Today I’m sharing a poem by Thomas Hardy that I often use to demonstrate how quickly a writer can set up an emotionally complex situation.
And also how much energy can be added to any fiction by having differing levels of knowledge among the characters in a scene.
This is the first of Hardy’s ‘Satires of Circumstance’, each of which very quickly gets to an irony.
It is clearly a novelist’s poem. It could be changed into a short story without very much trouble at all. But, as a poem, Hardy works even more swiftly than in prose.
Here it is —
At Tea
The kettle descants in a cosy drone,
And the young wife looks in her husband’s face,
And then at her guest’s, and shows in her own
Her sense that she fills an envied place;
And the visiting lady is all abloom,
And says there was never so sweet a room.
And the happy young housewife does not know
That the woman beside her was first his choice,
Till the fates ordained it could not be so. . . .
Betraying nothing in look or voice
The guest sits smiling and sips her tea,
And he throws her a stray glance yearningly.
Now, imagine we put ourselves around that table, as a fourth person. We’ve admired the furniture. We’ve sipped our tea. We’ve settled back for the social chat.
What is our level of knowledge?
Well, we could know nothing of the husband’s present feelings for the guest, in which case we’d be concentrating on the tea and the cakes and the surface level of the conversation. We’re with the young wife in her ignorance.
In this case, there really isn’t a scene that’s worth paying attention to.
Or, we could know of the husband’s past feelings for the guest, and be watching him closely for signs that they have continued up to this day — which we’re delighted or dismayed to see (having caught the glance) that they definitely have. (The nasty rogue!)
In this case, we are definitely entertained and want to see what happens next.
Or, and this goes beyond the poem, we could know of the guest’s present feelings for the husband as well as his for her. In other words, we could be looking out for how she reacts to the glance — either reflecting his yearning (Yes, but when?) or sending him him a moue of disapproval (How could you?). And we’re tensed to see whether the young wife notices any of this.
In this case, our heads are spinning with all that’s going on, and we are getting close to the complex pleasures of a good short story or a novel.
I’d go as far as to say, this is one of the reasons fiction exists: it allows us to participate in a scene — say, the Ramsay’s dinner party in To The Lighthouse — and to see it from many more angles, and with much greater emotional depth, than we can in real life.
We are also able to enjoy those complexities without feeling we’re betraying anyone.