INTERNATIONAL COLLEGE FOR GIRLS

DEPARTMENT OF ENGLISH

SUBMITTED TO: SUBMITTED BY:

MA’AM SMITA HARSHITA RATHORE

B.A. SEM VI

ICG/2008/8063

ROLL NO: 80031

TOPIC: VICTIMIZATION OF WOMEN IN HARDY’S NOVEL (The mayor of the caster bridge).

INDEX

INTRODUCTON ABOUT THOMAS HARDY THEMES ,MOTIFS & STYLES SUMMARY OF THE NOVEL WOMEN CHARACTERS IN THE NOVEL VICTIMIZATION OF WOMEN IN THE NOVEL KEY F ACTS BIBLIOGRAPHY

INTRODUCTION

The Mayor of Casterbridge (1886), subtitled "The Life and Death of a Man of Character", is a tragic novel by British author Thomas Hardy. It is set in the fictional town of Casterbridge (based on the town of Dorchester in Dorset). The book is one of Hardy's Wessex novels, all set in a fictional rustic England. The novel is often considered one of Hardy's greatest works.

The novel reveals Hardy’s peculiar location in this shifting world, possessing elements of both the Victorian and modernist forms. It charts the course of one man’s character, but it also chronicles the dramatic change of an isolated, rural agricultural community into a modern city. In The Mayor of Casterbridge, as well as in his most popular fictions, such as Tess of the D’Urbervilles and Jude the Obscure, Hardy explores the effects of cultural and economic development: the decline of Christianity as well as folk traditions, the rise of industrialization and urbanization, and the unraveling of universally held moral codes.

Hardy himself abandoned Christianity. He read the writings of Charles Darwin, accepted the theory of evolution, and studied the German philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer. Schopenhauer’s notion of the “Immanent Will” describes a blind force that drives the universe irrespective of human lives or desires. Though his novels often end in crushing tragedies that reflect Schopenhauer’s philosophy, Hardy described himself as a meliorist, one who believes that the world tends to become better and that people aid in this betterment. Humans can live with some happiness, he claimed, so long as they understand their place in the universe and accept it. Hardy died in 1928 at his estate in Dorchester. True to the rather dramatically romantic fantasies of his fiction, Hardy had his heart buried in his wife’s tomb.

ABOUT THOMAS HARDY

Thomas Hardy, OM (2 June 1840 – 11 January 1928) was an English novelist and poet. While his works typically belong to the Naturalism movement, several poems display elements of the previous Romantic and Enlightenment periods of literature, such as his fascination with the supernatural.

Thomas Hardy was born in the village of Higher [Upper] Bockhampton in Stinsford parish near the town of Dorchester in Dorset County, England, the first of four children born to Jemima nee Hand (1814-1904) and Thomas Hardy Sr. (1811-1892), builder and stonemason. His birthplace, built by his great grandfather, is now a museum owned by the National Trust. Young Thomas was given to quieter childhood pursuits, often spending time alone wandering the countryside, exploring the flora and fauna, gaining a profound connection with nature and the familiar sights and sounds of his rural home county. His mother had a great influence on his imagination, entertaining him with stories and songs, many of which would later inspire his Wessex tales.

As a young boy Hardy attended the Stinson church with his family, was a voracious reader, learned to play the violin and attended local schools studying Latin, Greek, French, classical literature, and assisted his father in his various building projects. At the age of sixteen he was taken on as apprentice to John Hicks, an architect in Dorchester. He conducted surveys and excelled as draughtsman, working for Hicks until 1862 when he left for London to work with architect Arthur Blomfield. Around this time he met Henry Moule (1801-1880) who would become a friend and mentor. He also immersed himself in the city's vibrant literary and cultural atmosphere, studying art, visiting the National Gallery, attending the theatre, and writing prose and poetry. His first published story "How I Built Myself A House" appeared in Chamber's Journal in 1865. His wrote his first, but never published novel The Poor Man and the Lady in 1867. Back in Bockhampton due to ill-health he secured a position with Hicks where in 1870 he met Emma Lavinia Gifford (1840-1912). She was working at the rectory in St. Juliot, Cornwall, a building project he was working on. They married in London in 1874 and would have no children. Emma died suddenly on 27 November 1912.

Hardy's first novel, The Poor Man and the Lady, finished by 1867, failed to find a publisher and Hardy destroyed the manuscript so only parts of the novel remain. He was encouraged to try again by his mentor and friend, Victorian poet and novelist George Meredith. Desperate Remedies (1871) and Under the Greenwood Tree (1872) were published anonymously. In 1873 A Pair of Blue Eyes, a novel drawing on Hardy's courtship of his first wife, was published under his own name. The term "cliffhanger" is considered to have originated with the

serialized version of this story (which was published in Tinsley's Magazine between September 1872 and July 1873) in which Henry Knight, one of the protagonists, is left literally hanging off a cliff.

Hardy said that he first introduced Wessex in Far from the Madding Crowd (1874), his next novel. It was successful enough for Hardy to give up architectural work and pursue a literary career. Over the next twenty-five years Hardy produced ten more novels.

The Hardys moved from London to Yeovil and then to Sturminster Newton, where he wrote The Return of the Native (1878). In 1885, they moved for a last time, to Max Gate, a house outside Dorchester designed by Hardy and built by his brother. There he wrote The Mayor of Casterbridge (1886), The Woodlanders (1887), and Tess of the d'Urbervilles (1891), the last of which attracted criticism for its sympathetic portrayal of a "fallen woman" and was initially refused publication. Its subtitle, A Pure Woman: Faithfully Presented, was intended to raise the eyebrows of the Victorian middle-classes.

Jude the Obscure, published in 1895, met with even stronger negative outcries from the Victorian public for its frank treatment of sex, and was often referred to as "Jude the Obscene". Heavily criticised for its apparent attack on the institution of marriage through the presentation of such concepts as erotolepsy, the book caused further strain on Hardy's already difficult marriage because Emma Hardy was concerned that Jude the Obscure would be read as autobiographical. Some booksellers sold the novel in brown paper bags, and the Bishop of Wakefield is reputed to have burnt his copy. In his postscript of 1912, Hardy humorously referred to this incident as part of the career of the book: "After these [hostile] verdicts from the press its next misfortune was to be burnt by a bishop — probably in his despair at not being able to burn me".

Despite this criticism, Hardy had become a celebrity in English literature by the 1900s, with several highly successful novels behind him, yet he felt disgust at the public reception of two of his greatest works and gave up writing fiction altogether. Other novels written by Hardy include Two on a Tower, a romance story set in the world of Astronomy.

Literary themes

Hardy critiques certain social constraints that hindered the lives of those living in the 19th century. Considered a Victorian Realist writer, Hardy examines the social

constraints that are part of the Victorian status quo, suggesting these rules hinder the lives of all involved and ultimately lead to unhappiness. In Two on a Tower, Hardy seeks to take a stand against these rules and sets up a story against the backdrop of social structure by creating a story of love that crosses the boundaries of class. The reader is forced to consider disposing of the conventions set up for love. Nineteenth-century society enforces these conventions, and societal pressure ensures conformity. Swithin St Cleeve's idealism pits him against contemporary social constraints. He is a self-willed individual set up against the coercive strictures of social rules and mores.

“ In a novel structured around contrasts, the main opposition is between Swithin St Cleeve and Lady Viviette Constantine, who are presented as binary figures in a series of ways: aristocratic and lower class, youthful and mature, single and married, fair and dark, religious and agnostic…she [Lady Viviette Constantine] is also deeply conventional, absurdly wishing to conceal their marriage until Swithin has achieved social status through his scientific work, which gives rise to uncontrolled ironies and tragic-comic misunderstandings (Harvey 108). ”

Hardy’s stories take into consideration the events of life and their effects. Fate plays a significant role as the thematic basis for many of his novels. Characters are constantly encountering crossroads, which are symbolic of a point of opportunity and transition. Far From the Madding Crowd tells a tale of lives that are constructed by chance. “Had Bathsheba not sent the valentine, had Fanny not missed her wedding, for example, the story would have taken an entirely different path.” Once things have been put into motion, they will play out. Hardy's characters are in the grips of an overwhelming fate.

THEMES , MOTIFS AND SYMBOLS

Themes

Themes are the fundamental and often universal ideas explored in a literary work.

The Importance of Character

As a “Story of a Man of Character,” The Mayor of Casterbridge focuses on how its protagonist’s qualities enable him to endure. One tends to think of character, especially in terms of a “Man of Character,” as the product of such values as honor and moral righteousness. Certainly Michael Henchard does not fit neatly into such categories. Throughout the novel, his volatile temper forces him into ruthless competition with Farfrae that strips him of his pride and property, while his insecurities lead him to deceive the one person he learns to truly care about, Elizabeth-Jane. Henchard dies an unremarkable death, slinking off to a humble cottage in the woods, and he stipulates in his will that no one mourn or remember him. There will be no statues in the Casterbridge square, as one might imagine, to mark his life and work. Yet Hardy insists that his hero is a worthy man. Henchard’s worth, then—that which makes him a “Man of Character”—lies in his determination to suffer and in his ability to endure great pain. He shoulders the burden of his own mistakes as he sells his family, mismanages his business, and bears the storm of an unlucky fate, especially when the furmity-woman confesses and Newson reappears. In a world that seems guided by the “scheme[s] of some sinister intelligence bent on punishing” human beings, there can be no more honorable and more righteous characteristic than Henchard’s brand of “defiant endurance.”

The Value of a Good Name

The value of a good name is abundantly clear within the first few chapters of the novel: as Henchard wakes to find that the sale of his wife was not a dream or a drunken hallucination, his first concern is to remember whether he divulged his name to anyone during the course of the previous evening. All the while, Susan warns -Elizabeth-Jane of the need for discretion at the Three Mariners Inn—their respectability (and, more important, that of the mayor) could be jeopardized if anyone discovered that Henchard’s family performed chores as payment for lodging.

The importance of a solid reputation and character is rather obvious given Henchard’s situation, for Henchard has little else besides his name. He arrives in Casterbridge with nothing more than the implements of the hay-trusser’s trade, and though we never learn the circumstances of his ascent to civic leader, such a climb presumably depends upon the worth of one’s name. Throughout the course of the novel, Henchard attempts to earn, or to believe that he has earned, his position. He is, however, plagued by a conviction of his own worthlessness, and he places himself in situations that can only result in failure. For instance, he indulges in

petty jealousy of Farfrae, which leads to a drawn-out competition in which Henchard loses his position as mayor, his business, and the women he loves. More crucial, Henchard’s actions result in the loss of his name and his reputation as a worthy and honorable citizen. Once he has lost these essentials, he follows the same course toward death as Lucetta, whose demise is seemingly precipitated by the irretrievable loss of respectability brought about by the “skimmity-ride.”

The Indelibility of the Past

The Mayor of Casterbridge is a novel haunted by the past. Henchard’s fateful decision to sell his wife and child at Weydon-Priors continues to shape his life eighteen years later, while the town itself rests upon its former incarnation: every farmer who tills a field turns up the remains of long-dead Roman soldiers. The Ring, the ancient Roman amphitheater that dominates Casterbridge and provides a forum for the secret meetings of its citizens, stands as a potent symbol of the indeli-bility of a past that cannot be escaped. The terrible events that once occurred here as entertainment for the citizens of Casterbridge have, in a certain sense, determined the town’s present state. The brutality of public executions has given way to the miseries of thwarted lovers.

Henchard’s past proves no less indomitable. Indeed, he spends the entirety of the novel attempting to right the wrongs of long ago. He succeeds only in making more grievous mistakes, but he never fails to acknowledge that the past cannot be buried or denied. Only Lucetta is guilty of such folly. She dismisses her history with Henchard and the promises that she made to him in order to pursue Farfrae, a decision for which she pays with her reputation and, -eventually, her life.

Motifs Motifs are recurring structures, contrasts, or literary devices that can help to develop and inform the text’s major themes.

Coincidence

Even the most cursory reading of The Mayor of Casterbridge reveals a structural pattern that relies heavily on coincidence. Indeed, the story would hardly progress were it not for the chance occurrences that push Henchard closer and closer to failure. For example, the reappearance of just one long-lost character would test our willingness to believe, but here we witness the return of Susan, the furmity-woman, and Newson, each of whom brings a dark secret that contributes to Henchard’s doom. Although we, as modern readers, are unlikely to excuse such overdetermined plotting, we should attempt to understand it. Hardy’s reliance on coincidence relates directly to his philosophy of the world. As a determinist, Hardy believed that human life was shaped not by free will but by such powerful,

uncontrollable forces as heredity and God. Henchard rails against such forces throughout the novel, lamenting that the world seems designed to bring about his demise. In such an environment, coincidence seems less like a product of poor plot structure than an inevitable consequence of malicious universal forces.

The Tension between Tradition and Innovation

Casterbridge is, at first, a town untouched by modernism. Henchard’s government runs the town according to quaintly traditional customs: business is conducted by word of mouth and weather-prophets are consulted regarding crop yields. When Farfrae arrives, he brings with him new and efficient systems for managing the town’s grain markets and increasing agricultural production. In this way, Henchard and Farfrae come to represent tradition and innovation, respectively. As such, their struggle can be seen not merely as a competition between a grain merchant and his former protégé but rather as the tension between the desire for and the reluctance to change as one age replaces another.

Hardy reports this succession as though it were inevitable, and the novel, for all its sympathies toward Henchard, is never hostile toward progress. Indeed, we witness and even enjoy the efficacy of Farfrae’s accomplishments. Undoubtedly, his day of celebration, his new method for organizing the granary’s business, and his determination to introduce modern technologies to Casterbridge are good things. Nevertheless, Hardy reports the passing from one era to the next with a quiet kind of nostalgia. Throughout the novel are traces of a world that once was and will never be again. In the opening pages, as Henchard seeks shelter for his tired family, a peasant laments the loss of the quaint cottages that once characterized the English countryside.

The Tension between Public Life and Private Life

Henchard’s fall can be understood in terms of a movement from the public arena into the private one. When Susan and Elizabeth-Jane discover Henchard at the Three Mariners Inn, he is the mayor of Casterbridge and its most successful grain merchant, two positions that place him in the center of public life and civic duty. As his good fortune shifts when his reputation and finances fail, he is forced to relinquish these posts. He becomes increasingly less involved with public life—his ridiculous greeting of the visiting Royal Personage demonstrates how completely he has abandoned this realm—and lives wholly with his private thoughts and obsessions. He moves from “the commercial [to] the romantic,” concentrating his energies on his personal and domestic relationships with Farfrae, Lucetta, and Elizabeth-Jane.

Symbols Symbols are objects, characters, figures, or colors used to represent abstract ideas or concepts.

The Caged Goldfinch

In an act of contrition, Henchard visits Elizabeth-Jane on her wedding day, carrying the gift of a caged goldfinch. He leaves the bird in a corner while he speaks to his stepdaughter and forgets it when she coolly dismisses him. Days later, a maid discovers the starved bird, which prompts Elizabeth-Jane to search for Henchard, whom she finds dead in Abel Whittle’s cottage. When Whittle reports that Henchard “didn’t gain strength, for you see, ma’am, he couldn’t eat,” he unwittingly ties Henchard’s fate to the bird’s: both lived and died in a prison. The finch’s prison was literal, while Henchard’s was the inescapable prison of his personality and his past.

The Bull

The bull that chases down Lucetta and Elizabeth-Jane stands as a symbol of the brute forces that threaten human life. Malignant, deadly, and bent on destruction, it seems to incarnate the unnamed forces that Henchard often bemoans. The bull’s rampage provides Henchard with an opportunity to display his strength and courage, thus making him more sympathetic in our eyes.

The Collision of the Wagons

When a wagon owned by Henchard collides with a wagon owned by Farfrae on the street outside of High-Place Hall, the interaction bears more significance than a simple traffic accident. The violent collision dramatically symbolizes the tension in the relationship between the two men. It also symbolizes the clash between tradition, which Henchard embodies, and the new modern era, which Farfrae personifies.

SUMMARY OF THE NOVEL

M ICHAEL HENCHARD IS TRAVELING with his wife, Susan, looking for employment as a hay-trusser. When they stop to eat, Henchard gets drunk, and in an auction that

begins as a joke but turns serious, he sells his wife and their baby daughter, -Elizabeth-Jane, to Newson, a sailor, for five guineas. In the morning, Henchard regrets what he has done and searches the town for his wife and daughter. Unable to find them, he goes into a church and swears an oath that he will not drink alcohol for twenty-one years, the same number of years he has been alive.

After the sailor’s death, eighteen years later, Susan and Elizabeth-Jane seek Henchard; Elizabeth-Jane believes he is merely a long-lost relative. They arrive in Casterbridge and learn that Henchard is the mayor. The parents meet and decide that in order to prevent -Elizabeth-Jane from learning of their disgrace, Henchard will court and remarry Susan as though they had met only recently.

Meanwhile, Henchard has hired Donald Farfrae, a young Scotchman, as the new manager of his corn business. Elizabeth-Jane is intrigued by Farfrae, and the two begin to spend time together. Henchard becomes alienated from Farfrae, however, as the younger man consistently outdoes Henchard in every respect. He asks Farfrae to leave his business and to stop courting Elizabeth-Jane.

Susan falls ill and dies soon after her remarriage to Henchard. After discovering that Elizabeth-Jane is not his own daughter, but Newson’s, Henchard becomes increasingly cold toward her. -Elizabeth-Jane then decides to leave Henchard’s house and live with a lady who has just arrived in town. This lady turns out to be Lucetta Templeman, a woman with whom Henchard was involved during Susan’s absence; having learned of Susan’s death, Lucetta has come to Casterbridge to marry Henchard.

While Lucetta is waiting for Henchard to call on her, she meets Farfrae, who has come to call on Elizabeth-Jane. The two hit it off and are eventually married. Lucetta asks Henchard to return to her all the letters she has sent him. On his way to deliver the letters, the messenger, Jopp, stops at an inn. The peasants there convince him to open and read the letters aloud. Discovering that Lucetta and Henchard have been romantically involved, the peasants decide to hold a “skimmity-ride,” a humiliating parade portraying Lucetta and Henchard together. The event takes place one afternoon when Farfrae is away. Lucetta faints upon seeing the spectacle and becomes very ill. Shortly afterward, she dies.

While Henchard has grown to hate Farfrae, he has grown closer to Elizabeth-Jane. The morning after Lucetta’s death, Newson, who is actually still alive, arrives at Henchard’s door and asks for -Elizabeth-Jane. Henchard tells him that she is dead, and Newson leaves in sorrow. Elizabeth-Jane stays with Henchard and also begins to spend more time with Farfrae. One day, Henchard learns that Newson has returned to town, and he decides to leave rather than risk another confrontation.

Elizabeth-Jane is reunited with Newson and learns of Henchard’s deceit; Newson and Farfrae start planning the wedding between Elizabeth-Jane and the Scotchman.

Henchard comes back to Casterbridge on the night of the wedding to see Elizabeth-Jane, but she snubs him. He leaves again, telling her that he will not return. She soon regrets her coldness, and she and Farfrae, her new husband, go looking for Henchard so that she can make her peace. Unfortunately, they find him too late, discovering that he has died alone in the countryside. He has left a will: his dying wish is to be forgotten.

WOMEN CHARACTERS

Susan Henchard (Newson)

Susan is an honest but simple-minded woman who, as a young woman, is married to Michael Henchard but sold (along with her baby girl Elizabeth-Jane) at a drunken auction to a sailor by the name of Newson. She believes there is something legally binding about the sale, and goes to live with Newson as his wife. The baby Elizabeth-Jane dies three months later, and Susan has a daughter with Newson whom she names Elizabeth-Jane. It is this second Elizabeth-Jane whom she later passes off as Henchard's daughter.

After living for years with Newson in Canada, the family of three returns to England. One spring, Newson (who believes his wife is having second thoughts about the validity of their marriage) is lost at sea. The impoverished widow "Newson" returns with Elizabeth-Jane, who is now about eighteen years old. A reader who cares to do the math will realize immediately that there's something fishy about Elizabeth-Jane's age. In any case, Susan has never told Elizabeth-Jane about Henchard or her first marriage, and certainly never told her about the auction incident.

Because she has no way to earn a living, Susan approaches Henchard for help. She does not correct his assumption that he is Elizabeth-Jane's father, nor does she tell anyone about the auction incident. Henchard sends her a gift of five guineas (the amount for which he sold her to Newson, and which is no doubt substantially less than what he sent his mistress Lucetta when breaking off the affair) and sets her up as a genteel new arrival to town. He courts her and remarries her. She does not tell him the truth about Elizabeth-Jane until her death a year or two later, when she writes a deathbed confession and seals it in an envelope to be opened only on Elizabeth-Jane's wedding day

Elizabeth-Jane Newson

About eighteen years old when she and her mother arrive in Casterbridge, Elizabeth-Jane is the daughter of Newson. She is a sweet, innocent young woman who is ignorant of the social graces required of a mayor's stepdaughter. She strives to improve herself, reading constantly and studying Latin and geography. Gradually she transforms herself into the kind of sophisticated young lady Henchard believes he ought to have as a daughter. When Henchard alternates between doting on her and verbally abusing her, she never understands why, especially when Henchard (mistakenly) reveals the "truth" about who her father was. She never really lives up to Henchard's expectations of her and is often unhappy.

Elizabeth-Jane is a fairly passive person who does not let sudden wealth (or the loss of it) affect her much. After her mother's death she accepts Lucetta's invitation to live with her as a companion or chaperone. She develops feelings for Donald Farfrae until Lucetta attracts him away from her, and is disappointed for a while but is ultimately happy when she is reunited with her father Newson (who turns out not to be lost at all) and marries Farfrae also.

Lucetta Templeman (Lucette Le Sueur)

A native of the island of Jersey, the Francophone Lucette Le Sueur is the daughter of a military officer. She lives a nomadic life, and after the death of her parents takes lodging in a boarding-house in Jersey. There she meets Michael Henchard, who is traveling on business and who is taken sick with a bout of severe depression. She becomes infatuated with him, and he indulges her affection for him without too much regard for appearances.

Lucetta is a few years older than Elizabeth-Jane and far more refined. She speaks fluent French as well as English, but conceals her knowledge of the language because she does not want her history in Jersey to become well known. She's impulsive, like Henchard, but not spiteful or mean although she lets money and status go to her head. After she marries, she slights Henchard and puts on airs, alienating Henchard and refusing to help Jopp (an old acquaintance of hers) obtain employment.

Exactly how far the affair between Lucetta and Henchard went is unclear. The book strongly suggests that the two of them have had sexual relations, but is ambiguous enough to not offend the sensibilities of 19th century readers. Whatever happened was enough for Lucetta's reputation to be so irreparably tarnished that the only solution for her is to leave Jersey and change her name. She takes the last name of her deceased relative, Templeman, and alters her first name to make it sound more English.

It is important to notice that scandal would not have broken out if all Lucetta and Henchard did was walk, talk, or dine together in a boarding house. They would have had to have spent a considerable amount of time alone together, or they would have to have been caught in a very compromising situation. In any case Henchard does propose marriage, stating that there was a risk his first wife would return. Lucetta accepts the proposal, so the two are engaged. Henchard returns to Casterbridge leaving Lucetta to bear the full brunt of the scandal until he is ready to bring her to town, and she writes him passionate letters on a daily basis. Of

course, it is at this inopportune time that Susan arrives. Henchard cancels the engagement and sends Lucetta a substantial gift of money.

Lucetta is scheduled to stop and pick up her love letters to Henchard, but a family emergency (specifically, the death of her only living relative who was quite wealthy) intervenes. Lucetta is left with substantial means. When she learns of Susan's death, she moves to Casterbridge to determine whether she should pick up her association with Henchard where she left off. She's agreeable to the match at first, but as she learns more about Henchard she likes him less and her rosy outlook and tendency to rationalize away his cruel treatment of others decreases over time. Besides, she's attracted to Donald Farfrae instead.

Given that Henchard married somebody else, their original engagement to each other is null and void. Yet Henchard, who finds himself very interested in Lucetta particularly since she has come into money, bullies Lucetta into accepting his proposal again. Lucetta elopes with Farfrae, and incurs Henchard's wrath. He retrieves her love letters, toys with the idea of exposing her secret to her new husband, and eventually sends her love letters by way of Jopp, who has reason to hate both Henchard and Lucetta. The love affair becomes public, and the scandal eventually contributes to Lucetta's death.

VICTIMIZATION OF WOMEN CHARACTERS

Thomas Hardy's The Mayor of Casterbridge (1886) brings to light the harsh reality of Victorian society's treatment of women. This aspect of the novel may be illustrated by comparing present-day society's conditions for and attitudes towards women with how characters in the story treat Susan Henchard, Lucetta Templeman, and Elizabeth-Jane Newson.

"The Mayor of Casterbridge begins with a scene that dramatises the analysis of female subjugation as a function of capitalism: the auction of Michael Henchard's wife Susan at the fair at Weydon-Priors". Henchard's auctioning off his wife to the highest bidder at Weydon Fair in the first chapter (page 10 of the Macmillan edition) verifies that in early nineteenth-century England women of her class in rural districts were regarded as little more than stock to be disposed of at their owners' whims: "it has been done elserwhere" (12) affirms that such sales were not uncommon. After awaking from his drunken sleep and realizing that Susan has indeed left with the "genial sailor" (Ch. 4, p. 26), Henchard rationalizes that Susan's "meekness" and ignorance--her "idiotic simplicity" (Ch. 2, p. 17)--has led her to acquiesce in the transaction, and does not look further than the spiked furmity for what drove him to sell her. His "introspective inflexibility" (Ch. 12, p. 89) makes it impossible for Henchard to see beyond his wife's gullibility and his own alcohol abuse to the real cause of the sale, his stubborn pride. He thinks his having sold her is a delusion--until he finds her wedding ring on the grassy floor and the five shillings and the bank-notes in his breast-pocket.

Eighteen years later, when Susan returns to Henchard destitute after Richard Newson's being reported lost at sea off the coast of Newfoundland, Henchard attempts to make amends. Although he may have been signalling his desire to be forgiven, he encloses with a note to his former wife five pound notes and five shillings, in total the same amount for which he had sold her.

He sat down at the table and wrote a few lines; next taking from his pocket-book a five-pound note, which he put in the envelope with the letter, adding to it, as by an after-thought, five shillings.

Although conducted in his library rather than in his business office, this act looks suspiciously like another cash transaction on the part of a merchant who makes his living by buying and selling commodities, and knows to a penny what it will take to make a purchase. Even the narrator notes that Henchard's gesture of enclosing the bank-notes and coins "may tacitly have said to her [Susan] that he bought her back again" (Ch. 10, p. 79).

The remarriage of Michael and Susan Henchard is the product of what Hardy terms "business-like determination" (Ch. 13, p. 93) and "strict mechanical rightness" (93) in Henchard's conscientious thinking. Henchard courts Susan as if he were going to work or performing a civic duty: "The visit was repeated again and again with business-like determination by the mayor" (93). Outside the church on their wedding day the common people's reaction to the event is negative; the average Casterbridger feels that the Mayor is degrading himself. In the eyes of the townsfolk he is "lowering his dignity by marrying so comparatively humble a woman" (95). To extrapolate from this statement, women were (and still are) regarded as status symbols, just as the right make of car is today. For many people even today, female currency remains beauty; in these terms, Susan is regarded as "bankrupt." People in Casterbridge are mystified at Henchard's choice, for Susan has neither the social status, nor physical attractiveness, nor money necessary for one who wishes to marry a merchant-prince.

As Bert G. Hornback of the University of Michigan remarks, "there are striking parallels" between Susan and the second woman from Henchard's past, Lucetta. "She tries to break from the bonds of her past, and this destroys her". What destroys Lucetta are the attitudes of society. For much of the duration of Lucetta's existence in the novel she is the subject of ridicule. When word is circulated throughout her native Jersey about her intimacy with Henchard, it is she and not Henchard who suffers opprobrium. This intimacy, when revealed in Casterbridge, leads to her social downfall (signalled by the Skimmington), a miscarriage, and subsequently her death.

Elizabeth-Jane, on the other hand, is not subjected to the public ridicule and mistreatment to the same extent as Lucetta. Henchard appears to be the main instigator of her worries. From the beginning of Henchard's remarriage, Henchard takes it upon himself to see that Elizabeth-Jane conforms to the manners, fashion, attitudes, and general lifestyle expected of the Mayor's daughter. First, he assumes that Elizabeth will take his name without objecting: "You shall take it as if by choice" (Ch. 19, p. 141).

If Elizabeth-Jane were male, Henchard would not have been as domineering in his request since a man's name is "sacred." The next idiosyncratic imposition of Henchard upon Elizabeth-Jane involves her style of handwriting; "Henchard's creed was that proper young girls wrote ladies'-hand" (Ch. 19, p. 150). He makes her feel ashamed at not having written "a line of chain-shot and sand-bags" (the narrator is reading Henchard's mind here) rather than a proper Lady's Hand. Henchard naturally assumes that, since Elizabeth is female, her writing will reflect

her relation to him. This, however, was not the case. Essentially, she had been raised as a fisherman's daughter; Henchard somehow expected that his marrying her mother would transform her into a well-bred lady.

Present-day society's conditions and attitudes have been compared to the treatment of Susan, Lucetta, and Elizabeth-Jane. In The Mayor of Casterbridge, Thomas Hardy attempted to make Victorian society more aware of its treatment of and attitudes towards women. This object he effected through the chief female characters of the novel, as well as through such minor figures as Mrs. Goodenough (the furmity vendor), Nance Mockridge, Mother Cuxsom, and Mrs. Stannidge, the genial publican of the Three Mariners Inn. Whether of high or low estate, women are consistently revealed either as insignificant workers or as pawns in male power-games in this late Victorian novel.

KEY-FACTS

FULL TITLE ·  The Life and Death of the Mayor of Casterbridge: A Story of a Man of Character

AUTHOR  · Thomas Hardy

TYPE OF WORK  · Novel

GENRE  · Tragedy; naturalism; Bildungsroman (a novel that charts the protagonist’s moral and psychological development)

LANGUAGE  · English

TIME AND PLACE WRITTEN  ·  1885–1886, Dorchester, England

DATE OF FIRST PUBLICATION  · The novel appeared in serial form concurrently in Graphic magazine in England and in Harper’s Weekly in the United States from January to May 1886. It was first published in book form in 1886.

NARRATOR  · The anonymous narrator speaks in the third person.

POINT OF VIEW  · The point of view is, for the most part, limited to observations concerning the external world of the characters: how they act, what they see, and what they say. Occasionally an omniscient narrator breaks in to provide necessary information or back story, as in Chapter XXII where the narrator breaks the chronological flow of the story in order to provide essential information about events that occurred the previous night.

TONE  · Tragic, melodramatic, naturalistic

TENSE  · Past

SETTING (TIME)  · Mid-1800S

SETTING (PLACE)  · Casterbridge, England (a fictional town based on the city of Dorchester)

PROTAGONIST · Michael Henchard

MAJOR CONFLICT · Wracked with guilt over selling his wife and child, Henchard tries to escape from the shadow of his past and his overwhelming need to punish himself for it.

RISING ACTION  · Henchard arranges to remarry Susan.

CLIMAX  · The furmity-woman, recognizing Henchard as the man who sold his wife and child at a fair in Weydon-Priors, divulges his shameful secret to the town of Casterbridge.

FALLING ACTION  · Having fallen out with Elizabeth-Jane, his only hope for a renewed life, Henchard slinks off to a humble country cottage to die.

THEMES  · The importance of character; the value of a good name; the indelibility of the past

MOTIFS  · Coincidence; the tension between tradition and innovation; the tension between public life and private life

SYMBOLS  · The caged goldfinch; the bull; the collision of the wagons

BIBLIOGRAPHY

INTERNET

www.sparksnotes.com

The victorian web

www.online-literature.com

BOOKS

Novel, The mayor of the casterbridge