Sunday, December 9, 2012

Sound and Sense Chapter 10: The Oxen



                In the poem The Oxen, Thomas Hardy illustrates his disbelief in the Christmas story as an adult, by looking back at a Christmas Eve when he was a child. His tone expresses nostalgia, disbelief and hopefulness by his word choice and description of The Oxen on Christmas Eve. In the first stanza Hardy writes ‘“Now they are all on their knees,” An elder said as we sat in a flock’ (Lines 2-3).  Hardy is looking back at himself as a child, and his willingness to believe what an adult told him, and his amazement of the Christmas story. The word “elder” used to describe the person telling Hardy about The Oxen expresses that the adult is older and wiser. Hardy expresses nostalgia for when he was a child, and when he believed what adults told him without any questions. Hardy expresses his disbelief as an adult: “Nor did it occur to one of us there To doubt they were kneeling then” (Lines 7-8). Hardy explains that adult believed that the oxen were kneeling in the barn because knew that Jesus was holy and important. Hardy doubts the oxen were kneeling for Jesus. The last line of the poem illustrates that Hardy does not want to right about the Oxen, yet he still is trying to be realistic about the Oxen kneeling down for Jesus. Hardy is still hopeful that the Oxen are kneeling: “Hoping it might be so” (Line 16). His hopeful tone is expressed by the way the poem ends with hoping, and that he remember believing that the Oxen kneeling when he was a child.

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