Character and Historical Consciousness in Thomas Hardy's The Mayor of Casterbridge

Character and Historical Consciousness in Thomas Hardy's The Mayor of Casterbridge

The essay attempts at a critical reading of Thomas Hardy's The Mayor of Casterbridge (1886) in terms of character and socio-cultural change. Juxtaposing the story of Michael Henchard's career with the social and economic changes in the agricultural town, it attempts to elaborate on the complex ways in which Hardy relates the old modes of life and thinking to the material culture. Though the novel is centered on the story of Henchard, the Henchard-Farfrae clash represents the conflict of "old" and "new" modes of socio-economic organization and consciousness. The story of the rustic man of character struggling with his contradictory traits of strong will-power and emotional collapse suggests that Hardy's literary representation of the rural community and the rustic protagonist is deeply rooted in historical reality. However, while there is the interlocking of the changes in personal fate and social change, the representation is a "reinvented" literary construction with complex mediation. Despite the narrator's emphasis on Henchard's immutability, peculiarity, and resilience, his character is, in a complex, mediated way, shaped by the material conditions of English rural community in the late 19th century. The mediating role of Elizabeth-Jane as a narrative resolution embodies Hardy's ambivalent historical position concerning the period undergoing change and conflict.