The Convergence of the Twain: Lines on the loss of the "Titanic"

Fiction | Poem | Adult | Published in 1912

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Summary

Background

Poem Analysis

Themes

Symbols & Motifs

Literary Devices

Themes

The Vagaries of Fate

Content Warning: This section includes references to sexual assault and rape.

Hardy’s poem transfers agency away from humans via personification, a poetic device that endows inanimate objects or ideas with human characteristics or abilities. In this case, he rejects the idea that humans could have prevented the catastrophe; rather, he recasts the event as a mythically unavoidable doom that befell two large beings led together by forces far outside human control.

Hardy’s speaker personifies several non-sapient things in the poem: the ship, the fish, the “Immanent Will” (Line 18), and the iceberg. This allows the reader to have an emotional reaction to the events without directly imagining the actual victims’ suffering. The first description of the ship builds on the convention of referring to sea-going vessels with feminine pronouns to imagine that the wreck “stilly couches she” (Line 3) on the ocean floor. The image is that of a woman reclining on a divan, not a metal machine getting torn apart. The poem then casts its eye back to see the ship growing “[i]n stature, grace, and hue” (Line 23)—traits that typically identify women of high status. As Hardy will eventually portray the disaster as a kind of fateful marriage, the ship takes on the bridal characteristics of a young woman, dressed up and sent on her maiden voyage, only to be thwarted by vengeful Fate. The portrayal realigns reader sympathy, deflecting attention from finding culprits and instead highlighting what was lost.

Another key aspect of the poem’s decision to deflect blame from the Titanic’s human operators is Hardy’s foregrounding of mystical forces outside of our control. The anger readers feel about the loss of life is directed instead at “The Spinner of the Years” (Line 31) and its henchman the iceberg, who like a villain, in “shadowy silent distance grew” (Line 24) before it wounds the hull of the ship. The poem portrays the natural phenomenon and the mythical figure of Fate as colluding to take the ship down:

The Immanent Will that stirs and urges everything

VII

Prepared a sinister mate

For her—so gaily great—

A Shape of Ice, for the time far and dissociate (Lines 18-21).

The analogy is that of an ill-suited and malevolent groom, chosen for the wedding by a force that means the ship-bride ill. Seen in this light, the ship’s collision with the iceberg is not the doing of hubristic engineers or an arrogant captain, but instead the inescapable destiny of vulnerable beauty, who despite her “vaingloriousness” (Line 15) didn’t deserve the “intimate welding” (Line 27), or wedding, that brought her down.

The Failure of the Manmade

It is important to know when reading “The Convergence of the Twain” that Hardy was a trained architect who had overseen the construction of churches and residential homes. He understood the necessity of parts working together. While this poem lacks direct expressions of empathy toward the families of the victims of the Titanic—a seemingly strange omission, given that it was written for a relief fundraiser—it does direct anger at the orchestrators of the Titanic’s voyage. Had they more clearly understood the necessity of functional design—having enough lifeboats, for example—the mass loss of life might have been mitigated.

Hardy’s speaker understands that the Titanic was a beautiful feat of building. The poem pays homage to the “steel chambers” (Line 4) that churned with “salamandrine fires” (Line 5), the “mirrors meant / To glass the opulent” (Lines 7-8), the “jewels in joy” (Line 10) with their “sparkles” (Line 12), and the “gilded gear” (Line 14). These flourishes are seen as making the ship “gaily great” (Line 20), rounding out its “stature, grace, and hue” (Line 23). The speaker classifies the ship as “smart” (Line 22), meaning fashionable, and compares to a soaring bird or angel by calling it “this creature of the cleaving wing” (Line 17).

Yet, this is not to last. The force of “the Immanent Will” (Line 18) makes “A Shape of Ice” (Line 21) into the Titanic’s “sinister mate” (Line 19). One way to read this usage of the word “shape” is to see the Will as the greater architect—its icy creation suffered less damage than the product of the shipwrights. While the speaker acknowledges that “no mortal eye could see / The intimate welding of […] later history” (Lines 26-27), the disaster nevertheless hinges on the “Pride” (Line 3) of “human vanity” (Line 2). If less time and money had been spent on what was “designed / To ravish the sensuous mind” (Line 10), and more on practicalities, the disaster may not have been as epic. Instead, the “vaingloriousness” (Line 15) winds up a piece of nonfunctioning architecture, “stilly couche[d]” (Line 3) on the ocean’s bottom, a waste.

Domestic or Sexual Violence

“The Convergence of the Twain” shows the Titanic on the ocean floor, but from the first description, the ship is not portrayed as an inanimate object. Instead, the poem imbues it with the attributes of a young woman; on the seabed, the ship “stilly couches” (Line 3)—diction that connotes a figure in a swoon on a sofa. Rewinding, the poem recasts the wreck as an epic tale of the “intimate welding” (Line 18) of two entities during their first meeting. Because the ship is gendered a “she” (Line 3), critics have studied whether the poem’s sexual violence imagery or “psycho-sexual energy [is] an emanation of Hardy’s own unhappy marriage” (Bergman, Meredith. “‘The Convergence of the Twain’ and Popular Sentiment.” Contemporary Poetry Review, 2012).

The poem’s version of the Titanic on its maiden voyage uses language that correlates with that describing a young woman dressed for a debut. She is decked out in “jewels” (Line 10) and “gilded gear” (Line 14). The “cleaving wing” (Line 17) suggests her smooth movements through the depths of people at an event, while the description of her “stature, grace, and hue” (Line 23) suggests her trained poise. She is fashionable and happy, her appearance designed to “ravish the sensuous mind” (Line 11) of potential suitors who observe her. The turn of phrase here is notably ominous—the “ravish[ment]” (Line 11) of the ship’s appearance, i.e., its deep appeal, is contrasted with the notion of the “ravish[ment]” (Line 11) as a euphemism for rape.

The double meaning presages what follows: The ship meets the worst possible match—a “sinister mate” (Line 19), who waits for her in the “shadowy silent distance” (Line 24), growing in power as it is shaped by otherworldly forces like “The Immanent Will” (Line 18). The speaker then describes the iceberg’s fated penetration into the hull of the ship as a forced “consummation” (Line 33), the conclusion of which, for her, is fatal. While the iceberg remains, the Titanic is portrayed as a woman who has been sexually assaulted.

The Titanic, like other Hardy heroines such as those in Tess of the d’Urbervilles or his poem “The Ruined Maid,” cannot recover. Instead, she rests in “the solitude of the sea” (Line 1), a victim “bleared and black and blind” (Line 12), lying “lightless” (Line 12).