The Loss Of Hope In Matthew Arnold's Dover Beach
In his poem “Dover Beach,” Matthew Arnold attempts to illuminate the inevitable destruction of hope and faith—in human nature—to give way to misery. Arnold illustrates this loss through the imagery and symbolism of the ocean’s waves as well as his allusion to Sophocles and Charles Darwin’s Theory of Evolution. Finally, Arnold’s diction in the last stanza attempts to offer a feeble resolution, alluding to the necessity to give meaning to one’s life through love, but ultimately fails. Thus, Arnold’s “Dover Beach” serves as a cautionary tale about the suffering inherent in everything seemingly beautiful and everlasting.
Arnold’s imagery of the ocean serves to identify the underlying hopelessness in life. He begins the poem with a seemingly calm and placid beach, creating a hopeful tone: “The sea is calm tonight/...sweet is the night air” (lines 1 and 6). Here the imagery in the first stanza creates a tranquil atmosphere of happiness; Arnold hints at a beautiful world full of hope, and devoid of misery. However, Arnold alludes to the loss of hope in this first stanza: “the light/ Gleams and is gone” (lines 3-4). The light seems to symbolize the last glimmers of hope, until, at last, the narrator finds himself in the dark. This loss of hope becomes apparent in the second stanza, where Arnold’s imagery describes the repetitive motion of the ocean’s waves: “At [the waves] return, up the high strand,/ Begin, and cease, and then again begin,...and bring/ The eternal note of sadness
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