The poetry of Thomas Hardy: Questions
Assignment: Read “Channel Firing”. Answer the following questions in a complete and
comprehensive sentence. Use textual evidence to better support some of your answers.
“Channel Firing” Partner Qs
1. Who is the speaker? How does the reader become aware of the identity of the persona
or the speaker?
2. Which words establish the poem's tone as ironic and cynical?
3. In terms of twentieth-century history, what events outside the realm of the dead have
momentarily interrupted their eternal sleep?
4. What is God's attitude towards humanity in this poem?
5. Words such as "drearisome" (5)," howl" (6),"hounds" (6)," worms" (8), and "mounds"
(8) create what kind of mood?
6. Why does Parson Thirdly wish that instead of preaching he "had stuck to pipes and
beer"?
7. In what two rather different senses is Parson Thirdly the speaker's "neighbour"?
8. The theme concerns the painful knowledge of the dead and the utter ignorance of the
living. In what ways does Hardy so the dead as "knowing" and the living as "ignorant"?
9. How does Hardy convey the belief that war is pointlessly destructive, no matter what
its justification?
10. The voices in this poem offer three perspectives about the human condition. How has
the poet employed these three different voices to offer three different views about
humanity and its problems?