Thomas Hardy first published The Life and Death of the Mayor of Casterbridge: A Man of Character in serial parts; it appeared in The Graphic between January and May 1886, to be published in book form later that year. It tells the story of a man who first loses his luck, then gains a new identity, but eventually suffers for his past actions.
Michael Henchard is a field hand out of work who gets drunk at a fair and, for the measly sum of five guineas, sells his wife, Susan, and their daughter, Elizabeth-Jane, to a sailor named Newson, who takes Susan as his own wife. When morning and sobriety arrive, Henchard realizes the magnitude of his act and swears not to touch liquor again for 21 years. Years later, Susan Newson believes her sailor husband dead and sets out to search for Henchard, who has reformed and become a model citizen. In the town of Casterbridge, he has made a life as a successful grain merchant and has become the mayor.
When Susan and Elizabeth-Jane arrive, Henchard generously promises them aid, although he wants to keep their identities secret in order not to threaten his status. He meets with Susan and promises to marry her, although he is engaged to marry Lucetta Le Sueur. Lucetta is told of the circumstances and breaks with Henchard, although she still moves to Casterbridge. She keeps quiet about her past relationship with Henchard, not wanting everyone to understand that she has been jilted.
Henchard hires a bright and enterprising Scots manager, new to Casterbridge, named Donald Farfrae. He also carries out his promise to marry Susan, but she dies a short time later, shocking Henchard with the revelation that Elizabeth-Jane is actually Newson’s daughter. Henchard alienates himself from the young woman, unable to bear her any longer, and he becomes daily more bitter. The same energy and defiance that in the past had brought him success now afford only loneliness and disappointment.
Eventually, Elizabeth-Jane feels she must leave, and she moves in with Lucetta, becoming her housekeeper. Farfrae had appeared interested in courting Elizabeth-Jane, but marries Lucetta instead. He also becomes estranged from Henchard over a misunderstanding.
As Henchard indulges in hardheaded isolation from his daughter and friend, Farfrae opens his own business. He gains success as Henchard nears bankruptcy. The old relationship between Henchard and Lucetta, including his having already been married when he became engaged to her, comes to light, and she literally dies from the shame. Newson suddenly appears, not lost at sea after all, and joins the happy couple, Farfrae and Elizabeth-Jane, who marry. Henchard cannot reconcile himself to his fate. He becomes even more bitter and less employable and eventually must be cared for by a longtime friend, Able Whittle. The two live on Egdon Heath for a time until Henchard dies a broken and lonely man.
As Hardy himself remarked in the preface to his second edition, the novel “is more particularly a study of one man’s deeds and characters” than any of the other stories in his “Exhibition of Wessex Life.” Therefore, only Henchard is completely drawn, and his frailties made glaringly apparent. Early critics took issue with Farfrae’s speech as not being appropriately Scottish, to which Hardy replied that Farfrae “is represented not as he would appear to other Scotsmen, but as he would appear to people of outer regions.” As for Susan, Elizabeth-Jane, and Lucetta, they are sketched as other of Hardy’s female characters, with respectful attention to both strengths and weaknesses, but necessarily secondary to the male characters.
The setting of Casterbridge represents Dorchester, to which Hardy had returned in 1883 and where he lived until his death. The setting grants unity to the novel, representing the process of life and its tragedy, as well as its delights. Surrounded by farmland, the town owes its character to the country and is indelibly marked by rural life. It has lovely gardens in which one cannot dig very deeply before unearthing skeletons of the ancient Romans, symbolic of the intimate juxtaposition of life and death of the spirit, a major theme of the book. Past and present exist together, affecting one another forever, as Henchard’s past will strongly affect his present.
In a curious embracing of his destiny, Henchard compares himself to the ultimate outcast, Cain, who committed murder as his sin. While Henchard’s sins may be something less, he notes his isolation is “as I deserve” and comments his “punishment is not greater than I can bear!” His strength tested and found sound, he lives alone in the misery and sorrow that he concocted. The dizzying height of his expectations remains responsible for the nauseating depths of his later despair. Still regularly read and studied, the novel remains readily available and has been converted to various media forms.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Allen, Walter. Afterword to The Life and Death of the Mayor of Casterbridge: A Story of a Man of Character, by Thomas Hardy. New York: Signet Classics, 1962, 328–334.
Mallet, Phillip V., and Ronald P. Draper, ed. A Spacious Vision: Essays on Hardy. Newmill: Patten, 1994.
Turner, Paul. The Life of Thomas Hardy: A Critical Biography. Oxford: Blackwell, 1998.
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