Thomas Hardy's poem "The Convergence of the Twain" can be analyzed in a number of different ways. The paper I chose to prepare follows the reader response format. One of the aspects of this format includes finding meaning from the organization of the text itself. In this particular poem the organization is very unique and very much a part of the interpretation of the poem. I am also using the interpretations of these lines to write my own explanation of the entire meaning of the poem.
             As for a strict word for word explanation of the poem, it is basically a description of the sinking of the Titanic. Everyone knows that on April 14, 1912 the largest ship afloat, the Titanic, collided with a mammoth iceberg in the North Atlantic and subsequently sunk into the sea. This poem seems to take place a few years after the sinking, looking back at how it all happened. The first six lines of the poem state that the great ship is deep underwater or as Hardy puts it, "In a solitude of the sea Deep from human vanity." He then goes on the describe the ship as it lies underwater; "Over the mirrors meant To glass the opulent The sea worm crawls- grotesque, slimed, dumb, indifferent"(lines 7-9). These last three lines described a sea creature crawling through the ship as if it were a part of the ocean floor itself.
             In lines 13-15 a fish finds itself staring at this massive vessel and asks the question, "What does this vaingloriousness down here?" The answer to this question is addressed in the following nine lines. "While (humans) was fashioning This creature of cleaving wing, The Immanent Will that stirs and urges everything Prepared a sinister mate For her -so gaily great- a Shape of Ice, for the time far and dissociate"(lines 16-21). It is in those last six lines that a new character was introduced. This character is God, and a very vengeful God at that. It seems that while the huma
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