of the failing relationship to Emma, which feminist critics have found abhorrent and self-centred. “Days long dead,” do not talk of Emma’s death, but of the lost days in their relationship, and the remorse Hardy undergoes as he accepts the inevitable passing of time.