Name: Savani Manisha
Paper: Study of the Author,
Hardy as novelist.
Topic: Role of chance and
fate in Henchard life
Roll: 10
M.A: 2
SEM: 4
Year: 2012-13
Submitted to:
Dr, Dilip Barad
M.K Bhavnagar University
Role
of chance and fate in Henchard Life
In the ‘’Mayor of the Casterbridge ‘is
the tragic novel by Thomas hardy and in this novel hardy highlight fate
character of Michael Henchard.
Hope for Henchard
The first and the longest of
these movement falls into two almost establishes a situation which seems to
offer hope for Henchard‘s success following the brief account of Henchard‘s
economic and moral collapse at Weyden priors and his resolution to make a new start,
hardy abruptly proceeds to reveal the outcome of Henchard‘s vow after a lapse
of eighteen years. Not only does Henchard now appear as a figure of prosperity
and social status, but events now seem to promise his further financial and
social success. He gains the commercial support and personal companionship of
Farfrae, he effects reconciliation with his lost wife and child and he seems
about a find a solution to the awkward consequence of his affair with Lucetta.
The most prominent signs of Henchard’s character in chapter six and fourteen
are his consistent if rough benignity his gruff friendliness and frankness with Farfrae his concern for Lucetta his effort to make amends to Susan and
Elizabeth -Jane and his acknowledgement of his own loneliness and need for companionship.
These features of his character tend to minimize his earlier harshness , so
that by chapter fourteen we witness the high water mark of Henchard’s apparent
success and his moral goodness.
The Reversal of the second part of the first movement:
The remaining chapters of the first
movement then reverse the course of Henchard’s fortunes. As Henchard’s
disappointment and anxieties now increase his frustrated wrath is vented with
increasing force and with obvious moral culpability on persons who appear to
deserve it less and who suffer from it more intensely. In the short, the
temperament which would have no pity for weakness gradually re-emerges and by
the end of first movement, it is again dominant feature of Henchard character. The
first sign of this progressive deterioration in Henchard his grotesque attempt
to punish Abel whittle is almost immediately countered by revelation of
Henchard’s previous charities to Whittler’s mother and by frankness he displays
in his reconciliation with Farfrae But as the action continues Hardy develops
situations which show more and more clearly the vehemence and injustice of
Henchard’s conduct. He dismisses Farfrae and begins to regard him as an enemy.
In this context Hardy supplies an often quoted authorial comment which implies
a connection between Henchard‘s moral stature and his fortune.’’ Character is
fate’’ Hardy reminds us and hardy painterly observes that Farfrae prospers as
he blamelessly pursues his ‘’praise worthy course”
While the gloomy Henchard has ‘’ quilted the ways of vulgar men light
to guide him on a better way’’
The decline in Henchard‘s fortunes due to his own
faults:
The chapter which follow seem
designed to illustrate this point, for us Henchard‘s more apparent, his fortunes
decline. What begins in Henchard‘s impulsive desire for a ‘’tussle at fair buying and selling develops into his
more desperately planned and savage effort to destroy fanfare’s career and
starve him out’’ Henchard‘s effort to wreak Farfrae are followed by his
cruel coldness to Elizabeth-Jane who is the innocent victim of Henchard‘s anger
over his discovery that she is not his daughter. And finally Henchard adopts
the still more vicious course of obtaining an unwilling promise of marriage
from Lucetta by threatening to reveal his former relationship with her. At this
point in the story, Hardy Reintroduces the farmity women whose public exposure
of Henchard‘s fall and also serves to re-in force momentarily the sinister
aspect of his character.
The connection
between character and fate:
Thus, through the long first movement of
the novel. Hardy uses both action authorial comments to shift our impression of
Henchard’s moral stature in a curve which curve ponds to economic rise and fall
nature and chance are repeatedly made to serve what seems to be a larger moral
order in the word. He himself come to feel that some supernatural power is
‘’bent on punishing him and is working against him’’ The course of Henchard‘s
career might stand as evidence of the general belief that the wise and the good
prosper in this word while the wicked and the rash fall. In short, the first
movement of the novel seems to demonstrate the truth of the dictum that ‘’character
is fate’’ In this first section of the story, Hardy maintains a general
correspondence between the changes in Henchard‘s apparent moral stature and the
changes in his fortunes.
Renewed hope in
the beginning of the second movement:
Henchard’s
fall makes the beginning of another tragic cycle in the novel a second movement
which again is followed by a reversal and a falling action which terminates in
a casterbridge. Hardy clearly wants to leave no doubt about Henchard’s fate
after the farming a woman has revealed his past. In this connection Hardy says on
that day almost at that minute he passed the ridge of prosperity and honor and
began to descend rapidly on the other side but having predicted the imminent collapse
of Henchard’s fortune, Hardy once more shifts the aspect in which he presents
Henchard’s character and career and out of his account of Henchard’s failure he
manages to establish a situation which seems to offer renewed hope. Thus he
makes the court incident an occasion for a comment which puts Henchard’s career
in as more favorable light.
The amends he had made in after life were lost
sight of in the dramatic glare of the original act. Had the incident been well
known of old and always, it might by this time have grown to be lightly regarded
has the rather tall wildest, but well night the single one of young man with
whom the steady and mature is somewhat headstrong burgher of today had scarcely
a paint in common.
Thereafter, Hardy stresses
Henchard’s generosity and integrity. The bankruptcy proceedings themselves
serve to dramatize Henchard’s scrupulous integrity as well as his sense of
justice which prompt him to sell his gold watch in order to repay one of the
creditors such indications of hopeful change in Henchard’s reconciliation with Farfrae . This is followed by Henchard’s reconciliation with Elizabeth- Jane
who nurses him through a brief illness. Hardy thus repeatedly present Henchard
in ways which not only emphasize his integrity and good sense but also suggest
the possibility that he may now successfully accommodate himself to his new
situation
Henchard’s destructive intentions checked
by internal compulsions:
But in the following chapters
there is an abrupt reversal, a second descending action and what at first
appears to be a second corresponding degeneration of Henchard’s character. In
rapid succession we are told that Henchard has undergone moral change and has
returned to his old view of Farfrae as the triumphant rival who rode roughshod
over him” that Henchard ‘drinking brought an a new era of recklessness and that his buffetings’’ . The crisis which
follow certainly depend upon and repeatedly dramatize Henchard’s sinister
qualities formerly talented ‘’ have been ‘’quickened in life by his buffetings
‘’ He curses himself for his failure and Hardy says ‘for this repentant sinner
at least , there was to be no jay in heaven.
Human Life not governed by an ideal
justice
The death of Lucetta makes another
major turning point in the novel. A third cycle from hope to casterbridge-for Henchard’s is clearly perceptible for Henchard’s in his third movement of
novel. Henchard now becomes so deeply attached to step daughter Elizabeth -
Jane that he sends away Newson with the lie that the girl is dead. But just as
the farming women return to ruin Henchard by her exposure of his past. So
Newson now returns to expose Henchard lie and dash his hope of a life made
meaningful by the final presence of Elizabeth -Jane. But now Hardy presents
Henchard as having become excessively chastened. Henchard is reduced to
suicidal despair at the thought of losing Elizabeth -Jane and he anxiously
calculates what he says and does in an effort to avoid her displeasure. The girls’
companionship and sympathy seem so important to his very existence that he
would put up with anything for her sake but it is not only Henchard’s path.
Thus, Henchard is the tragic man and
his one mistake draws him in tragedy.
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