The Mayor of Casterbridge
Summary:
The Mayor of Casterbridge by Thomas Hardy is about a man and wife who go through many hardships in their marriage. The main male character, Henchard, gets extreamly drunk one night and starts making bids to other people to buy his wife. When he wakes up the next morning his wife is gone. He scrambles to town looking for her, but after endless searches of her, he gives up and comes to terms that she has gone to live with the sailor he sold her to forevermore. The book then skips to eighteen years later, and his wife, Susan, comes to look for him with her daughter, Elizabeth-Jane. When they are reunited they decide to get married and tell their daughter that Henchard is her step-father. Later on, after Susan is diagnosed with an illness and passes away, Henchard finds a written letter saying that he is not really the father of Elizabeth-Jane. The daughter that the Henchard’s had together died a few years after they were separated his caused hatred towards Elizabeth –Jane because he now thought of her as not his daughter. The book takes a confusing turn for the reader when Henchard reunites with the woman he was having an affair with before his wife came back to him, Lucetta. Henchard’s daughter also found a man to fall in love with, Farfrae. But instead of everyone falling in love with the expected person, Lucetta and Farfrae fall in love. Then Lucetta has an epileptic seasure and dies, this leaves the characters Henchard, Frafrae, and Elizabeth-Jane left. Elizabeth-Jane and Frafrae fall in love with each other when they realize there is no one else left to love. Henchard ends up living the rest of his life alone, and dies with a will saying that he doesn’t want anyone to remember him, and that everyone should just move on with their lives without him.
Character Analysis:
Henchard- The character Henchard is very frivolous in the things that he does. He doesn’t think about his actions before he does them, example, when he sold his wife to the sailor. Henchard has overall bad luck, many people may confuse Henchards luck with bad karma. Because he caused pain to Susan, his wife, he is doomed to a perpetual lifetime of being dealt what he gave to his wife. He was unhappy with his life for over half of it, and he tried to get back the woman he gave up to have his old wife back. He was a confusing character and he didn’t know how to get his life strait. His characteristics are shallow and naive. All this character wanted to find was love, but the harder he tried to get himself together, it seemed like the more he tore himself apart. He wasn’t in love, he was in love with the idea of love and always having someone there that he cared about, and that cared about him.
Elizabeth-Jane- Elizabeth-Jane was a character that the reader gets to see evolve from a child into a woman. Her overall personality was confident and independent. This character was introduced into a family that left her unclear on who she was and who she was supposed to be, but she continued to keep her head held high and pursue on in life. This character saw how her stepfather saw love, and she assumed that being in love with the idea of love and love itself was the same thing. She was bread with different intuition than everyone else. When she finally finds love she feels fully happy inside, but she is left with a residing feeling that leaves her wondering what there is wrong in her life. Then she finds out her stepfather has passed away and the last words that she said to him were unkind, and left her feeling terrible inside.
Setting:
The setting takes place in the nineteenth century on the English countryside. In a small town called Weydon-Priors, was where the whole plot of the story began. This was the town that the reader was introduced to Henchard, Susan, and the baby Elizabeth-Jane. The part of the story where the very worst thing goes wrong is inside the furmity tent that the couple and their baby enter. When Mr. Henchard starts auctioning off his wife because he is drunk, it fits into the surrounding area very well. A man that is drunk and upset would be gloomy and sad. The author Thomas Hardy picked a setting that is appropriate for the attitude of the main character. The setting is England is gloomy majority of the time, and the countryside of England is very quiet and sad looking. Because this story takes place in the nineteenth century, there are a lot of things that can be gotten away with. The fact that Mr. Henchard auctioned off his wife for money would be very illegal in the current time period the reader is in right now. Because the story is in the nineteenth century, and there’s not technology like video cameras to capture footage of the auction, and there are not any witnesses that stepped forward to testify against him, he was never prosecuted for his actions. Also in this time period, women weren’t as independent as they are in the present time. In the nineteenth century they were told by the men what to do. If that was to happen now days women would turn the other cheek and they wouldn’t let men tell them what to do.
Conflict:
The conflict in The Mayor of Casterbridge is man v. man
The reason that the conflict is man v. man, is because all of the characters fall in love with the wrong person. One character wanted the other character; but the other character didn’t want that character, he wanted the one he couldn’t have.
Theme:
Theme1: Love- Love is a major theme, because all of the characters are in love with someone at some time in this book. They may be confused about who they’re in love with, but they still all are in love.
Theme2: Lust- All of the characters in this book want something from someone that they cannot have. This causes the most trouble in the book and it leads to an unhappy ending for one character in particular
Theme3: Outlook on life- the outlook on life for a lot of the characters in this book were very negative. Their negativity matched the setting, but it didn’t match what they wanted in life. They all wanted to be happy, but they couldn’t be because of their outlook.
Symbols:
Symbol1: Alcohol- this is a symbol of Henchard’s fear of commitment. Because he’s afraid to be fully committed, he sends his wife and the baby he loves, away to a new man.
Symbol2: Weather- the weather is a symbol because the days in England are always dark and sad, because of the amount of death in the book and the unhappiness, the reader puts the two together.
Symbol3: Finch- the caged finch is a symbol, because it is like Henchard saying that he has always had a tight hold on her life, when she finds the bird dead, she also finds her stepfather dead.
Image:
http://www.st-andrews.ac.uk/~ttha/Illustrations/Novels/MAYOR/mayor.htm
Video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k8ntoe2xuaw
Citation page:
Image: Robert Barnes's 20 illustrations for the weekly serial published in The Graphic, January - May, 1886.
Video: "Mayor of Casterbridge 2003 -Clip 3- Susans Letter." YouTube. YouTube, 08 Apr. 2010. Web. 31 Mar. 2013.
"The Mayor of Casterbridge." SparkNotes. SparkNotes, n.d. Web. 31 Mar. 2013.
Summary:
The Mayor of Casterbridge by Thomas Hardy is about a man and wife who go through many hardships in their marriage. The main male character, Henchard, gets extreamly drunk one night and starts making bids to other people to buy his wife. When he wakes up the next morning his wife is gone. He scrambles to town looking for her, but after endless searches of her, he gives up and comes to terms that she has gone to live with the sailor he sold her to forevermore. The book then skips to eighteen years later, and his wife, Susan, comes to look for him with her daughter, Elizabeth-Jane. When they are reunited they decide to get married and tell their daughter that Henchard is her step-father. Later on, after Susan is diagnosed with an illness and passes away, Henchard finds a written letter saying that he is not really the father of Elizabeth-Jane. The daughter that the Henchard’s had together died a few years after they were separated his caused hatred towards Elizabeth –Jane because he now thought of her as not his daughter. The book takes a confusing turn for the reader when Henchard reunites with the woman he was having an affair with before his wife came back to him, Lucetta. Henchard’s daughter also found a man to fall in love with, Farfrae. But instead of everyone falling in love with the expected person, Lucetta and Farfrae fall in love. Then Lucetta has an epileptic seasure and dies, this leaves the characters Henchard, Frafrae, and Elizabeth-Jane left. Elizabeth-Jane and Frafrae fall in love with each other when they realize there is no one else left to love. Henchard ends up living the rest of his life alone, and dies with a will saying that he doesn’t want anyone to remember him, and that everyone should just move on with their lives without him.
Character Analysis:
Henchard- The character Henchard is very frivolous in the things that he does. He doesn’t think about his actions before he does them, example, when he sold his wife to the sailor. Henchard has overall bad luck, many people may confuse Henchards luck with bad karma. Because he caused pain to Susan, his wife, he is doomed to a perpetual lifetime of being dealt what he gave to his wife. He was unhappy with his life for over half of it, and he tried to get back the woman he gave up to have his old wife back. He was a confusing character and he didn’t know how to get his life strait. His characteristics are shallow and naive. All this character wanted to find was love, but the harder he tried to get himself together, it seemed like the more he tore himself apart. He wasn’t in love, he was in love with the idea of love and always having someone there that he cared about, and that cared about him.
Elizabeth-Jane- Elizabeth-Jane was a character that the reader gets to see evolve from a child into a woman. Her overall personality was confident and independent. This character was introduced into a family that left her unclear on who she was and who she was supposed to be, but she continued to keep her head held high and pursue on in life. This character saw how her stepfather saw love, and she assumed that being in love with the idea of love and love itself was the same thing. She was bread with different intuition than everyone else. When she finally finds love she feels fully happy inside, but she is left with a residing feeling that leaves her wondering what there is wrong in her life. Then she finds out her stepfather has passed away and the last words that she said to him were unkind, and left her feeling terrible inside.
Setting:
The setting takes place in the nineteenth century on the English countryside. In a small town called Weydon-Priors, was where the whole plot of the story began. This was the town that the reader was introduced to Henchard, Susan, and the baby Elizabeth-Jane. The part of the story where the very worst thing goes wrong is inside the furmity tent that the couple and their baby enter. When Mr. Henchard starts auctioning off his wife because he is drunk, it fits into the surrounding area very well. A man that is drunk and upset would be gloomy and sad. The author Thomas Hardy picked a setting that is appropriate for the attitude of the main character. The setting is England is gloomy majority of the time, and the countryside of England is very quiet and sad looking. Because this story takes place in the nineteenth century, there are a lot of things that can be gotten away with. The fact that Mr. Henchard auctioned off his wife for money would be very illegal in the current time period the reader is in right now. Because the story is in the nineteenth century, and there’s not technology like video cameras to capture footage of the auction, and there are not any witnesses that stepped forward to testify against him, he was never prosecuted for his actions. Also in this time period, women weren’t as independent as they are in the present time. In the nineteenth century they were told by the men what to do. If that was to happen now days women would turn the other cheek and they wouldn’t let men tell them what to do.
Conflict:
The conflict in The Mayor of Casterbridge is man v. man
The reason that the conflict is man v. man, is because all of the characters fall in love with the wrong person. One character wanted the other character; but the other character didn’t want that character, he wanted the one he couldn’t have.
Theme:
Theme1: Love- Love is a major theme, because all of the characters are in love with someone at some time in this book. They may be confused about who they’re in love with, but they still all are in love.
Theme2: Lust- All of the characters in this book want something from someone that they cannot have. This causes the most trouble in the book and it leads to an unhappy ending for one character in particular
Theme3: Outlook on life- the outlook on life for a lot of the characters in this book were very negative. Their negativity matched the setting, but it didn’t match what they wanted in life. They all wanted to be happy, but they couldn’t be because of their outlook.
Symbols:
Symbol1: Alcohol- this is a symbol of Henchard’s fear of commitment. Because he’s afraid to be fully committed, he sends his wife and the baby he loves, away to a new man.
Symbol2: Weather- the weather is a symbol because the days in England are always dark and sad, because of the amount of death in the book and the unhappiness, the reader puts the two together.
Symbol3: Finch- the caged finch is a symbol, because it is like Henchard saying that he has always had a tight hold on her life, when she finds the bird dead, she also finds her stepfather dead.
Image:
http://www.st-andrews.ac.uk/~ttha/Illustrations/Novels/MAYOR/mayor.htm
Video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k8ntoe2xuaw
Citation page:
Image: Robert Barnes's 20 illustrations for the weekly serial published in The Graphic, January - May, 1886.
Video: "Mayor of Casterbridge 2003 -Clip 3- Susans Letter." YouTube. YouTube, 08 Apr. 2010. Web. 31 Mar. 2013.
"The Mayor of Casterbridge." SparkNotes. SparkNotes, n.d. Web. 31 Mar. 2013.