As human beings, each individual has a different perspective or stance to achieve life. Our attitudes and mindsets are shaped based on our environment, and the attitude we choose to follow in life sometimes remains difficult because of that environment. Even though our personality and attitude towards life are shaped based on the environment we live in, it is always the individual's choice to live with a pessimistic or optimistic outlook. Many people have a pessimistic outlook on life due to the worries they have encountered in the world. A common example used to describe this would be if the individual sees the glass as half full or half empty. A pessimist would consider the glass half empty. The nature of a pessimist leans towards a negative outlook while an optimist is considered to have a positive outlook towards situations. Humanity has faced many morbid circumstances, from murder and terrorism to the terrors of war, which could lead to a pessimistic point of view. With all of these tragedies that human beings have encountered over time, is pessimism considered a negative outlook or is it a step toward "realism"? Thomas Hardy's outlook on life was based solely on an absolute pessimistic view, according to which human problems were insoluble. With an element of irony in each poem, Thomas Hardy depicted his absolutely pessimistic views on humanity in four poems entitled "Ah, Are You Digging My Grave?" ", "New Year's Eve", "Channel Firing" and "In". Church,” to put forward what he believed to be “realism” and a critique of humanity. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on “Why Violent Video Games Should Not Be Banned”? Get an Original Essay Thomas Hardy's poem "Ah, Do You Dig My Grave" emphasizes the themes of death and disappointment. When thinking about the afterlife, an individual would recognize it as peaceful. However, Hardy's description of the afterlife provides insight into the darkness even after death, caused not by the person's misdeeds but by the self-centeredness of human beings. The poem concocts a paradigm describing the negativity that human beings continue to release into the world. The structure of this poem allows the reader to visualize the circumstances the narrator found himself in and how it led to the disturbing conclusion. The title of the poem explains the narrator's situation. A woman who once faced the reality of death was awakened in her grave because someone disturbed her. “My beloved?” — street planting? “No: yesterday he got married.” When the woman is first disturbed, she thinks it could be her husband, but he already “married” yesterday. Her husband believes that since she is dead, "it can't hurt her now." The first stanza opens by showing the selfishness of a human being and the reality that the wife had to face dealing with her husband with another woman who no longer cares about his deceased wife. The woman tries to guess again by assuming that it is her "nearest relative", but is once again disappointed due to the selfishness of a human being. "No watch of his mound can lose his spirit from the gin of death." His children believe that there is no point in visiting him and bringing flowers to his grave because it will only bring pain to them and not his back. “She thought you were no longer worth her hatred.” Thomas Hardy continues with the woman guessing if it was his enemy, but even his enemy believes that since she is dead there is noreason for them to lose their thoughts on her. From stanza 4 to stanza 6, Thomas Hardy uses the element of irony to demonstrate his message. The woman has given up guessing who is digging her grave and her question is answered by a higher power, I believe. Hardy uses God to emphasize the great disappointment and who the woman had to turn to for her answer. These stanzas are important to the poem because Hardy brought in the aspect of a dog digging the grave. “This true heart has been left behind! ". At first, this suggests a message of hope, as dogs are considered the most loyal animals, full of compassion and known to be man's best friend. They are known to be noble, especially compared to human beings and this is also what the woman believed. “The loyalty of a dog!” However, the dog depicted in the poem depicts the same nature as that of selfish human beings and shows an ironic turn of events. The dog was randomly digging the grave to hide a bone in his path in case he needed it later and he didn't even remember it was his grave. “I completely forgot that this was your resting place.” Thomas Hardy's use of irony conveys an important message about viewing death. The woman remembered her husband, her closest relatives, her enemy and her dog, but now that the woman is dead, no one remembered her or kept her memory alive in visiting him. This shows that once a person is dead, they no longer matter to the world, but the world continues to disturb their graves for its own selfish reasons. With Thomas Hardy questioning the existence and selfishness of human beings, his relationship with God can be seen to have reached a stopping point. In his poem titled “New Year’s Eve,” he presented a message about human existence. The poem is written as a dialogue between God and the narrator which depicts Hardy's instability in maintaining a relationship between his God and himself as he begins to question its existence. “In gray, green, white and brown; I spread the leaf on the lawn, I locked the worm in the root ball. » The first stanza begins with God having completed another successful year on earth, establishing the seasons, the leaves and the living and sealing them in the "clod." The first stanza opens readers to the power of God, where he organizes and manages an entire universe and it seems so simple. “And what’s the point.” The change in his relationship with God can be seen in the second and third stanzas where he questions the need of human beings. I believe this thought stemmed from his pessimistic attitude in life, as it influenced his view of God. “What reason made you call from the void informs this earth that we tread.” He questions why God would create human beings if human beings are the problem and their problems remain insoluble. “No man would have wished to conquer such joy if he had never known it!” Through these lines you can see that Hardy has portrayed the narrator in a way where he believes that if humans had the choice, they would wish they didn't exist. Through the narrator, he presents his negative and pessimistic representation of a world where the joy of living is no longer worth living. When asked these questions, God seems to have no answers and is instead dismayed at how he has "developed a conscience to ask why" and how his creation has exceeded even its limits by "using ethical tests that I do not I have never known, or anticipated, ethical testing. for." The final stanza of the poem shows Hardy's true perspective on God, because even after the narrator questions thereason for human existence, God continues to have no answers and "continued to work always in his gentle way." For most people, religion acts as a blanket of comfort that provides you with answers to all the obstacles and worries you face in your life. Religion can form the basis of our morals and values. Ironically, the perception of God depicted in "New Year" represents a version who is not interested in the problems that humans have created in the world and who turns out to be someone who cannot give any answers to the mess he has created. created, but who is rather content with himself. focuses on doing his job “in his own gentle way.” An absolutely pessimistic narrative is depicted in most of Thomas Hardy's works, as he believes that human problems are insoluble. With the poem “Channel Firing,” Hardy depicts the underlying problem in the world: that of human beings themselves. Human problems remain insoluble as human beings continue to spread negativity on earth that other individuals also encounter and then spread. It's like an epidemic in his eyes, it keeps spreading to the next individual, but how can we stop this perception and actually use human beings for something beneficial to the environment and the earth. The poem begins with the lines “That night your big guns, unknowingly, shook all our coffins as we laid them down. » The dead woke up in their coffins because of the tumult caused outside which made them believe that the day of judgment had arrived. However, after speaking to God, he claims his "sea gunnery training". The loud clamor of human-caused gunfire so disturbed the dead and animals surrounding the area that it broke windows and caused the animals to scream and run away from what they were doing to find a safer space. This shows how significant the impact of the shooting is to have caused so much disruption. Hardy uses the narrative of the dead, just as he did in "Ah, Are You Digging on My Grave", however, he shows a different side of human selfishness and disappointment through "New Year's Eve". “Just like before you went downstairs; The world is as it was: Human beings in this poem are seen as who they always are and "the world is as it was", showing that the same issues that people preached in the past are still the same. the issues that individuals preach but do not pursue in the future. “All nations are striving to make the Red War redder. Mad as hatters, they do no more for the love of Christ than you who are powerless in such matters. Nations and individuals continue to add salt to the wound and make the Red Wars even redder, leading to more bloodshed and violence. It shows that human beings walking on earth are just as incapable of spreading Christ's message of peace and love as are human beings buried underground. And God declares that if it were the day of judgment, then human beings would all be in hell because of their heinous sins committed on earth. There is irony in the sixth stanza as it shows a humorous side of God and his statement "if ever I do" on a day that all human beings know contradicts what people believe. The dead are told to rest, but they continue to wonder if the world "will ever be healthier", implying that individuals are facing the same problems as centuries ago, but that They remain “indifferent” to it. “In our indifferent century”. This.