Character Is Fate
Abstract Thomas Hardy is one of the most widely read and prominent tragic novelists in English literature. Thus he is a quite influential figure. Most of his novels have his native place Dorset as their setting, which are categorized as his famous ‘Wessex novels’. In these novels Hardy describes the tragic fate of the rural life in England in quite a morbid mood and expressed his pessimistic view on human life at large. His The Mayor of Casterbridge is a most controversial novel reviled and revered. This thesis intends to make a comprehensive exploration of the tragic fate of the hero Henchard. As the mayor of Casterbridge, Henchard never stopped the fight against his fate throughout his whole life, however, he never succeeded, and moreover, he was beat down by fate. His character determined his tragic fate. His impulse and crankiness caused him to sell his wife after he got drunk, which is the beginning of his tragic fate; He was unwilling to adjust himself to the custom of Casterbridge, so he lost his battle in the competition with Farfrae. He tried so hard to expiate his past, but he was frustrated by kinship, friendship and love; the deficiency in his .character made him unfit to the changeable world, eventually, he was eliminated by history. This thesis mainly shows the character of tragic hero Henchard by analyzing the text. Part one introduces the philosophical and world view of Hardy, focusing on the understanding of Hardy’s Fatalism and Determinism. Part two will analyze the hard life of Henchard, with the view to find out the reason of his failure from his relationship with his wife and daughter and lover, and gets the conclusion that ‘Character is fate’. Part three analyzes the rivalry between Henchard and Farfrae, and looks into the reason why Henchard is eliminated by history, and it strengthens the conclusion that ‘Character is fate’.
Key words：character , environment, fate, tragic
Introduction
1.1 Thomas Hardy and His Novels
Born June 2, 1840, in the village of Upper Bockhampton, about three miles from the town of Dorchester in southwestern England, Thomas Hardy lived well into the twentieth century, dying in 1928 at the age of 88. Hardy remained a Victorian to the end. This is particularly true of his career as a novelist. All of his major novels were written before the turn of the century. He was the last important novelist of the Victorian age. In his Wessex novels, he vividly and truthfully described the tragic lives of the peasants in the last decade of the 19th century.
As the child of a builder, Hardy was apprenticed to John Hicks, an architect who lived in the city of Dorchester, and Dorchester is the model of Hardy’s fictional Casterbridge. “Although Hardy gives serious thought to attending university and entering the church, a struggle he would dramatize in his 1895 novel Jude the Obscure, his declining religious faith and lack of money encouraged him to pursue a career in writing instead”. Hardy spent nearly a dozen years on writing. In the end, he became a successful novelist and poet.
Far From the Madding Crowd was published in 1874, which is the turning point of Hardy’s literary life. The novel was an overwhelming success, and from then on, hardy was able to support himself only by writing. From 1878 to 1895, Hardy achieved a lot as a novelist. During this period Hardy published The Return of Native, The Mayor of Casterbridge, Tess of the D’urbervilles, Jude the Obscure, with which He consciously experiments with the idea and form of tragedy. “In these books, Hardy’s persevering pessimism---based on his conception of the ‘Immanent Will’ --and his sense of the inevitable tragedy of human life are continually apparent”. When he stayed in familiar rural setting, used classic form, and focused on a concern with the drama of basic human passions, his novels took on a unique tragic power different from other English novelists.
Sometimes, by his use of disastrous coincidence, Hardy intentionally leaves the reader the impression of making his material in agreement with his outlook, for instance, the fate of Tess’s letter of confession to Angel Clare. Yet there is real tragic dignity in the story of Tess, as well as of Henchard in The Mayor of Casterbridge. “The latter, with the gradual, cruel revelation of Henchard’s past, must means more than an unconscious recollection of Sophocles’ Oedipus, while the function of the villagers or Casterbridge townsfolk in these books is clearly to provide a commentary akin to that of the chorus in Greek tragedy”. But Hardy’s intimate knowledge of the Wessex countryside and of rural life prevents the novels from being regarded only as attempts to transplant Greek tragedy into the 19th century English countryside.
1.2 Literature Review
As one of the “Novels of Character and Environment”, The Mayor of Casterbridge is a most controversial novel reviled and revered. Since its publication, this novel has met with both approval and disapproval from critics. In his letter to his friend Stevenson in 1886, Hardy writes, “The Saturday has thrown cold water on it by but then the Saturday man into whose hands my books are put has always been saying that my stories are dull’. James Payne, the publisher’s reader, reports to Smith, Elder and Co. that “The lack of gentry among the characters made it uninteresting.” Perhaps because of “the cold water”, even Hardy himself lacks confidence in this novel. In his notebook, he says, “I fear it (The Mayor of Casterbridge) will not be so good as I meant, but after all it is not improbabilities of incident but improbabilities of character that matter”.
“Small dispraise” of the novel comes from an anonymous reviewer writing in the Saturday Review on 29th, May 1886. The reviewer makes a comparison between The Mayor and an earlier work Far From the Madding Crowd and comments that the former “ is not equal to the author’s great and most picturesque romance of rural life…” thus seeing The Mayor as a “disappointment”. The writing goes on commenting that the novel is “too improbable”, and asserts that the opening scene is impossible to believe. William Dean Howells proves this completely wrong and says: “Henchard’s sale of his wife is not without possibility or even precedent”.
While denounced by critics, The Mayor of Casterbridge is appreciated by some western writers. In answer to Hardy’s letter, Stevenson replies, “I have read The Mayor of Casterbridge with sincere admiration: Henchard is a great fellow, and Dorchester is touched in with the hand of a master”. Moreover, this novel is Virginia Woolf’s favorite. In her eyes, “This novel is an impression, not an argument”, “There is greatness in the contest, there is pride and pleasure in it, and the death of the broken corn merchant in his cottage on Egdon Heath is comparable to the death of Ajax, Lord of Calamis”. As far as the tragic fate of the mayor is concerned, critics quite disagree with one another. The first kind of view tends to be overwhelming. That is: Most critics emphasize that Henchard’s tragedy is determined by his character. These critics must, without exclusion, be influenced by the writer’s title “The Story of a Man of Character,”and Hardy’s quotation “Character is fate”. Karl believes that “the events that help nullify Henchard are those that develop from his own character: her literally makes the world that first envelops and then squeezes him to death”. Dale Kramer even sums up “at least four crucial demonstrations of this flaw in action”.
The second kind of view often uses the novel to demonstrate the similarities with Greek and Shakespearean tragedy. So Henchard, the wretched corn merchant, is always bearing the analogies with Oedipus, and Shakespeare’s Hamlet and King Lear. In the article “The Mayor of Casterbridge and the Old Testment’s First Book of Samuel: A study of Some Literary Relationships,” Julian Moynalain probes into details of the relationship between the mayor and the story of Samuel. He illustrates the close resemblance between Henchard and Saul and that between David and Farfrae in the similar downfall of the former two and the rise of the latter two alike. He then concludes that the theme of the Mayor is not “character is fate” or “man against himself” but rather it is “the conflict between generations.” From this standpoint, Julian Moynalan sees Hardy as “a melodist”--- a title Hardy has endowed himself ---that is, a belief that the world may be made better by human efforts.
The third kind of view regards this book as a novel about Darwinism and jungle law. Many critics hold that the two rivals, Henchard and Farfrae, are the representatives of the old world and the new world respectively. It is a life-and-death fight between them. “It was, in some degree, Northern insight matched against Southern doggedness---the dirk against the cudgel.” In terms of Darwinism, Henchard is doomed to be defeated by Farfrae, as the old world inevitably gives way to the new one. Many Chinese critics attempt to interpret Henchard’s tragedy in light of Darwinism and social evolution. For example, Nie Zhenzhao points out in his book, “As Hardy depicts the course of Casterbridge’s ruin, the premise of his thoughts is Darwinism. In terms of social evolution, Hardy suggests the inevitability to replace the old by the new, explaining that the change of Casterbridge and the devastation of the city is an unavoidable aftermath of evolution”.
In spite of being a voracious reader of Darwinism, Hardy is very skeptical and hesitant to embrace it wholeheartedly and his view on the evolutionary process is a mixed one. In a notebook entry of 1876, Hardy copied the following from an article by Theodore Watts:“ Science tells us, in the struggle for life, the surviving organism is not necessarily that which is absolutely the best in an ideal sense, though it must be that which is most in harmony with surrounding conditions.” In this sense, Hu Baoping points out that “despite his in-depth historic ideology in Hardy’s works, change of history to Hardy does not necessarily mean development and progress, but signifies loss and pity. It goes without saying that to regard The Mayor of Casterbridge as a novel about Darwinism and jungle law is too radical to be convincing.
It has been argued that Henchard’s fate is based on the central assumption of Christian literature that the gods are just and that , in the long run, one actually gets what one deserves. Critics of this genre believe Henchard’s tragic ending as a kind of retribution for his sin of wife-sale. Thus they consider Newson and the furmity woman as unsecured past and they believe that the callous and inhuman sin of wife-sale leads to a series of awful consequences and pursues him to death. John Paterson belongs to this genre and comments that Henchard’s wife-sale offends morality and so he should be published. Other critics who agree to the causality of this wife-sale and punishment may apply another completely different modern theory. Albert. J. Guerard, for instance, points out that Henchard’s sense of guilt originating from the sale of Susan is not suppressible and that there exists a subconscious self-destruction in Henchard, hence brings about his tragedy.
According to Herbert Spencer, however, nature is a history of the evolutionary movement of all life---caused by the persistence of force---from the simple to the complex, the unspecialized to the specialized, from the backward to the progressive. The town of Casterbridge is no exception. With time passing on, Casterbridge experiences slow yet gradual changes which bring Henchard the complete misfit to his bankruptcy and his political downfall. As Henchard’s opposite, Donald Farfrae is shrewd and gentle, he’s a man of thought, coolness, flexibility and prudence, and it is Donald Farfrae that the modern world rewards. Henchard, like all human beings, is just powerless puppet on the stage of life: No matter how hard he endeavors to struggle, he will be unavoidably ensnared. To make things worse, Henchard is ambitious and proud, just like Greek heroes, therefore, his downfall is destined and inevitable.
This thesis attempts to explain the tragic hero Henchard, whose character determines his fate by analyzing the text, which mainly demonstrates man’s useless effort to fight against the cruel and unintelligible fate and circumstances, and finally reaches the conclusion that Henchard is a man of noble spirit and deserves our great sympathy.
Chapter 2
The Hard Life Journey of Henchard
Different readers have thought of Henchard as a Sophoclean tragic hero because he is doomed in the present because of what he has done in the past, or as an Aeschylean or Euripidean tragic hero because he is made to suffer more than his deeds would seem to require. However, in my mind, Henchard’s behavior is that of an ‘isolated’ who constantly pour his affections towards people who, in a real sense, are different from him. He is at home no where, seldom able to make and never able to maintain normal relationship with other people. In April 1878 Hardy wrote: “A plot, or tragedy, should arise from the gradual closing in of a situation that comes of ordinary human passions, prejudices, and ambitions, by reason of the characters taking no trouble to ward off the disastrous events produced by the said passions, prejudices, and ambitions”.
In The Mayor of Casterbridg, Henchard’s character can not be easily classified as good or bad. He is a man larger than life; greater and worse than ordinary people. He has not only qualities such as honesty, fairness and courage which are so important to him that they sometimes make him too rigid and intolerant, but also notable flaws such as pride, ambition and impetuosity which distinguish him from ordinary, as well as lead him to decline. Having these qualities, his actions and motives are always excessive whether he is engaged in doing good thing or in being cruel. Throughout the novel, Michael Henchard is never for a moment out of our mind and his character lingers on every page like bass notes of impending room. As Hardy himself put it in the Preface of The Mayor of Casterbridge: “the story is more particularly a study of one man’s deeds and character than, perhaps, any other of those included in my Exhibition of Wessex life.”
Henchard is a man of character. In the month of Hardy’s death ,1928, Virginia Woolf wrote: Henchard is pitied, not against another man, but against something outside himself which is opposed to men of his ambition and power. No human being wishes him ill. Even Farfrae and Newson and Elizabeth Jane whom he has wronged all come to pity him, and even to admire his strength of character. He is standing up to fate, and in backing the old Mayor whose ruin has been largely his own fault…The death of the broken corn merchant in his cottage on Egdon Heath is comparable to the death of Ajax lord of Salamis.
2.1 Henchard’s Treatment of Susan
In the very beginning, Henchard is extraordinary because his ‘measured springless walk’ is ‘distinct from the desultory shamble of the general laborer’ and ‘a dogged and cynical indifference, personal to himself. As he is young and ambitious, he is dissatisfied with his family. This dissatisfaction is displayed after he gets drunk in his conversation with others about ‘The ruin of good man by bad wives, and more particularly by frustration of many a promising youth’s high aims and hopes, and the extinction of his energies, by an early and imprudent marriage’. After he has sold his wife, ‘The spectators had indeed taken the proceedings throughout as a piece of mirthful irony carried to extremes; and had assumed that, being out of work, he was a consequence out of temper with the world, and society, and his nearest kin’.
Williiam Dean Howells believes that: ‘Henchard sold his wife in the following all the consequences to his innocent and beneficent after-life, and to the good and guiltless lives of others. The wrong he has done can’t be repaired, because it can’t, to his mistaken thinking, be owned; and in the tragedy of its expiation your pity is more for him than for all the others. That wrong pursues him; it hunts him to death, with what natural reliefs and pauses the reader knows’.
As a young man, Henchard is headstrong, and passionate. Even before Henchard works himself into a fury in the furmity tent, Susan’s meek behavior as she walks along beside him(“She keeps as close to his side as was possible without actual contact”) implies his volatile and potentially violent nature. The events that take place in the furmity tent at the fair demonstrate a cycle into which Henchard falls frequently throughout the novel. After finding himself in a shameful situation – this time, having sold his wife and child – he takes full responsibility for his mistakes and sets out to correct them. In fact, his desire to make amends is overpowering. He spends several months searching for his wife and child, proving that his remorse is not half-hearted. This audacious spirit is a hallmark of Henchard’s character, as he switches quickly from ungrateful misogyny to sincere penitence.
Although Henchard’s search for his wife seems to be an example of honest contrition, his true motivation is more likely to be the concern over his personal honor. When Henchard wakes, his remorse stems more from a fear of being disdained than from any sense of moral irresponsibility. His interest in his good name plays a significant role in his sacrifice of personal satisfaction when he swears off alcohol and determines to find his wife. Before he begins to scour the English countryside for his wife and child, he reflects that it is not his own but rather his wife’s ‘idiotic simplicity’ that has brought disgrace on him. As he stands outside the fairgrounds at Weydon-priors, anxiously wondering whether he revealed his name to anybody in the furmity tent, Henchard displays an obsession with public opinion concerning his character that greatly shapes his actions and personality. Henchard’s initial irresponsibility suggests that the novel’s subtitle may not be an accurate description of him. In a way, the subtitle foreshadows Henchard’s transition to a man of character.
It is his response to his guilt that elevates him above ordinary people. Henchard, while admitting his guilt, struggles heroically against the fate that guilt has brought on him. Eighteen years later, meeting Susan again, he gives back Susan the sale money symbolically and remarries her to make amends. At that time, Henchard, at his highest position, could have ignored Susan and turned her away, but he is a man with conscience. He accepts Susan and provides a comfortable home for her; it seems that he has wiped the slate clean, without foreseeing the disaster it will bring.
2.2 Henchard’s Relationship with Elizabeth-Jane
The only love in the novel that Henchard clearly regrets losing is for Elizabeth-Jane. It is non-sexual and that goes out from him. It seems that Henchard is unable to foster anything like a full relationship or communication. His attitude towards Elizabeth-Jane undergoes several steps, but his love to her is the most sincere and deep one he has ever experienced. When Susan and Elizabeth-Jane arrive in Casterbridge, Henchard is happier in seeing the daughter than the mother and is ready to pour his paternal love upon her. Henchard’s wife was dissevered from him by death; his friend and helper Farfrae by estrangement; Elizabeth-Jane by ignorance. It seemed to him that only one of them could possibly be recalled, and that was the girl . He was the kind of man to whom some human object for pouring out his heat upon were it emotive or were it choleric was almost necessity .
After Susan’s death, Henchard’s hot-blooded character makes it almost a necessity for him to pour out his passion upon someone, so after he has lost his friend Farfrae, he can no longer restrain his impulse and decides to reveal the secret to Elizabeth-Jane. He is ready to pour his paternal possessive feelings to the girl. However, he finds the letter written by Susan before her death with restriction ‘Not to be opened till Elizabeth-Jane’s wedding-day’, yet he opens it, paying no attention to the restriction and so gets the most serious blow. It indicates that Henchard is an ego man, he never considers other’s feeling, he never respects Susan’s decision. When he finds that she is not his daughter, he holds back his feelings and treats the girl in a constrained manner she has never seen before. The coldness in his attitude frustrates the poor girl, but she accepts it calmly although suspiciously.
When Henchard meets his complete downfall and becomes physically and emotionally weak, Elizabeth-Jane comes to take care of him. Her concern and care is the only comfort Hechard can seek: ‘She seems to him as a pinpoint of light’ . A great change has come over Henchard with regard to Elizabeth-Jane, and he is developing the dream of a future lit by her filial presence, as though that way alone can happiness lie. Then Newson appeared, for fearing of losing Elizabeth’s love, he lies to Newson that his daughter is already dead when the latter comes to look for her. Henchard’s selfish and deceitful means of dealing with Newson threatens to rob him of his last bit of self-respect. Despite all this deception, pettiness, and his rabid temper, Henchard remains an essentially sympathetic character. Given his deep, newfound love for Elizabeth-Jane, and the desperateness of his desire to have that love returned, we understand Henchard’s deceitful behavior. Like so many of Henchard’s decisions, fooling Newson has nothing to do with calculation or manipulation. In this light, Henchard’s treatment of Newson is the frantic act of a scared, lonely, and highly pitiable man.
As Elizabeth-Jane is a traditional woman, and she instinctively condemns anyone who cannot meet her rigid ideas of moral conduct, she cannot forgive Henchard for cheating her: “How can I love as I once did a man who served us like this” . thus the last hope for Henchard to live in the world disappears because ‘his lie had been the last desperate throw of a gamester who loved her affection better than his own honor’. However, since Henchard has learned to sacrifice for love and is truly suffering in expiation for his sins, our sympathy shifts directly upon him when he says with proud superiority “Don't ye distress yourself on my account. I would not wish it--- at such a time too, as this! I have done wrong in coming to’ee. I see my error; but it is only for once, so forgive it. I'll never trouble’ee again, Elizabeth-Jane---no, not to my dying day” . we begin to experience a more intense pity for the one-time esteemed Mayor of Casterbridge. Elizabeth-Jane, as a stickler for propriety, is indeed, almost vicious in her condemnation of any form of waywardness. In the end, he leaves her a will: “That Elizabeth-Jane Farfrae be not told of my death, or made to grieve on account of me . “&That I be not bury'd in consecrated ground. “&That no sexton be asked to toll the bell. “&That nobody wished to see my dead body. “&That no mourners walk behind me at my funeral. “&That no ,flours he planted on my grave. “&That no man remember me. “To this I put my name. “Michael Henchard.”
In deed, there is a remarkable power and beauty in the simplicity of these lines. Henchard’s will is the last statement of a tragic man whose unremitting doubts regarding his life’s worth not only lead to his death but also follow him there.
In the final chapter of the novel, Elizabeth-Jane decides to honor Henchard’s will as best as she can. She does not mourn him or plant flowers on his grave. She does, however, come close to honoring him inwardly. When she reflects here on the unfair distribution of happiness, which she considers the most valuable human currency. She forgives Henchard. She certainly has Henchard in mind when she thinks of the many people who ‘deserved much more’ out of life. In such a bleak world, the course of Henchard’s life seems not to merit punishment so much as it does pity.
2.3 Lucetta’s Relationship with Henchard
Like Michael Henchard, Lucetta Templeman lives recklessly according to her passions and suffers for it. Before arriving in Casterbridge, Lucetta becomes involved in a scandalously indiscreet affair with Henchard that makes her the pariah of Jersey. After Susan’s death, Lucetta, settling in High-Place Hall, waits Henchard to marry her. However, she quickly falls in love with Farfrae. At that time, when Henchard comes to visit her, she treats him coldly. When Henchard offers the suggestion of marry her:
“I don’t wish to quarrel with ’ee, I come with an honest proposal for silencing your Jersey enemies, and you ought to be thankful.” … “How can you speak so!” She answered, firing quickly. “Knowing that my only crime was the indulging in a foolish girl’s passion for you with too little regard for correctness, and that I was what I call innocent all the time they called me guilty, you ought not to be so cutting! I suffered enough at that worrying time, when you wrote to tell me of your wife’s return, and my consequent dismissal, and if I am a little independent now, surely the privilege is due to me?”. … For the first time in their acquaintance Lucetta has the move. … “I shouldn’t have thought it—I shouldn’t have thought it of women!”.
Like Henchard, Lucetta is ruled by her passions, just as she once refuses to conceal her affair with Henchard to secure her good name in Jersey, she now refuses to bow to his whims or his threats and marry him against her will. In her declaration that she will love whomever she chooses, we recognize the same sort of blind resolution that possesses and often misleads Henchard.
But Lucetta differs from her ex-lover in a crucial respect: she refuses to enslave herself to the past. She recognizes no obligations, feels no compulsion toward self-sacrifice, and voices no desire to make amends. That Henchard does oblige himself to right past wrongs and so willingly flays himself foe his sins sets him apart. In deed, it is this desire to undo the past, regardless of what it means for his present or future life that makes Henchard a man of character and proves the rarity and worth of his moral fiber.
After getting married to Farfrae, Lucetta is afraid that Farfrae will learn of her former involvement with Henchard, she once again asks Henchard to return her letters. Realizing that the letters are locked in the safe of his old house, Henchard calls on Farfrae one evening to retrieve them and, while there, reads several letters to Farfrae. Tempted as he is to reveal the author of these letters, Henchard can’t bring himself to ruin Farfrae and Lucetta’s marriage. His intention of reading these letters to Farfrae is not to torment Lucetta, but because he is seized by the profound and helpless feeling that he has been wronged. Nothing would be easier for Henchard than to bring shame upon Lucetta, but he determines, quite honorably, that “such a woman was very small deer to hunt.” It reveals the complexity of Henchard’s character, which is the reason why many critics have found him to be most human of all Hardy’s creation.
Chapter 3
The Relationship between Henchard and Farfrae
3.1 The Friendship between Henchard and Farfrae
When Farfrae arrives in Casterbridge, Henchad is at the height of his power as leading merchant and civil magistrate. But before the moment he is seriously embarrassed for having been forced to sell spoiled corn to the townspeople. Farfrae, appearing from out of the blue, saves Henchard from embarrassment and financial loss by showing him a method for restoring the corn. He asks no payment and wishes to continue his journey to New World. But Henchard, with characteristic generosity and impulsiveness, offers Farfrae a position as general manager of his enterprises and is willing to give him a third share in the ownership if he will only stay in Casterbridge. It is immediately clear that on Henchard’s side there is a good deal of personal attachment involved and that these personal elements in the relationship are bound up with Henchard’s great loneliness.
‘Come, bide with me- and name your own terms. I’ll agree to’em willingly and ’ithout a word of gainsaying; for, hang it, Farfrae, I like thee well!’ “I am the most distant fellow in the world when I don’t care for a man, but when a man takes my fancy he takes it strong”.
As the mayor of Casterbridge, Henchard is lonely, he is longing for friendship, so when he met Farfrae, he did whatever he could to make him stay in Casterbride , to be his friend. As is evident in the opining scene in which he auctions off his family, Henchard is ruled primarily by his passions. His actions follow from his emotions rather than from his reason or intellect. After Farfrae shares the secret for restoring damaged grain, Henchard offers him a job. Such an action, in itself, may not necessarily seem odd, but Henchard’s admiration for Farfrae and his determination to secure his employment seem irrational. However, Farfrae becomes popular immediately after he arrives. Yet the story goes on, the charming, romantic ballad singer is not as lovely as before, he takes over Henchard’s grain yards; he wins people of Casterbridge’s heart and he takes over Henchard’s position; He wins Henchard’s lover Lucetta’s heart and marrys her; After Lucetta’s death, he marrys the Elizabeth—Jane, the one Henchard really cares about, and takes her away from him. He cannot understand Henchard, he should know that the most degrading thing he can do for Henchard is to buy his house and furniture. He even does not believe that Henchard is sincere to stop him on his way to Weatherbury at the night of Lucetta’s death.
Though Henchard treats him as a real friend, he is never good to him, never treating Henchard as a friend, which makes Henchard’s friendship to him seems more pathetic and unworthy; and which also indicates that Henchard is always lonely in friendship.
3.2 The Rivalry between Henchard and Farfrae
The friendship between Henchard and Farfrae turns sour only gradually. Although Farfrae, like Henchard, is also an outsider and a potential rider on the wheel of fortune, he becomes popular immediately after his arrival. As is evident in the opening scene in which he auctions off his family, Henchard is ruled primarily by his passions. His actions follow from his emotions rather than from his reason or intellect, as when, after Farfrae shares the secret for restoring damaged grain, Henchard offers him a job. Such an action, in itself, may not necessary seem odd, but Henchard’s admiration for Farfrae and his determination to secure his employment seem irrational. It hardly seems prudent for a respected grain merchant to be willing to give away one third of his business to a man he hardly knows.
Casterbridge under Henchard’s reign is too remote and too removed from the scientific, social, and technological advancements that are sweeping through England during Industrial Revolution in the mid-nineteenth century to offer Farfrae the ‘scope’ he seeks. Indeed, before Farfrae arrives, no one in Casterbridge has ever heard of --let alone developed and perfected—a method of restoring ‘grown wheat.’ Farfrae brings with him new methods of organizing and running an agricultural business. His dazzling abilities—there is the suggestion of something miraculous in his knowledge of how to transform damaged grain into palatable bread—work their magic on Henchard and later, the entire town. But the degree to which Henchard is seized by admiration has more to do with the nature of his own character than the quality of Farfrae’s impressive and obscure knowledge. What may initially attract Henchard to Farfrae’s methods is the promise of transforming something clearly damaged into salvageable goods, a process that Henchard hopes to apply to his own life in order to atone for his sins.
If Farfrae represents Henchard’s opposite in relation to progress, he also embodies the flip side of the mayor’s passion. Farfrae emerges as an emotionally cool man. Although he proves a kind and attentive listener to the many troubles of Henchard’s heart, he never imagines Henchard to be his confident. Hardy does not suggest that Farfrae is without sin or troubles but, rather, that he approaches them from a more pragmatic perspective. For example, in chapter 7, Farfrae sings a moving and sentimental tribute to the homeland he has left behind. Even though he feels intense nostalgia for his homeland, he approaches his motivations for leaving Scotland behind. In this way, Hardy draws a dividing line between the two men. Whereas Henchard stands for tradition and unfettered emotions, Farfrae embodies progress and reason. After Farfrae became Henchard’s manager, Henchard’s corn and hay business thrives under Farfrae’s management, and the two men become good friends. However, Henchard has been alienated from the human society he inhabits through his naturalistic imagery. He is a total misfit to the town. He stands in a completely unwanted position. The world of Casterbridge belongs to Farfrae. When people want an opinion on any small matter of agriculture or business it's Farfrae they seek. Even Casterbridge children know Farfrae is better than Henchard.
"But please will Mr. Farfrae come?" Said the child ... "Oh – I see - that's what they say-hey? They like him because he's cleverer than Mr. Henchard, and because he knows more; and in Mr. Henchard can't hold a candle to him-hey?" ... "And he's better tempered, and Henchard's a fool to him, say. And when some of the women were a walking home they said 'He's a diment -he’s a chap o’wax --he's the best-he's the horse for my money' says they. And they said,' He's the most understanding man o’them two by long chalks. I wish he was the master instead of Henchard' they said"
This is the voice of the people of Casterbridge speaking through this impartial medium of a child's memory.
Henchard and Farfrae have a quarrel over the treatment of Abel Whittle, a man who is consistently late for his job in Henchard’s hay-yard. When Whittle is late for work the day after Henchard reprimands him for his tardiness, Henchard goes to his house, drags him out of bed, and sends him to work without his breeches. When Farfrae sees Whittle, who claims that he will later kill himself rather than bear this humiliation, he tells him to go home and dress properly. Henchard and Farfrae confront each other, and Farfrae threatens to leave. The two reconcile, but Henchard, upset by Farfrae’s insubordination, thinks on him withm’dim dread’ and regrets having ‘confided to him the secrets of his life.’
A festival day in celebration of a national event is suggested to the country at large, but Casterbridge is slow to make plans. One day, Farfrae asks Henchard if he can borrow some waterproof cloths to organize a celebration, Henchard is inspired to plan events for holiday. However, his events are not as good as Farfrae’s. Prominent townspeople tease Henchard, remarking that Farfrae will soon surpass his master. Henchard replies that no such thing will happen, attesting that Farfrae will shortly be leaving the business.
Character is fate; Henchard’s emotions dominate his life and tend to determine his actions. When he enters into his relationship with Farfrae, for instance, he does so wholeheartedly. It is not until their relationship begins to sour first as a result of their disagreement over Abel Whittle and later as a result of Henchard’s failed celebration that Henchard’s emotional involvement with and dedication to a man he hardly knows seems reckless. This characteristic extremity of emotion shapes the course of Henchard’s life, just as his exceptional guilt over mistreating Susan leads him to marry for the second time a woman he does not love, his jealousy of Farfrae forces him into a competition that he cannot win.
In order to cut Farfrae out of the corn and hay business, Henchard consults a man known as a ‘forecaster’ or weather prophet to discern harvest conditions. This man predicts that the harvest will bring rain, so Henchard, trusting that the upcoming crop will be bad, buys a large quantity of corn. When harvest comes, however, the weather is fair and the crop is good, which causes prices to fall, Henchard loses money.
This indicates that as Henchard falls, so do the proverbial walls that keep progress and modernity at bay. Hardy contrasts Henchard of his reliance on the outdated weather prophet with Farfrae in his reliance on and fondness for modern. It’s a competition that Henchard can never win.
One night, one of Farfrae’s wagoners and one of Henchard’s collide in the street in front of High-place Hall. Henchard is summoned to settle the dispute. Lucetta and Elizabeth-Jane testify that Henchard’s man is in the wrong, but Henchard’s man maintains that these two cannot be trusted because ‘all women side with Farfrae.’ The clash between the wagoners of Farfrae and Henchard is symbolic of the larger clash between the two men and the forces they represent. As the drivers meet on the cramped street outside High-place Hall, the confrontation seems to indicate a clash between age and youth, tradition and modernity, past and future.
After the furmity-woman accuses Henchard for the selling of his wife, he quickly and completely lost everything, he wants to commit suicide. Henchard’s desperation has much to do with Farfrae and his success, which seems like some sort of betrayal to Henchard, who has helped Farfrae establish himself in Casterbridge. Since Farfrae shows up in Casterbridge, he and Henchard moved steadily in opposite directions, the former toward prosperity and achievement, the latter toward failure and obscurity. The extremity of Henchard’s passions is, in large part, responsible for the severity of his fall. Hardy, appropriating the words of the eighteenth-century German writer Novels, stresses that ‘Character is fate’. Henchard’s response to his bankruptcy proves this theory. His extreme emotions and inability to compromise or show restraint lead him to sell his last valuable possession, his gold watch. Thus, an honorable act launches him further into poverty and despair.
Because Farfrae causes Henchard to lose his face as the ‘Royal Personage’ visit Casterbridge, Henchard decides to seek revenge. He has a fight with Farfrae, but he ties one of his arms to make an even match. Though Henchard overpowers Farfrae, he cannot bring himself to finish off his opponent. Though Henchard is powerful, he is no bully, and he uses his both physical and political strength sparingly. Though he laments that he has taken Farfrae’s dismissal ‘like a lamb’, he wants nothing more than a fair fight from the Scotchman. This desire for fairness is further manifested in his decision to bind one arm before the wrestling match begins, since he is the stronger of the two man.
The opposition of Henchard and Farfrae is essentially a formal contrast of two different ways of dealing with the same elusive crop conditions, from planting to speculation based on harvest weather. This opposition can be expanded to two ways of dealing with people, with the universe, as is in Henchard and Farfrae: the friendly but shallow, and optimistic but withal cautious, man who recognizes that bankruptcy is a natural if avoidable feature of business life, the intellectually limited and cruel egoist who can perceive no other’s life but as circling around his own but who also perceives and accepts to the profoundest depths of his being that actions have consequences, and who while he can never move beyond the limitations of his self is able to understand the insignificance of both worthiness and worldly success.
Farfrae serves as a foil for Henchard, whereas will and intuition determine the course of Henchard’s life, Farfrae is a man of intellect. He fails to feel any emotion too deeply, and remains emotionally distant. In this respect , he stands in bold contrast to Henchard, whose depth of feeling is so profound that it ultimately dooms him. It is through defeat that Henchard becomes a man of true character. His willingness to bear the brunt of his suffering and his continual refusal to foist his misery on others and his resistance to suicide mark him as a hero. In deed, in many respects, Henchard conforms to the tradition of tragic hero, a character whose greatest qualities or actions ultimately lead to his downfall. He is indeed a man of character.
Chapter 4
Conclusion
Hardy is an excellent writer in the history of English literature. He has contributed to the development of tragic novel. In his lifetime the novel develops fast. It is through Hardy that the tragic novel occupies a position in fiction. Hardy opens a way for the development of tragic novel. In his exploration of human tragedy he shows sympathy for the miserable condition of man. He is, as Woolf observes “the greatest tragic writer among English novelists.” The experience of all the human beings is compressed into one man. The protagonist, Henchard is quite different from his contemporaries. Hardy shows a man with good character but is ruined by his character.
As a story of a man of character, the Mayor of Casterbridge focuses on how Henchard’s character gives rise to his tragic fate. Throughout the novel, Henchard’s volatile temper forces him to sell his wife after he gets drunk, which is the beginning of his tragic life; his imprudent temper also forces him into ruthless competition with Farfrae that strips him of his pride and property, while his insecurities lead him to deceive the person he learns to truly care about, Elizabeth-Jane, causing him to lose her eventually. Henchard is nearly the most personalized of Hardy’s men: his gloominess, his severe friendliness, and his businesslike bluntness even when proposing marriage, No doubt it is a well-meaning man isolated by guilt who he makes his strongest appeal to our sympathy.
Hardy insists that his hero is a worthy man, Henchard’s worth 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. As a result, the story of Henchard is thus the story of insignificant man, caught in the wheel of fate and in the river of time, struggling for fulfillment while the current sweeps them toward some unknown shore. Though his life is miserable and ends in tragic, he is a man of Noble spirit and deserves our great sympathy.
Key words：character , environment, fate, tragic
Introduction
1.1 Thomas Hardy and His Novels
Born June 2, 1840, in the village of Upper Bockhampton, about three miles from the town of Dorchester in southwestern England, Thomas Hardy lived well into the twentieth century, dying in 1928 at the age of 88. Hardy remained a Victorian to the end. This is particularly true of his career as a novelist. All of his major novels were written before the turn of the century. He was the last important novelist of the Victorian age. In his Wessex novels, he vividly and truthfully described the tragic lives of the peasants in the last decade of the 19th century.
As the child of a builder, Hardy was apprenticed to John Hicks, an architect who lived in the city of Dorchester, and Dorchester is the model of Hardy’s fictional Casterbridge. “Although Hardy gives serious thought to attending university and entering the church, a struggle he would dramatize in his 1895 novel Jude the Obscure, his declining religious faith and lack of money encouraged him to pursue a career in writing instead”. Hardy spent nearly a dozen years on writing. In the end, he became a successful novelist and poet.
Far From the Madding Crowd was published in 1874, which is the turning point of Hardy’s literary life. The novel was an overwhelming success, and from then on, hardy was able to support himself only by writing. From 1878 to 1895, Hardy achieved a lot as a novelist. During this period Hardy published The Return of Native, The Mayor of Casterbridge, Tess of the D’urbervilles, Jude the Obscure, with which He consciously experiments with the idea and form of tragedy. “In these books, Hardy’s persevering pessimism---based on his conception of the ‘Immanent Will’ --and his sense of the inevitable tragedy of human life are continually apparent”. When he stayed in familiar rural setting, used classic form, and focused on a concern with the drama of basic human passions, his novels took on a unique tragic power different from other English novelists.
Sometimes, by his use of disastrous coincidence, Hardy intentionally leaves the reader the impression of making his material in agreement with his outlook, for instance, the fate of Tess’s letter of confession to Angel Clare. Yet there is real tragic dignity in the story of Tess, as well as of Henchard in The Mayor of Casterbridge. “The latter, with the gradual, cruel revelation of Henchard’s past, must means more than an unconscious recollection of Sophocles’ Oedipus, while the function of the villagers or Casterbridge townsfolk in these books is clearly to provide a commentary akin to that of the chorus in Greek tragedy”. But Hardy’s intimate knowledge of the Wessex countryside and of rural life prevents the novels from being regarded only as attempts to transplant Greek tragedy into the 19th century English countryside.
1.2 Literature Review
As one of the “Novels of Character and Environment”, The Mayor of Casterbridge is a most controversial novel reviled and revered. Since its publication, this novel has met with both approval and disapproval from critics. In his letter to his friend Stevenson in 1886, Hardy writes, “The Saturday has thrown cold water on it by but then the Saturday man into whose hands my books are put has always been saying that my stories are dull’. James Payne, the publisher’s reader, reports to Smith, Elder and Co. that “The lack of gentry among the characters made it uninteresting.” Perhaps because of “the cold water”, even Hardy himself lacks confidence in this novel. In his notebook, he says, “I fear it (The Mayor of Casterbridge) will not be so good as I meant, but after all it is not improbabilities of incident but improbabilities of character that matter”.
“Small dispraise” of the novel comes from an anonymous reviewer writing in the Saturday Review on 29th, May 1886. The reviewer makes a comparison between The Mayor and an earlier work Far From the Madding Crowd and comments that the former “ is not equal to the author’s great and most picturesque romance of rural life…” thus seeing The Mayor as a “disappointment”. The writing goes on commenting that the novel is “too improbable”, and asserts that the opening scene is impossible to believe. William Dean Howells proves this completely wrong and says: “Henchard’s sale of his wife is not without possibility or even precedent”.
While denounced by critics, The Mayor of Casterbridge is appreciated by some western writers. In answer to Hardy’s letter, Stevenson replies, “I have read The Mayor of Casterbridge with sincere admiration: Henchard is a great fellow, and Dorchester is touched in with the hand of a master”. Moreover, this novel is Virginia Woolf’s favorite. In her eyes, “This novel is an impression, not an argument”, “There is greatness in the contest, there is pride and pleasure in it, and the death of the broken corn merchant in his cottage on Egdon Heath is comparable to the death of Ajax, Lord of Calamis”. As far as the tragic fate of the mayor is concerned, critics quite disagree with one another. The first kind of view tends to be overwhelming. That is: Most critics emphasize that Henchard’s tragedy is determined by his character. These critics must, without exclusion, be influenced by the writer’s title “The Story of a Man of Character,”and Hardy’s quotation “Character is fate”. Karl believes that “the events that help nullify Henchard are those that develop from his own character: her literally makes the world that first envelops and then squeezes him to death”. Dale Kramer even sums up “at least four crucial demonstrations of this flaw in action”.
The second kind of view often uses the novel to demonstrate the similarities with Greek and Shakespearean tragedy. So Henchard, the wretched corn merchant, is always bearing the analogies with Oedipus, and Shakespeare’s Hamlet and King Lear. In the article “The Mayor of Casterbridge and the Old Testment’s First Book of Samuel: A study of Some Literary Relationships,” Julian Moynalain probes into details of the relationship between the mayor and the story of Samuel. He illustrates the close resemblance between Henchard and Saul and that between David and Farfrae in the similar downfall of the former two and the rise of the latter two alike. He then concludes that the theme of the Mayor is not “character is fate” or “man against himself” but rather it is “the conflict between generations.” From this standpoint, Julian Moynalan sees Hardy as “a melodist”--- a title Hardy has endowed himself ---that is, a belief that the world may be made better by human efforts.
The third kind of view regards this book as a novel about Darwinism and jungle law. Many critics hold that the two rivals, Henchard and Farfrae, are the representatives of the old world and the new world respectively. It is a life-and-death fight between them. “It was, in some degree, Northern insight matched against Southern doggedness---the dirk against the cudgel.” In terms of Darwinism, Henchard is doomed to be defeated by Farfrae, as the old world inevitably gives way to the new one. Many Chinese critics attempt to interpret Henchard’s tragedy in light of Darwinism and social evolution. For example, Nie Zhenzhao points out in his book, “As Hardy depicts the course of Casterbridge’s ruin, the premise of his thoughts is Darwinism. In terms of social evolution, Hardy suggests the inevitability to replace the old by the new, explaining that the change of Casterbridge and the devastation of the city is an unavoidable aftermath of evolution”.
In spite of being a voracious reader of Darwinism, Hardy is very skeptical and hesitant to embrace it wholeheartedly and his view on the evolutionary process is a mixed one. In a notebook entry of 1876, Hardy copied the following from an article by Theodore Watts:“ Science tells us, in the struggle for life, the surviving organism is not necessarily that which is absolutely the best in an ideal sense, though it must be that which is most in harmony with surrounding conditions.” In this sense, Hu Baoping points out that “despite his in-depth historic ideology in Hardy’s works, change of history to Hardy does not necessarily mean development and progress, but signifies loss and pity. It goes without saying that to regard The Mayor of Casterbridge as a novel about Darwinism and jungle law is too radical to be convincing.
It has been argued that Henchard’s fate is based on the central assumption of Christian literature that the gods are just and that , in the long run, one actually gets what one deserves. Critics of this genre believe Henchard’s tragic ending as a kind of retribution for his sin of wife-sale. Thus they consider Newson and the furmity woman as unsecured past and they believe that the callous and inhuman sin of wife-sale leads to a series of awful consequences and pursues him to death. John Paterson belongs to this genre and comments that Henchard’s wife-sale offends morality and so he should be published. Other critics who agree to the causality of this wife-sale and punishment may apply another completely different modern theory. Albert. J. Guerard, for instance, points out that Henchard’s sense of guilt originating from the sale of Susan is not suppressible and that there exists a subconscious self-destruction in Henchard, hence brings about his tragedy.
According to Herbert Spencer, however, nature is a history of the evolutionary movement of all life---caused by the persistence of force---from the simple to the complex, the unspecialized to the specialized, from the backward to the progressive. The town of Casterbridge is no exception. With time passing on, Casterbridge experiences slow yet gradual changes which bring Henchard the complete misfit to his bankruptcy and his political downfall. As Henchard’s opposite, Donald Farfrae is shrewd and gentle, he’s a man of thought, coolness, flexibility and prudence, and it is Donald Farfrae that the modern world rewards. Henchard, like all human beings, is just powerless puppet on the stage of life: No matter how hard he endeavors to struggle, he will be unavoidably ensnared. To make things worse, Henchard is ambitious and proud, just like Greek heroes, therefore, his downfall is destined and inevitable.
This thesis attempts to explain the tragic hero Henchard, whose character determines his fate by analyzing the text, which mainly demonstrates man’s useless effort to fight against the cruel and unintelligible fate and circumstances, and finally reaches the conclusion that Henchard is a man of noble spirit and deserves our great sympathy.
Chapter 2
The Hard Life Journey of Henchard
Different readers have thought of Henchard as a Sophoclean tragic hero because he is doomed in the present because of what he has done in the past, or as an Aeschylean or Euripidean tragic hero because he is made to suffer more than his deeds would seem to require. However, in my mind, Henchard’s behavior is that of an ‘isolated’ who constantly pour his affections towards people who, in a real sense, are different from him. He is at home no where, seldom able to make and never able to maintain normal relationship with other people. In April 1878 Hardy wrote: “A plot, or tragedy, should arise from the gradual closing in of a situation that comes of ordinary human passions, prejudices, and ambitions, by reason of the characters taking no trouble to ward off the disastrous events produced by the said passions, prejudices, and ambitions”.
In The Mayor of Casterbridg, Henchard’s character can not be easily classified as good or bad. He is a man larger than life; greater and worse than ordinary people. He has not only qualities such as honesty, fairness and courage which are so important to him that they sometimes make him too rigid and intolerant, but also notable flaws such as pride, ambition and impetuosity which distinguish him from ordinary, as well as lead him to decline. Having these qualities, his actions and motives are always excessive whether he is engaged in doing good thing or in being cruel. Throughout the novel, Michael Henchard is never for a moment out of our mind and his character lingers on every page like bass notes of impending room. As Hardy himself put it in the Preface of The Mayor of Casterbridge: “the story is more particularly a study of one man’s deeds and character than, perhaps, any other of those included in my Exhibition of Wessex life.”
Henchard is a man of character. In the month of Hardy’s death ,1928, Virginia Woolf wrote: Henchard is pitied, not against another man, but against something outside himself which is opposed to men of his ambition and power. No human being wishes him ill. Even Farfrae and Newson and Elizabeth Jane whom he has wronged all come to pity him, and even to admire his strength of character. He is standing up to fate, and in backing the old Mayor whose ruin has been largely his own fault…The death of the broken corn merchant in his cottage on Egdon Heath is comparable to the death of Ajax lord of Salamis.
2.1 Henchard’s Treatment of Susan
In the very beginning, Henchard is extraordinary because his ‘measured springless walk’ is ‘distinct from the desultory shamble of the general laborer’ and ‘a dogged and cynical indifference, personal to himself. As he is young and ambitious, he is dissatisfied with his family. This dissatisfaction is displayed after he gets drunk in his conversation with others about ‘The ruin of good man by bad wives, and more particularly by frustration of many a promising youth’s high aims and hopes, and the extinction of his energies, by an early and imprudent marriage’. After he has sold his wife, ‘The spectators had indeed taken the proceedings throughout as a piece of mirthful irony carried to extremes; and had assumed that, being out of work, he was a consequence out of temper with the world, and society, and his nearest kin’.
Williiam Dean Howells believes that: ‘Henchard sold his wife in the following all the consequences to his innocent and beneficent after-life, and to the good and guiltless lives of others. The wrong he has done can’t be repaired, because it can’t, to his mistaken thinking, be owned; and in the tragedy of its expiation your pity is more for him than for all the others. That wrong pursues him; it hunts him to death, with what natural reliefs and pauses the reader knows’.
As a young man, Henchard is headstrong, and passionate. Even before Henchard works himself into a fury in the furmity tent, Susan’s meek behavior as she walks along beside him(“She keeps as close to his side as was possible without actual contact”) implies his volatile and potentially violent nature. The events that take place in the furmity tent at the fair demonstrate a cycle into which Henchard falls frequently throughout the novel. After finding himself in a shameful situation – this time, having sold his wife and child – he takes full responsibility for his mistakes and sets out to correct them. In fact, his desire to make amends is overpowering. He spends several months searching for his wife and child, proving that his remorse is not half-hearted. This audacious spirit is a hallmark of Henchard’s character, as he switches quickly from ungrateful misogyny to sincere penitence.
Although Henchard’s search for his wife seems to be an example of honest contrition, his true motivation is more likely to be the concern over his personal honor. When Henchard wakes, his remorse stems more from a fear of being disdained than from any sense of moral irresponsibility. His interest in his good name plays a significant role in his sacrifice of personal satisfaction when he swears off alcohol and determines to find his wife. Before he begins to scour the English countryside for his wife and child, he reflects that it is not his own but rather his wife’s ‘idiotic simplicity’ that has brought disgrace on him. As he stands outside the fairgrounds at Weydon-priors, anxiously wondering whether he revealed his name to anybody in the furmity tent, Henchard displays an obsession with public opinion concerning his character that greatly shapes his actions and personality. Henchard’s initial irresponsibility suggests that the novel’s subtitle may not be an accurate description of him. In a way, the subtitle foreshadows Henchard’s transition to a man of character.
It is his response to his guilt that elevates him above ordinary people. Henchard, while admitting his guilt, struggles heroically against the fate that guilt has brought on him. Eighteen years later, meeting Susan again, he gives back Susan the sale money symbolically and remarries her to make amends. At that time, Henchard, at his highest position, could have ignored Susan and turned her away, but he is a man with conscience. He accepts Susan and provides a comfortable home for her; it seems that he has wiped the slate clean, without foreseeing the disaster it will bring.
2.2 Henchard’s Relationship with Elizabeth-Jane
The only love in the novel that Henchard clearly regrets losing is for Elizabeth-Jane. It is non-sexual and that goes out from him. It seems that Henchard is unable to foster anything like a full relationship or communication. His attitude towards Elizabeth-Jane undergoes several steps, but his love to her is the most sincere and deep one he has ever experienced. When Susan and Elizabeth-Jane arrive in Casterbridge, Henchard is happier in seeing the daughter than the mother and is ready to pour his paternal love upon her. Henchard’s wife was dissevered from him by death; his friend and helper Farfrae by estrangement; Elizabeth-Jane by ignorance. It seemed to him that only one of them could possibly be recalled, and that was the girl . He was the kind of man to whom some human object for pouring out his heat upon were it emotive or were it choleric was almost necessity .
After Susan’s death, Henchard’s hot-blooded character makes it almost a necessity for him to pour out his passion upon someone, so after he has lost his friend Farfrae, he can no longer restrain his impulse and decides to reveal the secret to Elizabeth-Jane. He is ready to pour his paternal possessive feelings to the girl. However, he finds the letter written by Susan before her death with restriction ‘Not to be opened till Elizabeth-Jane’s wedding-day’, yet he opens it, paying no attention to the restriction and so gets the most serious blow. It indicates that Henchard is an ego man, he never considers other’s feeling, he never respects Susan’s decision. When he finds that she is not his daughter, he holds back his feelings and treats the girl in a constrained manner she has never seen before. The coldness in his attitude frustrates the poor girl, but she accepts it calmly although suspiciously.
When Henchard meets his complete downfall and becomes physically and emotionally weak, Elizabeth-Jane comes to take care of him. Her concern and care is the only comfort Hechard can seek: ‘She seems to him as a pinpoint of light’ . A great change has come over Henchard with regard to Elizabeth-Jane, and he is developing the dream of a future lit by her filial presence, as though that way alone can happiness lie. Then Newson appeared, for fearing of losing Elizabeth’s love, he lies to Newson that his daughter is already dead when the latter comes to look for her. Henchard’s selfish and deceitful means of dealing with Newson threatens to rob him of his last bit of self-respect. Despite all this deception, pettiness, and his rabid temper, Henchard remains an essentially sympathetic character. Given his deep, newfound love for Elizabeth-Jane, and the desperateness of his desire to have that love returned, we understand Henchard’s deceitful behavior. Like so many of Henchard’s decisions, fooling Newson has nothing to do with calculation or manipulation. In this light, Henchard’s treatment of Newson is the frantic act of a scared, lonely, and highly pitiable man.
As Elizabeth-Jane is a traditional woman, and she instinctively condemns anyone who cannot meet her rigid ideas of moral conduct, she cannot forgive Henchard for cheating her: “How can I love as I once did a man who served us like this” . thus the last hope for Henchard to live in the world disappears because ‘his lie had been the last desperate throw of a gamester who loved her affection better than his own honor’. However, since Henchard has learned to sacrifice for love and is truly suffering in expiation for his sins, our sympathy shifts directly upon him when he says with proud superiority “Don't ye distress yourself on my account. I would not wish it--- at such a time too, as this! I have done wrong in coming to’ee. I see my error; but it is only for once, so forgive it. I'll never trouble’ee again, Elizabeth-Jane---no, not to my dying day” . we begin to experience a more intense pity for the one-time esteemed Mayor of Casterbridge. Elizabeth-Jane, as a stickler for propriety, is indeed, almost vicious in her condemnation of any form of waywardness. In the end, he leaves her a will: “That Elizabeth-Jane Farfrae be not told of my death, or made to grieve on account of me . “&That I be not bury'd in consecrated ground. “&That no sexton be asked to toll the bell. “&That nobody wished to see my dead body. “&That no mourners walk behind me at my funeral. “&That no ,flours he planted on my grave. “&That no man remember me. “To this I put my name. “Michael Henchard.”
In deed, there is a remarkable power and beauty in the simplicity of these lines. Henchard’s will is the last statement of a tragic man whose unremitting doubts regarding his life’s worth not only lead to his death but also follow him there.
In the final chapter of the novel, Elizabeth-Jane decides to honor Henchard’s will as best as she can. She does not mourn him or plant flowers on his grave. She does, however, come close to honoring him inwardly. When she reflects here on the unfair distribution of happiness, which she considers the most valuable human currency. She forgives Henchard. She certainly has Henchard in mind when she thinks of the many people who ‘deserved much more’ out of life. In such a bleak world, the course of Henchard’s life seems not to merit punishment so much as it does pity.
2.3 Lucetta’s Relationship with Henchard
Like Michael Henchard, Lucetta Templeman lives recklessly according to her passions and suffers for it. Before arriving in Casterbridge, Lucetta becomes involved in a scandalously indiscreet affair with Henchard that makes her the pariah of Jersey. After Susan’s death, Lucetta, settling in High-Place Hall, waits Henchard to marry her. However, she quickly falls in love with Farfrae. At that time, when Henchard comes to visit her, she treats him coldly. When Henchard offers the suggestion of marry her:
“I don’t wish to quarrel with ’ee, I come with an honest proposal for silencing your Jersey enemies, and you ought to be thankful.” … “How can you speak so!” She answered, firing quickly. “Knowing that my only crime was the indulging in a foolish girl’s passion for you with too little regard for correctness, and that I was what I call innocent all the time they called me guilty, you ought not to be so cutting! I suffered enough at that worrying time, when you wrote to tell me of your wife’s return, and my consequent dismissal, and if I am a little independent now, surely the privilege is due to me?”. … For the first time in their acquaintance Lucetta has the move. … “I shouldn’t have thought it—I shouldn’t have thought it of women!”.
Like Henchard, Lucetta is ruled by her passions, just as she once refuses to conceal her affair with Henchard to secure her good name in Jersey, she now refuses to bow to his whims or his threats and marry him against her will. In her declaration that she will love whomever she chooses, we recognize the same sort of blind resolution that possesses and often misleads Henchard.
But Lucetta differs from her ex-lover in a crucial respect: she refuses to enslave herself to the past. She recognizes no obligations, feels no compulsion toward self-sacrifice, and voices no desire to make amends. That Henchard does oblige himself to right past wrongs and so willingly flays himself foe his sins sets him apart. In deed, it is this desire to undo the past, regardless of what it means for his present or future life that makes Henchard a man of character and proves the rarity and worth of his moral fiber.
After getting married to Farfrae, Lucetta is afraid that Farfrae will learn of her former involvement with Henchard, she once again asks Henchard to return her letters. Realizing that the letters are locked in the safe of his old house, Henchard calls on Farfrae one evening to retrieve them and, while there, reads several letters to Farfrae. Tempted as he is to reveal the author of these letters, Henchard can’t bring himself to ruin Farfrae and Lucetta’s marriage. His intention of reading these letters to Farfrae is not to torment Lucetta, but because he is seized by the profound and helpless feeling that he has been wronged. Nothing would be easier for Henchard than to bring shame upon Lucetta, but he determines, quite honorably, that “such a woman was very small deer to hunt.” It reveals the complexity of Henchard’s character, which is the reason why many critics have found him to be most human of all Hardy’s creation.
Chapter 3
The Relationship between Henchard and Farfrae
3.1 The Friendship between Henchard and Farfrae
When Farfrae arrives in Casterbridge, Henchad is at the height of his power as leading merchant and civil magistrate. But before the moment he is seriously embarrassed for having been forced to sell spoiled corn to the townspeople. Farfrae, appearing from out of the blue, saves Henchard from embarrassment and financial loss by showing him a method for restoring the corn. He asks no payment and wishes to continue his journey to New World. But Henchard, with characteristic generosity and impulsiveness, offers Farfrae a position as general manager of his enterprises and is willing to give him a third share in the ownership if he will only stay in Casterbridge. It is immediately clear that on Henchard’s side there is a good deal of personal attachment involved and that these personal elements in the relationship are bound up with Henchard’s great loneliness.
‘Come, bide with me- and name your own terms. I’ll agree to’em willingly and ’ithout a word of gainsaying; for, hang it, Farfrae, I like thee well!’ “I am the most distant fellow in the world when I don’t care for a man, but when a man takes my fancy he takes it strong”.
As the mayor of Casterbridge, Henchard is lonely, he is longing for friendship, so when he met Farfrae, he did whatever he could to make him stay in Casterbride , to be his friend. As is evident in the opining scene in which he auctions off his family, Henchard is ruled primarily by his passions. His actions follow from his emotions rather than from his reason or intellect. After Farfrae shares the secret for restoring damaged grain, Henchard offers him a job. Such an action, in itself, may not necessarily seem odd, but Henchard’s admiration for Farfrae and his determination to secure his employment seem irrational. However, Farfrae becomes popular immediately after he arrives. Yet the story goes on, the charming, romantic ballad singer is not as lovely as before, he takes over Henchard’s grain yards; he wins people of Casterbridge’s heart and he takes over Henchard’s position; He wins Henchard’s lover Lucetta’s heart and marrys her; After Lucetta’s death, he marrys the Elizabeth—Jane, the one Henchard really cares about, and takes her away from him. He cannot understand Henchard, he should know that the most degrading thing he can do for Henchard is to buy his house and furniture. He even does not believe that Henchard is sincere to stop him on his way to Weatherbury at the night of Lucetta’s death.
Though Henchard treats him as a real friend, he is never good to him, never treating Henchard as a friend, which makes Henchard’s friendship to him seems more pathetic and unworthy; and which also indicates that Henchard is always lonely in friendship.
3.2 The Rivalry between Henchard and Farfrae
The friendship between Henchard and Farfrae turns sour only gradually. Although Farfrae, like Henchard, is also an outsider and a potential rider on the wheel of fortune, he becomes popular immediately after his arrival. As is evident in the opening scene in which he auctions off his family, Henchard is ruled primarily by his passions. His actions follow from his emotions rather than from his reason or intellect, as when, after Farfrae shares the secret for restoring damaged grain, Henchard offers him a job. Such an action, in itself, may not necessary seem odd, but Henchard’s admiration for Farfrae and his determination to secure his employment seem irrational. It hardly seems prudent for a respected grain merchant to be willing to give away one third of his business to a man he hardly knows.
Casterbridge under Henchard’s reign is too remote and too removed from the scientific, social, and technological advancements that are sweeping through England during Industrial Revolution in the mid-nineteenth century to offer Farfrae the ‘scope’ he seeks. Indeed, before Farfrae arrives, no one in Casterbridge has ever heard of --let alone developed and perfected—a method of restoring ‘grown wheat.’ Farfrae brings with him new methods of organizing and running an agricultural business. His dazzling abilities—there is the suggestion of something miraculous in his knowledge of how to transform damaged grain into palatable bread—work their magic on Henchard and later, the entire town. But the degree to which Henchard is seized by admiration has more to do with the nature of his own character than the quality of Farfrae’s impressive and obscure knowledge. What may initially attract Henchard to Farfrae’s methods is the promise of transforming something clearly damaged into salvageable goods, a process that Henchard hopes to apply to his own life in order to atone for his sins.
If Farfrae represents Henchard’s opposite in relation to progress, he also embodies the flip side of the mayor’s passion. Farfrae emerges as an emotionally cool man. Although he proves a kind and attentive listener to the many troubles of Henchard’s heart, he never imagines Henchard to be his confident. Hardy does not suggest that Farfrae is without sin or troubles but, rather, that he approaches them from a more pragmatic perspective. For example, in chapter 7, Farfrae sings a moving and sentimental tribute to the homeland he has left behind. Even though he feels intense nostalgia for his homeland, he approaches his motivations for leaving Scotland behind. In this way, Hardy draws a dividing line between the two men. Whereas Henchard stands for tradition and unfettered emotions, Farfrae embodies progress and reason. After Farfrae became Henchard’s manager, Henchard’s corn and hay business thrives under Farfrae’s management, and the two men become good friends. However, Henchard has been alienated from the human society he inhabits through his naturalistic imagery. He is a total misfit to the town. He stands in a completely unwanted position. The world of Casterbridge belongs to Farfrae. When people want an opinion on any small matter of agriculture or business it's Farfrae they seek. Even Casterbridge children know Farfrae is better than Henchard.
"But please will Mr. Farfrae come?" Said the child ... "Oh – I see - that's what they say-hey? They like him because he's cleverer than Mr. Henchard, and because he knows more; and in Mr. Henchard can't hold a candle to him-hey?" ... "And he's better tempered, and Henchard's a fool to him, say. And when some of the women were a walking home they said 'He's a diment -he’s a chap o’wax --he's the best-he's the horse for my money' says they. And they said,' He's the most understanding man o’them two by long chalks. I wish he was the master instead of Henchard' they said"
This is the voice of the people of Casterbridge speaking through this impartial medium of a child's memory.
Henchard and Farfrae have a quarrel over the treatment of Abel Whittle, a man who is consistently late for his job in Henchard’s hay-yard. When Whittle is late for work the day after Henchard reprimands him for his tardiness, Henchard goes to his house, drags him out of bed, and sends him to work without his breeches. When Farfrae sees Whittle, who claims that he will later kill himself rather than bear this humiliation, he tells him to go home and dress properly. Henchard and Farfrae confront each other, and Farfrae threatens to leave. The two reconcile, but Henchard, upset by Farfrae’s insubordination, thinks on him withm’dim dread’ and regrets having ‘confided to him the secrets of his life.’
A festival day in celebration of a national event is suggested to the country at large, but Casterbridge is slow to make plans. One day, Farfrae asks Henchard if he can borrow some waterproof cloths to organize a celebration, Henchard is inspired to plan events for holiday. However, his events are not as good as Farfrae’s. Prominent townspeople tease Henchard, remarking that Farfrae will soon surpass his master. Henchard replies that no such thing will happen, attesting that Farfrae will shortly be leaving the business.
Character is fate; Henchard’s emotions dominate his life and tend to determine his actions. When he enters into his relationship with Farfrae, for instance, he does so wholeheartedly. It is not until their relationship begins to sour first as a result of their disagreement over Abel Whittle and later as a result of Henchard’s failed celebration that Henchard’s emotional involvement with and dedication to a man he hardly knows seems reckless. This characteristic extremity of emotion shapes the course of Henchard’s life, just as his exceptional guilt over mistreating Susan leads him to marry for the second time a woman he does not love, his jealousy of Farfrae forces him into a competition that he cannot win.
In order to cut Farfrae out of the corn and hay business, Henchard consults a man known as a ‘forecaster’ or weather prophet to discern harvest conditions. This man predicts that the harvest will bring rain, so Henchard, trusting that the upcoming crop will be bad, buys a large quantity of corn. When harvest comes, however, the weather is fair and the crop is good, which causes prices to fall, Henchard loses money.
This indicates that as Henchard falls, so do the proverbial walls that keep progress and modernity at bay. Hardy contrasts Henchard of his reliance on the outdated weather prophet with Farfrae in his reliance on and fondness for modern. It’s a competition that Henchard can never win.
One night, one of Farfrae’s wagoners and one of Henchard’s collide in the street in front of High-place Hall. Henchard is summoned to settle the dispute. Lucetta and Elizabeth-Jane testify that Henchard’s man is in the wrong, but Henchard’s man maintains that these two cannot be trusted because ‘all women side with Farfrae.’ The clash between the wagoners of Farfrae and Henchard is symbolic of the larger clash between the two men and the forces they represent. As the drivers meet on the cramped street outside High-place Hall, the confrontation seems to indicate a clash between age and youth, tradition and modernity, past and future.
After the furmity-woman accuses Henchard for the selling of his wife, he quickly and completely lost everything, he wants to commit suicide. Henchard’s desperation has much to do with Farfrae and his success, which seems like some sort of betrayal to Henchard, who has helped Farfrae establish himself in Casterbridge. Since Farfrae shows up in Casterbridge, he and Henchard moved steadily in opposite directions, the former toward prosperity and achievement, the latter toward failure and obscurity. The extremity of Henchard’s passions is, in large part, responsible for the severity of his fall. Hardy, appropriating the words of the eighteenth-century German writer Novels, stresses that ‘Character is fate’. Henchard’s response to his bankruptcy proves this theory. His extreme emotions and inability to compromise or show restraint lead him to sell his last valuable possession, his gold watch. Thus, an honorable act launches him further into poverty and despair.
Because Farfrae causes Henchard to lose his face as the ‘Royal Personage’ visit Casterbridge, Henchard decides to seek revenge. He has a fight with Farfrae, but he ties one of his arms to make an even match. Though Henchard overpowers Farfrae, he cannot bring himself to finish off his opponent. Though Henchard is powerful, he is no bully, and he uses his both physical and political strength sparingly. Though he laments that he has taken Farfrae’s dismissal ‘like a lamb’, he wants nothing more than a fair fight from the Scotchman. This desire for fairness is further manifested in his decision to bind one arm before the wrestling match begins, since he is the stronger of the two man.
The opposition of Henchard and Farfrae is essentially a formal contrast of two different ways of dealing with the same elusive crop conditions, from planting to speculation based on harvest weather. This opposition can be expanded to two ways of dealing with people, with the universe, as is in Henchard and Farfrae: the friendly but shallow, and optimistic but withal cautious, man who recognizes that bankruptcy is a natural if avoidable feature of business life, the intellectually limited and cruel egoist who can perceive no other’s life but as circling around his own but who also perceives and accepts to the profoundest depths of his being that actions have consequences, and who while he can never move beyond the limitations of his self is able to understand the insignificance of both worthiness and worldly success.
Farfrae serves as a foil for Henchard, whereas will and intuition determine the course of Henchard’s life, Farfrae is a man of intellect. He fails to feel any emotion too deeply, and remains emotionally distant. In this respect , he stands in bold contrast to Henchard, whose depth of feeling is so profound that it ultimately dooms him. It is through defeat that Henchard becomes a man of true character. His willingness to bear the brunt of his suffering and his continual refusal to foist his misery on others and his resistance to suicide mark him as a hero. In deed, in many respects, Henchard conforms to the tradition of tragic hero, a character whose greatest qualities or actions ultimately lead to his downfall. He is indeed a man of character.
Chapter 4
Conclusion
Hardy is an excellent writer in the history of English literature. He has contributed to the development of tragic novel. In his lifetime the novel develops fast. It is through Hardy that the tragic novel occupies a position in fiction. Hardy opens a way for the development of tragic novel. In his exploration of human tragedy he shows sympathy for the miserable condition of man. He is, as Woolf observes “the greatest tragic writer among English novelists.” The experience of all the human beings is compressed into one man. The protagonist, Henchard is quite different from his contemporaries. Hardy shows a man with good character but is ruined by his character.
As a story of a man of character, the Mayor of Casterbridge focuses on how Henchard’s character gives rise to his tragic fate. Throughout the novel, Henchard’s volatile temper forces him to sell his wife after he gets drunk, which is the beginning of his tragic life; his imprudent temper also forces him into ruthless competition with Farfrae that strips him of his pride and property, while his insecurities lead him to deceive the person he learns to truly care about, Elizabeth-Jane, causing him to lose her eventually. Henchard is nearly the most personalized of Hardy’s men: his gloominess, his severe friendliness, and his businesslike bluntness even when proposing marriage, No doubt it is a well-meaning man isolated by guilt who he makes his strongest appeal to our sympathy.
Hardy insists that his hero is a worthy man, Henchard’s worth 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. As a result, the story of Henchard is thus the story of insignificant man, caught in the wheel of fate and in the river of time, struggling for fulfillment while the current sweeps them toward some unknown shore. Though his life is miserable and ends in tragic, he is a man of Noble spirit and deserves our great sympathy.
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