"The Convergence of the Twain" Juxtaposition and Situational Irony

                Thomas Hardy’s “The Convergence of the Twain” is divided into eleven stanzas, or subsections, which are centered around two central ideas that Hardy intends to convey through his employment of juxtaposition and situational irony. In the first five stanzas of the poem, Hardy paints a stark contrast between the lavish manner in which the Titanic was designed to exist and the displeasing reality of its true existence on the floor of the ocean. To accomplish this, Hardy juxtaposes a number of features of the boat as they were intended to exist in comparison to their tarnished state in the depths of the ocean. For example, Hardy writes, “Jewels in joy designed to ravish the sensuous mind lie lightless, all their sparkles bleared and black and blind” (Hardy, 778). In this statement, Hardy creates a juxtaposition that presents the opulence of extravagant jewels meant to dazzle even the richest of passengers in opposition to their dullness and dimness crushed under the great depths of the sea. Hardy also juxtaposes the elegant mirrors meant to reflect the beauty of the ship’s finer passengers against the status of the mirror as it rests on the ocean floor with dumb and indifferent sea-worms tarnishing its beauty. In establishing such stark contrasts, Hardy also highlights the situational irony in the fact that all the features of the Titanic which were manufactured at such great length to exemplify the extravagance of mankind met an immediate fate in the darkness of the deep sea. While one would expect such beautiful structures to please the human eye for years to come, Hardy instead illustrates the situational irony of the ship’s destruction by pointing to the fact that the ship now rested as far away from human contact as possible and could be seen only by dim “moon-eyed” fishes scavenging the ocean floor.

                The second half of the poem from stanzas six to eleven use the same techniques of juxtaposition and situational irony to illustrate another idea related to the sinking of the Titanic: the converged fates of the ship itself with the iceberg which brought about its destruction. In this piece of the poem, Hardy compares the construction of the ship to the simultaneous creation of the iceberg and then proceeds to illustrate how their existences were eventually destined to clash in an imminent yet tragic collision. Hardy best articulates this idea with this statement, “No mortal eye could see the intimate welding of their later history, or sign that they were bent by paths coincident on being anon twin halves of one august event” (Hardy, 779). Hardy therefore utilizes juxtaposition by continually throughout the six stanzas of this portion of the poem comparing the life of the Titanic to the life of the iceberg. This juxtaposition in turn points to the situational irony in the fact that, while most people entertained the misconception that the Titanic was unsinkable, fate led the mighty ship to be struck down on its maiden voyage by an iceberg which had swollen to its own grandeur at the same time that the Titanic itself was constructed. Thus, the full meaning of Hardy’s poem is revealed through juxtaposition and situational irony.