Introduction

The Mayor of Casterbridge

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Table of Contents

Introduction. 3

Discussion. 3

Conclusion. 6

References. 7

Introduction

The Mayor of Casterbridge is a novel by Thomas Hardy That was published in 1986. This novel is based on the life of a man of character and this English author wrote this in a very effective way. This novel indicates the rise and fall of the hero’s life. The main theme of this novel is regret. The hero of this novel is Henchard. The hero decides to sell his wife in a drunken situation and his daughter haunts him throughout the rest of his life and their relationship with his wife and daughter becomes poisoned. This novel indicates the situation, theme, characters, and analysis this time also.

Discussion

This novel shows a significant story of a labourer named Micheal Henchard. He is a young farm labourer who works hard for his achievement (Kenney, 2018). He wanted to see him in position as a wealthy agricultural merchant and mayor of the town of Casterbridge. This condition is very low and always complains about his unhappy life to his wife. He is drunk and even offers to sell his wife and daughter too.

This novel tells about his life’s rise and fall which helps him realize his responsibility, his bad decisions, wrong thoughts, and many more issues. Donald Farfrae is another young man who comes from Scotland and passes through this town on his way to America. In the middle part of this novel, Henchard and Farfrae meet each other and Henchard convinces him to become his manager. This novel discusses their rivalry and how Farfrae becomes the mayor of Casterbridge after Henchard’s term expires.

In this novel, Micheal Henchard gives the appearance of a strong man with a well-built body and powerful personality. He walks with certain doggedness and looks very harsh and stern. His frame is very strong and heavy and his features are too large. His strong personality creates a major character in this novel and he is able to carry his businesses properly through his strength (Razaq et al., 2021).

Donald Farfrae is a small man by physical appearance. This person became large with the help of his principle, self-control, and dignity. His high morals and principles help this person to become richer, strong and all things impelled into competition against Henchard. He is always more punctual, dignified and he never sees his victims and mean-spiritedness. He is very elegant by appearance and he is full of action and emotion too. In the novel, he stands for Henchard when he wants him and after their rivalry, he proved his actions where necessary. Those two people are totally different from each other and their appearance fits this novel totally different from one another.

Figure 1: Cover page of the novel, ‘The Mayor of Casterbridge’

Source: (Razaq et al., 2021)

Micheal Henchard is young labour who works hard to achieve a dignified position in his town and always has the passion to get the mayor preposition of Casterbridge (Khan, 2021). This character here is very clumsy; his work process is also not so forward. His personality is very strong here, but his thoughts are not good at certain times. He always focuses on achieving more money or more power without hard work. He always complains to his wife about their unhappy wife and is determined to sell his wife and daughter to another person. When he realizes his wrong decision and bad thoughts, that time he regrets it all and he patches up with his family at the last stage of this novel. In another part, Donald Farfrae is a small man who comes from Scotland and serves as a foil for Henchard. Like his character, he is totally different from Henchard and his character is mixed with actions and emotions.

He is a very punctual, hard worker, and his dignity, principle make him more powerful. As a manager of Henchard, he always did his best performance and after he introduced his personal business, there was a war between Henchard and Donald. This novel discusses all those factors which help the reader to more easily understand this topic. Donald is a model man of this novel, where his stereotypical strengths and weaknesses of such peoples (Okoye& Dike, 2021). He always possesses an intellectual competence for charisma. This novel tells his emotional portion very deeply and also indicates his willingness to favor townspeople.

Essentially, Farfrae’s fate shows as a kind of positive mirror of Micheal Henchard. Farfrae’s character is too complicated to understand his thoughts even though he does serve as an idiot for Micheal Henchard. Micheal Henchard is a complex character in the mayor of Casterbridge’s novel. This novel tells about his rise and down journey which connected to all people effectively. Henchard is determined to sell his wife and daughter for money as he runs through very unpredictable situations. At the last stage, he decides to marry his ex-wife once again after releasing all the bad patches.

Donald’s character is totally different from Henchard’s. Donald was a determinist who delivered external forces that affected human lives deeply. Donald starts his life from nothing and his dignity, principle, and faithful observation bring him to reach the success stage of life and become mayor of Casterbridge town (GÜROVA, 2018). The writer tells their faithfulness in a very effective way and also suggests a big understanding among man life. Those forces are altered to the course of human life and events can increase the difference between them. This thought is true for this novel and their Henchard and Donald characters too.

Conclusion

According to analyzing this novel, it could be concluded that this novel tells a life structure in a very effective way. This novel discusses the hero’s life and tells the rise and fall story of his life. The hero, Michel Henchard started from nothing after abandoning his wife and daughter, he gained prosperity and respect. But his wrong decisions, vengeful nature, bad luck take a bad nature for his life and he loses everything. He reunited with his family after realizing all those things and he regrets it. This novel describes all those parts in a significant way which is very understandable.

References

GÜROVA, E. (2018). Character is Fate: Henchard’s Rise and Fall in The Mayor of Casterbridge by Thomas Hardy. Mediterranean Journal of Humanities, 8(1), 203-212. DOI: 10.47750/cibg.2021.27.05.045

Kenney, A. (2018). Michael Henchard, The Mayor of Casterbridge: The Life and Death of a Hysterical Character (Doctoral dissertation, The Ohio State University). Retrieved from: https://kb.osu.edu/bitstream/handle/1811/84875/1/Life_and_Death_of_a_Hysterical_Character.pdf

Khan, D. I. (2021). Exploring Elements of Naturalism in Hardy’s The Mayor of Casterbridge. Journal of Contemporary Issues in Business and Government Vol, 27(5).DOI: 10.47750/cibg.2021.27.05.002

Okoye, C., & Dike, P. (2021). TRAGEDY, CONCEALMENT, AND REVELATION OF THE UNCONSCIOUS IN HARDY’S THE MAYOR OF CASTERBRIDGE. NIGERIAN JOURNAL OF AFRICAN STUDIES (NJAS), 3(2). Retrieved from: https://www.nigerianjournalsonline.com/index.php/NJAS/article/viewFile/2093/2046

Razaq, A., Jamil, E., Ullah, A., Sardaraz, K., & Khan, A. A. (2021). Exploring Effects of Symbols in Hardy’s The Mayor of Casterbridge. Multicultural Education, 7(4). DOI: http://ijdri.com/me/wp-content/uploads/2021/04/52.pdf