The sinking of the Titanic shocked many around the world and brought the idea of perfection to the forefront of people’s minds. How can something so indestructible and beautiful fall apart so easily was a question asked by many. Thomas Hardy took a new approach to the entire event in his poem “The Convergence on the Twain” calling into mind the strength of fate and punishment of society. In “The Convergence on the Twain” by Thomas Hardy, the speaker conveys his idea that the strength of fate is ultimately stronger than any outside force and the sinking of the Titanic was meant to happen, due to fate, to teach a lesson to society for their wrongdoing proving that no matter how perfect something seems it is not immune to disaster.

In “The Convergence on the Twain,” the title and structure are used to show the ominous approach of the horrific event, and the speaker uses these to convey his idea of fate and its ultimate strength. The word “convergence” means the process of converging or going in two different directions. Society had two options on how to act. They could have kept their morals and acted with integrity, or they could have acted as they did, selfish and indecent. Because they chose the second option, fate felt the need to show them how to act through an action like the Titanic. The speaker sets the title up as the first thing the reader gets to see. He does this to get into the mind of the reader and get them thinking about this two-way path, and what it means for the people on the ship. The Titanic was perfect to most people but with fate in the way nothing is indestructible. Similarly, the strict structure of the poem is in contrast to the chaos that is happening in the actual lines. The set of the three lines keeps the form extremely closed and only introduces little ideas at a time. The speaker does this to keep the reader in track and to make sure he or she can follow the idea of this fate easily. It is also a way to build up the tension until the ultimate sinking of the ship. This build up keeps the reader interested and symbolizes the build-up for the people aboard at the time. He also uses Roman numerals to count up to twelve. This specific set of numbers brings to mind the idea of a clock striking midnight. This idea closely ties in the fact that time was running out for society to fix themselves before fate needed to show them a lesson. Fate set up twelve hours but society could not truly help themselves before the strength of fate felt the need to intervene. Overall, the closed structure of the poem shows how the build-up of the sinking ship was similar to that of the build-up of the demise of society in a way that it started off extremely perfect looking and ended in a horrific downfall.

The speaker also talks about the beauty and the outward perfection of the ship in relation to the vanity of the people at the time and why this caused fate to strike back. The speaker opens the poem by talking of “human vanity” and the “Pride of Life.” He says that the sea is far away from all of those things that make humans so undesirable. In this statement, the speaker believes that humanity can save themselves here because they are away from temptation and destruction that is on the mainland. The clock also ties in here because once fate realizes they are acting the same way, it is forced to step in after only a little bit of time. By capitalizing the phrase “Pride of Life,” the speaker gives it a proper name and human qualities. In doing this, the speaker can blame Pride for why humanity of the way it is and push some guilt onto it once the sinking unfolds. Later in the poem, the speaker talks about the “Jewels in joy designed/ To ravish the sensuous mind.” The Titanic was known for being extremely glitzy and wealthy due to it being the first of its kind. The speaker recognizes that these jewels are now “lighter, all their sparkles bleared and black” showing that destruction no one thought could happen to these people or this ship. The strength of fate was much more than the riches of humanity and no matter how much money these people had, it would not matter once fate took their lives. Overall, the speaker uses the first half of the poem to highlight the flashy lifestyle that the people aboard the ship lived and how none of it would matter to fate whose only plan was to teach a lesson.

In Thomas Hardy’s, “The Convergence on the Twain,” the speaker sees the sinking of the Titanic as a test of fate to those who had been living immoral lives at the time and a call to them to change their ways before it was too late. He shows throughout the structure and details of the poem that the power of fate was much stronger than that of the people it affected that night and that even when given a chance to change what was going to happen their ideas on money and power outweighed survival. He saw the sinking as the perfect example to show people how perfect things can be destroyed.