What is the tone of "The Workbox" by Thomas Hardy?
The tone of “The Workbox” by Thomas Hardy is despondent and fatalistic. In his poem, which is written as a conversation between a husband and wife, he describes life as he understands it. To Hardy, life is difficult; one lives, one dies. In Victorian times, there was a general belief in an all loving God, but Hardy believed that for some life is difficult and all the prayers will not change that.
Hardy describes the wife as being from the country while the man is more refined. The man in the poem gives his wife a box made of coffin wood. She says that the gift will last the rest of her life and he responds that it will last her life, and beyond which shows his view of life and death. The use of coffin wood to make the gift is symbolic of Hardy’s view that life will go...
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on long after the couple has died, and adds to the tone in the poem. Death is inevitable, and part of life.
What does "The Workbox" represent in Thomas Hardy's poem?
The workbox is a box the husband gives his wife to keep her sewing supplies in. He has made it from the same oak that was used to make the coffin of John Wayward. The wife is shocked by the news that John is dead, and the husband seems to enjoy the fact that his gift has had such an effect on the wife. He questions his wife about knowing John, and she denies knowing him, even though he was from his wife's home town. It is in the last stanza that we know that the wife did know John Wayward and has always loved him.
Yet still her lips were limp and wan,
Her face still held aside,
As if she had known not only John,
But known of what he died.
The wife's reaction to John's death is deeper than she wants to admit, and she tries to hide it from her husband.