A beautiful Disaster: The Convergence of the Twain

" In a solitude of the sea
     Deep from human vanity,
And the Pride of Life that planned her, stilly couches she."

One of my favorite poems in this unit was "The Convergence of the Twain" by Thomas Hardy because of the way he conveyed such a well known historic event in a new light. Everyone knows the story of the Titanic which was supposed to be unsinkable and ironically and tragically sunk due to a crash with an iceburg. Many people view it as a horrific freak accident and a tragic love story. However, Hardy depicts the story as a series of inevitable events bound to occur by fate's hand. Hardy discusses how the ship was a huge show of vanity and bragged of its invincibility. He further goes on to say that because of this fate had to step in and correct this by causing it to crash in the iceburg. I especially liked how he compared the lower class passengers and worms and the upper class passengers as jewels, but in the end it didn't matter what they were because they both died. I also liked his insight of how the ugly dull ice chunk and the beautiful ship seemingly had nothing in common, but were then thrown together and literally intertwined in the physical sense and in history. Now when anyone thinks of one, the other is bound to come to mind. His almost accusatory tone describes how the pride of the Titanic led to its ultimate demise.