Ebb and Flow of Misery

In "Dover Beach", Matthew Arnold portrays the "turbid ebb and flow/ Of human misery". In the first part of the poem, Arnold describes the beach in a some what innocent way, saying "The sea is calm tonight" and " sweet is the night air!". His tone seems light and he is attentive to the subtleties around him, noticing even "the grating roar/ Of pebbles which the waves draw back, and fling". However, in the latter half of the poem, the outlook becomes much more bleak. Instead of the roar of the pebbles, it is now, as Arnold writes, "melancholy, long, withdrawing roar". The poem ultimately ends with Arnold suggesting a truce with his audience, acknowledging that the world seems to "lie before us like a land of dreams", and yet at the same time, "Hath really neither joy, nor love, nor light". By putting these two different perspectives of the world into a single poem, Arnold is portraying the "ebb and flow" of human emotions and the constant struggle to keep up with that change. In the end, the world that Arnold realizes in his poem is far less certain than a world he originally set out to meet.