The Convergence of the Twain

"The Convergence of the Twain" by Thomas Hardy

"Or sign that they were bent/ By paths coincident/ On being anon twin halves of one august event," (Hardy, lines 28-30).

"The Convergence of the Twain" was the clearest poem to me from all of the poems from this unit. I noticed the boat shape of the stanzas early on in the reading as I was trying to figure out the purpose of the stanzas. The one thing that left me perplexed was the number of stanzas. To my knowledge, there is no importance of the number eleven to the Titanic. The overall comparison of the Titanic to human vanity spanned the entire poem as if it was an extended metaphor. Although it was not necessarily a comparison in a metaphor, the poem conveyed the comparison between human vanity and the Titanic. As the poem progresses to complete the comparison on the fate of the iceberg meeting the Titanic. The quote above exemplifies this. Just like human vanity is to meet its opponent, the Titanic met its opponent, the iceberg. The overall meaning and message of the poem is conveyed through the comparison that spans the entirety of the poem. The meaning is that the human vanity of the Titanic at the time, will collide with something that will cause a disruption. The symbol of human vanity, the Titanic, met its end with the iceberg and the speaker sees this as a continuing issue for the human society.