I thought this poem would be interesting to analyze. After reading it, I came away with the feeling that I had just watched the movie “Titanic”. Within every stanza, he adds excellent imagery. I also like the title of the poem. It is as if the author is setting the scene for some type of competition. He uses the imagery to paint a picture for readers so that they can get a better feel for the power of the iceberg. The iceberg was just as large as the Titanic. “And as the smart ship grew in stature, grace, and hue, in shadowy silent distance grew the Iceberg too” (22-24). How can something as structurally sound as the Titanic succumb to a big ice cube? With his imagery, I am able to see the glimmer of hope fading from the passengers as they struggle to overcome the fear of crashing into the iceberg. No matter what, their fate is sealed and there is nothing can change it. It is by chance that something like this would happen. Even more ironically, whenever the Titanic is mentioned, it is not without mentioning the iceberg. The two are joined at the hip so to speak.
Finally, I think Hardy was trying to tell readers that nature is truly a force to be reckoned with. No matter how much wealth, time, and effort goes into the construction of our manmade objects, they are still no match for the power of nature. This is so evident with the natural disasters that are constantly happening today. Never before have we witnessed so many, so frequently, and so powerful.
Reggie,
ReplyDeleteGood point that we can't think of the ship the Titanic without thinking of the movie. In your discussion of Hardy's poem, though, I wish you had spent more time talking about the significant differences between this account of the ship and its sinking and James Cameron's movie. Hardy doesn't really seem to care much for the people and loss or life, for instance!