Paper I: Unseen Commentary- PASSAGE V

"The Voice" by Thomas Hardy: Is It All In Your Head? (Outline)
I. Introduction/Thesis
As human beings, we are separated from animals and more primitive life forms by our ability to experience and react to complex emotions. Often, these are influenced by our past experiences, which may translate into a longing for whatever condition, sensation, person, or experience once was reality. As a result, we may find ourselves questioning ourselves, as if in conversation, as a means of coping with our past and present, and their consequential emotions, such as love and longing. In Thomas Hardy's "The Voice", he uses question marks (punctuation) in conjunction with the answers to the questions posed, in order to emphasize the reminiscent and longing tone of the poem.

Body I: (Summary of what's going on/overview of poem)
-"The Voice" is a poem in which the speaker talks of a "woman much missed" (1) who calls to him/her, but who has also "changed from the one who was all to me"(3). This woman is moast likely a past lover, whom the speaker finds unable to forget, as seen through the recollection of past details, such as "the original air-blue gown"(8). The speaker questions himself/herself on whether or not there are unresolved feelings from the past.
-"Can it be you I hear?"(5) This is followed by an answer dismissing it as just the breeze, as if an attempt to repress feelings evoked by the memory of the woman. Finally, in the fourth stanza, we learn that while the memory of the woman continually goes remembered, it is ultimately responsible for negative feelings of the speaker, as he/she is left "faltering forward"(13), emotionally wounded by past memories.

Body II: Dominant Technique/Effect
-While this entire poem takes on a tone of questioning and longing as a result of the past, it becomes most apparent in the second and third stanzas. The speaker essentially posesa question aloud/mentally, and proceeds to answer it, as if grasping for an answer that would not have painful consequences.

Conclusion-Overall, this poem of a potential past love carries with it the effect of an emotional experience, as shown through the speaker's way of posing and answering questions in order to make sense of and cope with the past.