The Role of Religion in Thomas Hardys Poem Channel Firing Essay exampl

The Role of Religion in Thomas Hardy's Poem Channel Firing "Channel Firing" by Thomas Hardy is a poem about the atrocities of war. Published shortly before the beginning of World War I, the poem seems almost prophetic. It not only decries the barbaric nature of war--an institution so vile and obnoxious that in this poem it awakens the dead--but also questions our inability to break our addiction to that institution. Less clear, however, is the answer to a question Hardy seems to be posing: is it our plight to be perpetually engaged in quests for power and vengeance, rendering us unworthy of God's call to judgment, or is it our plight that a sneering, uncaring god forsakes us in our time of need? The religious implications of this poem are more difficult to analyze than the political and social implications because they are more subtle. Throughout the poem both God and the awakened skeletons seem to be in agreement that men are guilty of perpetuating war. Men are "striving strong to make / Red war yet redder. / Mad as hatters / They do no more for Christes sake / Than you who...