Analysis of Thomas Hardy’s The Trumpet-Major

By NASRULLAH MAMBROL on May 21, 2025

Judged the most romantic book written by Thomas Hardy, The Trumpet-Major ran first as a serial in the publication Good Words from January to December in 1880. While the character referred to by the title does not find romance, several other characters in the novel do, making it an exception among Hardy’s works.

The female love interest is Anne Garland, daughter of a painter, who lives with her widowed mother in the Overcombe Mill, a highly symbolic name as love will overcome all its inhabitants. Miller Loveday, whose family also bears a symbolic name, lives in half the mill with his two sons. Robert (Bob) Loveday is a sailor, while John Loveday serves as trumpet-major of a dragoon regiment that may see action during the Napoleonic Wars.

John nurtures an unrequited love for Anne, asking her to allow him “to court” her. She refuses him by arguing that the life of a soldier’s wife is a trial, although she hesitates to dismiss “a man who has all the natural and moral qualities she would desire, and only fails in the social.” But she does not love John; she loves Bob. Critics of the novel have pointed out the inconsistency in Hardy’s dealing with the differences in the social classes. As daughter and wife of a painter, neither Anne nor Mrs. Garland should take any interest in a miller and his sons. Hardy deserves such criticism, as the overwhelming majority of his fiction deals pointedly with such social inequalities.

A third male character named Festus Derriman provides a comic touch for the novel in his clownish actions, as does his elderly uncle Benjy, a semi-hermit to whom Anne kindly reads the newspaper. Festus is enthralled with Anne, who cannot abide his presence. While Bob is away, he narrowly escapes two threats: first, a kidnapping attempt by the press-gang, which is intent on dragging him into service; and second, the attentions of a tainted woman named Matilda Johnson. The two become engaged until John selflessly acts to break them up, regardless of the effect it will have on him.

Anne becomes peevish over his interaction with Matilda, and her annoyance grows when he begs her not to carry a “wrong notion” regarding his character. As much as Anne wants to express her affection, she scolds him, saying, “You are too easily impressed by new faces and that gives me a bad opinion of you: yes, a bad opinion.” Bob joins the British navy of his own volition, while John comes home to beat Festus so he will leave Anne alone.

Anne and Bob end the novel together, as do Anne’s mother and Miller Loveday. Poor John, however, departs alone to take up another battle, going “off to blow his trumpet till silenced for ever upon one of the bloody battle-fields of Spain.”

Hardy includes his traditional sharp eye for detail concerning those who live in the countryside. Minor characters such as Benjy Derriman’s worker, Cripplestraw, and Mrs. Garland bring life to the landscape, as do details about King George III’s “bucolic” arrival at nearby Gloucester Lodge and the working of a mill where Anne meets Bob.

Despite the novel’s serious and realistic ending, Hardy includes much farce as he traces the characters’ various adventures. Along with only one later addition of his works, Two on a Tower (1882), Hardy would officially classify The Trumpet-Major under the heading “Romance and Fantasies.” Critics took issue with the classification, viewing the book as more historical fiction, claiming the humor Hardy does include is undercut by the sadness and death of his topic of war. Others argue it cannot be historical fiction because the characters in no way represent their era’s social practices or any of the historical forces at work in the novel.

Bibliography

May, C. E. Thomas Hardy: An Agnostic and a Romantic. Lawrenceville, Va.: Brunswick Pub. Corp., 1992.

Nemesvari, Richard. Introduction to The Trumpet-Major, by Thomas Hardy. New York: Oxford University Press, 1991, xi–xxii.