THE PATTERN OF TRAGEDY IN THE NOVELS OF THOMAS HARDY

THE PATTERN OF TRAGEDY IN THE NOVELS OF THOMAS HARDY A Thesis Submitted for the Ph. D. Degree of MAGADH UNIVERSITY BODH GAYA 1978 BY SHYAM NARAYAN SINGH LECTURER I N ENGLISH (M.U. Service) Service) J.J. COLLEGE, GAYA Braj Nandan Sahay M.A. ( English & Hindi), Ph. D. Lecturer in English Magadh University Service Gaya College, GAYA This is to certify that Sri Shyam Narayan Singh, Lecturer in English, J.J. College, Gaya, has worked under my supervision for the requisite number of terms and that the thesis embodied his own work. Sd/(Braj Nandan Sahay) Supervisor ACKNOWLEDGEMENT I would like to thank the following for their valuable assistance in the preparation of this thesis: Dr. S.K. Parsad, Senior University Professor and Head of the Department of English, Magadh University, Bodh Gaya, for his sympathy, inspiration and enlightening instruction. Dr. B.N. Sahay, for his patience and generosity in devoting hours of his valuable time to discussions. He took great pains to go through every line written by me and suggested improvement, wherever necessary. Dr. Gupteshwar Prasad and Shree Nalini Ranjan Kumar, for their constant encouragement and valuable suggestions. My Wife, Shakuntala Singh, who discussed with me the text of Hardy’s novels and drew my attention to many a fact which I might probably have overlooked. National Library, Calcutta, British Council Library, Patna and British Council Library, Calcutta for making available to me necessary books and journals without which I could not have completed this work. Lecturer in English Magadh University Service J.J. College, Gaya. 12.09.1978. Shyam Narayan Singh THE PATTERN OF TRAGEDY IN THE NOVELS OF THOMAS HARDY CONTENTS Page Preface 1 Chapter I : Introduction ( A survey of Hardy criticism and the proposed line of research ) 1 Chapter II : Impulse Vs Reason (The role of man) 32 Chapter III : The Unseen Hand (The role of fate) 108 Chapter IV : Struggle for Existence (The role of nature) 153 Chapter V : Social Codes and Conventions (The role of society) 182 Chapter VI : Conclusion (Complex pattern) 221 Bibliography 245 PREFACE The novels of Thomas Hardy present a unique amalgam of the Victorian technique and the modern intellectual attitude to life and things. His blend of the modern and the traditional is one of the major reasons of his continuing success which Dickens alone of the great Victorian can equal or surpass. Among other things, Hardy’s tragic vision of life has been one of the apparent attractions behind his popularity. His critics have often high-lighted the weakness of his tragic novels, but no sustained effort has yet been made to make a comprehensive study of the various ingredients that unite to make the fabric of his tragic fiction. It has been my feeling that Hardy’s philosophic “Intrusions” and his dependence on the element of chance have often been overemphasized and subtlety of the character’s determining role has been overlooked by many a critic. For a proper evaluation of his novels what is needed is a thorough analysis of the factors – Fate, nature, Society, Individual and poetic grasp of situation and character- that are inextricably woven into their composite tragic pattern. In the present thesis I have endeavoured to explore the extent to which the characters themselves stand responsible for their sorrows and sufferings. I have further endeavoured to discover a pattern of tragedy which is Hardy’s own and in which the various tragic factors interact with one another causing pain and suffering in human life. “Nothing begins and nothing ends, That is not paid with moan; For we are born in others’ pain, And perish in our own.” Francis Thompson (A. Compton-Rickett, A History of English Literature, Thomas Nelson & sons Ltd., London, Edinburgh etc., 1956, p.490). CHAPTER I Introduction (A survey of Hardy criticism and the proposed line of research) Hardy presents life in all its complexity and so we find in his novels complex causes of tragedy. Before going to trace the pattern of tragedy in his novels, it will be useful to have a passing glimpse of the critical materials that surround his contribution to the store of fiction. His first attempt at novel writing began with The Poor Man and the Lady in 1867, but it was never published. Portions of it survive, with modifications, in his other novels and the manuscripts is no more extant. Hardy’s career as novelist roughly covers the last three decades of the nineteenth century, beginning with Desperate Remedies published anonymously in 1871, and ending with Jude the Obscure which appeared in 1895. In fact, it is difficult to discern any clear pattern in the reception of his works for the first twenty years of his literary career. His novels were reviewed in the periodicals and we find a fair variety of opinions on each of his books. But as R.G. Cox puts it, “there are no outstanding rejections and no notable reversals of opinion.”1 The general surveys of his work began in the late seventies and became fairly frequent by 1890. With the appearance of Tess of the d’Urbervilles (1891) and Jude the Obscure (1895) Hardy-criticism took a different turn. In these novels Hardy struck at the roots of conventional sexual morality and invited thereby a storm of controversy. Some readers deplored Hardy’s iconoclasm, while others acclaimed 1 . R.G. Cox, Thomas Hardy :The Critical Heritage; Vikas Pub., Delhi, London etc. printed in Great Britain, 1970, p. XIV. him as the pioneer of enlightenment. Literary judgments at this stage became obscured by questions of morality and general philosophy of life. Hardy himself was so much bewildered by the bitter comments of the contemporary reviewers that he gave up novel-writing in favour of poetry: “Well, if this sort of thing continues no more novel-writing for me. A man must be a fool to deliberately stand up to be shot at.”1 Upto the mid-eighties, the reviewers’ chief points against Hardy had been on grounds of style, and of melodramatic improbabilities in plot and character. Desperate Remedies was censured for sensationalism and an overcomplicated plot but was praised for the author’s descriptive powers. The Spectator (22 April 1871), however, took objection to the novel’s morality and remarked that in the future the author might well be glad to have published it anonymously.2 A pair of Blue Eyes (1873) had a mixed reception. To the Graphic (12 July 1873) Hardy seemed to excel every one but George Eliot3 and in the opinion of the Pall Mall Gazette ( 25 October 1873) he was distinctly a man of genius.4 But the Athenaeum (28 June 1873) found the adventures of Elfride as rather farcical5 and the Saturday Review (2 August 1873) remarked that the author had much to learn.6 Far From the Madding Crowd (1874) was a great success among Hardy’s early novels. It earned him much name and fame and was greeted with a large number of reviews though not always uncritical. Some readers suspected the conscious or unconscious influence of George Eliot while others found faults of 1 F.E. Hardy, The Life of Thomas Hardy (1840-1928); Macmillan St. Martin’s Press, 1965, p. 246. 2 R.G. Cox, op. cit. , pp. 3-5. 3 Ibid., p. XVI 4 Ibid. 5 Ibid. 6 Ibid. , pp. 15-18 sensationalism in many of the incidents of the story, such as Troy’s sword-play, the rick-fire and the death-plunge of Oak’s sheep. Most of the reviewers were puzzled by the unconvincingly sophisticated expression of the rustics. R.H. Hutton ( Spectator 19 December 1874) while echoing the general praise of the novel’s freshness and imaginative power found the farm labourers incredible in their biblical wit and ‘intellectual banter’. The Return of the Native (1878) was widely reviewed. The critics praised the atmosphere of setting and vividness of the individual scenes like the gambling by the light of glow-worms, but the speech of the rustics was severely criticised. The reviewers felt that Hardy’s thorough knowledge of the dialectical peculiarities of certain districts had tempted him to write whole conversations which are, to the ordinary reader, nothing but a series of linguistic puzzles and not really representative of the common speech. The Spectator (8 February 1879) found the peasant never quite acceptable as true pictures of rustic life and noted a tendency for them to lapse into educated speech.1 The Athenaeum (23 November 1878) opined, “The language of his peasants may be Elizabethan, but it can hardly be Victorian.”2 It is also interesting to note that Hardy attempted to defend himself against the repeated criticisms of the speech of his rustics. He felt that the reviewers’ comments on the speech of his peasantry were beside the point, as his novels aimed at depicting ‘the men and their natures rather than their dilect forms’. He regretted the fact that his critics emphasized the form and not the meaning of the speech of his peasants.3 With the publication of The Mayor of Casterbridge the issue of “pessimism” became one of the chief points with the reviewers of Hardy. R.H. 1 Ibid. , pp. 55-59 Ibid. , p. 46. 3 Hardy’s Letter to the Athenaeum (30 November 1878) ; reprinted in Thomas Hardy’s Personal Writings, ed. by Harold Orel, Macmillan, 1967, p. 91. 2 Hutton (Spectator, 5 June 1886) objected to the “fashionable pessimism” colouring the work. He appreciated the grandeur of conception of Henchard’s portrayal but thought the description “A Man of Character” misleading. According to him “character” implied fixity and permanence which Henchard miserably lacked. The Mayor did in one mood acts of which he never ceased to repent in almost all his other moods and his temper of heart changed many times even during the execution of the same act.1 In The Woodlanders some readers resented the lack of poetic justice. R.H. Hutton ( Spectator , 26 March, 1887) took objections to the sympathy shown to such a sensual and selfish liar as Fitzpiers and lamented the general absence of faith and hope. He praised the pictures of rural life but denounced the role of Mrs. Charmond and thought the book at once “powerful and disagreeable.”2 The Saturday Review (2 April 1887) admired the portrait of Giles Winterborne but warned the novelist not to be led astray by “the desire to idealize.”3 In the opinion of William Wallace (Academy, 9 April 1887) Fitzpiers seemed to be an “exasperating scoundrel” and Mrs. Charmond “too much of a third rate French Actress.”4 The publication of Tess of the d’Urbervilles (1891) and Jude the Obscure (1898) brought about a storm of controversy among the reviewers of Hardy. These books were greeted with a variety of opinions. Hardy’s handling of sexual relations was not acceptable to most of the Victorian readers and they passed bitter comments on the general moral outlook of the author. Andrew Lang ( New Review, February 1892 ) objected to the final phrase about the President of the Immortals in Tess of the d’Urbervilles : 1 R.G. Cox, op. cit. pp. 136-40 Ibid. , pp. 142-45 3 Ibid. , pp. 149-53 4 Ibid. , pp. 153-55 2 I cannot say how much this phrase jars on one. If there be a God, who can seriously think of Him as a malicious fiend? And if there be none, the expression is meaningless.1 Mrs. Oliphant (Blackwood’s Magazine, March 1892) discussed the book in detail and found Tess’s return to Alec and the last part of the story unconvincing. Commenting on the author’s description of Tess as “Pure Woman”, she said, …..a Pure Woman is not betrayed into fine living and fine clothes as the mistress of her seducer by any stress of poverty or misery; and Tess was a skilled labourer, for whom it is very rare that nothing can be found to do.2 Mawbray Morris in his article “Culture and Anarchy” (Quarterly Review, April 1892) remarked that “Mr. Hardy has told an extremely disagreeable story in an extremely disagreeable manner.”3 It is well to remember that Morris, as editor of Macmillan’s Magazine, had rejected Tess as a serial. The reviewers made much hue and cry over the morality of Jude the Obscure. B. Williams (Athenaeum, 23 November 1895) called it “a titanically bad book by Mr. Hardy”.4 In the Life is recorded the intemperate comments of a “maiden lady” critic on Jude. This critic was Jeannett Gilder who cold not bear with Jude and remarked: I thought that Tess of the d’Urbervilles was bad enough, but that is milk for babes compared to this 1 Ibid., p. 196 Ibid., p. 212 3 Ibid., p. 219 4 Ibid., p. 249 2 ….. Aside from its immorality there is coarseness which is beyond belief…… When I finished the story I opened the windows and let in the fresh air.1 In the opinion of Mrs. Oliphant (Blackwood’s Magazine, January 1896) the story of Jude was an attack on the institution of marriage and this, she thought, was dangerous for society. The abolition of marriage, she argued, would jeopardise the fate of children and they would have no alternative but to resort to murder and suicide as Little Father Time did in the story. In her article “The Anti-Marriage League” she bracketed Hardy with Grant Allen who was a Propagandist for Free Love.2 But magazine associated with the aesthetic movement reviewed Jude rather favourably. In Jerome K. Jerome’s Idler ( February 1896) Richard le Gallienne deplored Mrs. Oliphant’s attack as both unjust and pointless and declared the novel inspite of some improbabilities “ perhaps the most powerful and moving picture of human life which Mr. Hardy has given …..”3 Havelock Ellis, reviewing the book sympathetically in his article “Concerning Jude the Obscure” (Savoy Magazine, October 1896) considered it as the greatest novel written in England for many years. He, however, disliked the scene of the child murders and thought it a serious lapse in the story. So far as the immorality of the novel is concerned, Ellis was of the view that it resulted from the artist’s faithful presentation of the conflict between natural instincts and secondary social experiments.4 In his essay “Thomas Hardy’s novels” (Westminster Review, April 1883) Ellis remarked that the tragedy in the novels of Hardy is largely due to the 1 The Life of Thomas Hardy; p. 279 R.G. Cox, op. cit. , pp. 256-62. 3 Ibid. , p. 277 4 Ibid. , pp. 300-315 2 inflexibility of the characters. He felt that Hardy’s characters had no capacity for development : As the man is now, so he always was, so he always will be. Elfride and Wildeve and Somerset are equally without flexibility, they can never change, there is no growth, no adaptation. This is the source of much tragedy.1 Although Hardy has been a controversial figure on the English literary scene, yet it is almost unanimously agreed that his novels are tragedies of Fate rather than tragedies of character. In the opinion of the critics of an earlier generation, like Lascelles Abercrombie, H.C. Duffin, J.S. Smart, Lord David Cecil and E.M. Forster, Hardy is a fatalist. His characters, they say, are brought to ruin by events over which they have no control. These critics insist, a Professor John Holloway expresses it, that “a determined system of things ultimately controls human affairs without regard to human wishes.”2 Human beings in his novels, become the playthings of a blind, irresistible power. Sensational events, disastrous coincidences, untimely reappearances, overheard or revealed secrets, present a universe which is ruled over by an inscrutable force apparently unrelated to any conscious purpose. Abercrombie sees the deeper forces at work in Hardy. He likens the hammer strokes of a blind Fate on human sensitivity to a process of chemistry, in which the elements are irresistibly moved to work towards one another by strong affinity, and the human molecules in which they are ingredients are 1 2 Ibid. , p. 130. Quoted in J.I.M. Stewart’s Thomas Hardy, Longman, T. & A. constable Ltd. , Edinburgh, 1971, p. 36. dragged along with them , until the elemental affinity is satisfied in a sudden flashing moment of disintegration and recompounding.1 According to H.C. Duffin it is undesirable intervention of Fate which is chiefly responsible for bringing about tragedy in the novels of Hardy. Emphasising the role of Unseen Hand in Hardy’s world he observes, “His whole novel is built primarily upon the doctrine of the irony of Fate as commonly understood.” To most people coincidences are mere chance events, “Ornamental studs on the surface of a box, to Hardy they are the nails that hold the box together”. 2 Duffin gives a running commentary on the novels in a chronological order. Discussions on Hardy’s views on God, man, woman and society follow. Commenting on the characterisation he says, “There are no Grandisons or Lovels or Greatest Glorianas . Hamartia everywhere, flawed gems all, no angels, but of the earth, earthly …..”3 Lord David Cecil, also, sees the characters of Hardy as “puppets in the hands of Fate.” “Fate, not them,” he says, “is ultimately responsible for their quarrels. Unless they were destined to do so, they would not be in conflict with each other.”4 Reducing the role of individual characters to nothing he suggests that Hardy’s characters are less “individuals” than “representatives” of a species. This is because his “subject is not men but man”.5 But to regard to Hardy’s characters as “puppets in the hands of Fate” is to overlook his purpose and philosophy, which does not rule out a “medium of free will.”6 Cecil is more successful with rustics of Hardy’s choruses than with other characters. Henchard, Tess and Jude are not properly dealt with, and Sue is seen as “the old-fashioned 1 Cited in J.R. Brook’s Thomas Hardy : The Poetic Structure, Elek, London, 1971, p. 17. 2 H.C. Duffin, Thomas Hardy, Bombay, Oxford University Press, 1963, p. 184. 3 Ibid. , p. 94. 4 Lord David Cecil, Hardy the Novelist, Constable, 1943, p. 27 5 Ibid. , p. 19 6 “The Apology for Late Lyrics and Earlier” (1922), reprinted in Thomas Hardy : Stories and Poems , ed. by d. J. Morrison Everyman’s’ Library, 1966, p. 122 Hardy heroine.” He sees Fate sweeping human beings off their feet either in the form of chance or in that of love. For Virginia Woolf, too, man in the tragic context of Nature is the special subject of Hardy. She sees love as “a catastrophe” which hurls pain and suffering on Hardy’s characters. “In all the books “, she observes, “love is one of the great facts that mould human life. But it is a catastrophe; it happens suddenly and overwhelmingly …..”1 David Cecil, too, holds, that in the world of Hardy love, so far from being a benevolent spirit, consoling and helping man in his struggle with the inhuman forces controlling human existence, is itself a manifestation of these forces. Love, conceived by Hardy, is “the Lord of terrible aspect”- a blind, irresistible power, seizing on human beings whether they will or not; intoxicating in its inception, but more often than not, bringing ruin in its train.2 This “storm” of love sweeps Hardy’s characters off their feet, only to fling them down again, broken and despairing. In the opinion of Virginia Woolf Jude the Obscure is the most painful of all Hardy’s books, and the only one against which we can fairly bring the charge of pessimism. In Jude the Obscure, argument is allowed to dominate impression, with the result that though the misery of the book is overwhelming, it is not tragic.3 1 Virginia Woolf, “The Novels of Thomas Hardy”, reprinted in Hardy : the tragic novels, ed. by R.P. Draper, The Macmillan Press Ltd., 1976, p. 74. 2 L.D. Cecil, op. cit. , p. 30. 3 R.P. Draper (ed.) , op. cit. , p. 77 E.M. Forster, also, considers Hardy’s “ceaseless emphasis on fate” to be detrimental to his cahracterisation. In the novels of Hardy, Forster thinks, it is the plot which matters and the characters are required to contribute “too much” to it with the result that they go “dry and thin.” According to him, Hardy’s characters are involved in various snares, they are finally bound hand and foot, there is ceaseless emphasis on fate, and yet, for all the sacrifices made to it, we never see the action as a living thing.1 Cecil also expresses a similar view of Hardy’s craftsmanship when he says, “Hardy was a great artist, but not a great craftsman…. His plots are clear; and he sticks to them. All the same, his hold on design is slack and clumsy.”2 Forster’s view that the characters “are bound hand and foot” may be generally true and possibly be established from the texts, but as F.R. Southerington observes, “… it is much more difficult to establish that they are bound by “fate” unless “fate” includes a considerable display of free will and choice.”3 There is yet another general view of the Wessex novels which deserves consideration. This one presents Hardy as chiefly concerned with chronicling the decay of the old agricultural order in England. There is argument to such an effect in many studies of Hardy, notably in Lionel Johnson’s early and admirable book The Art of Thomas Hardy (1894). But the case is most systematically stated by Douglas Brown in his Thomas Hardy, first published in 1954. Brown stresses the destructive effect of urban modes of life on a stable peasant culture. According to him, the insecurity of a displaced peasantry 1 E.M. Forster, Aspects of the Novel, Penguin, London, 1962, p. 101. L.D. Cecil, op. cit. , p. 111 3 F.R. Southerington, Hardy’s Vision of Man, Chatto & Windus, London, 1971, p. 34. 2 contributes to several of the tragedies of Hardy, notably The Woodlanders, Tess of the d’Urbervilles and Jude the Obscure. Hardy, no doubt, had a warm regard for the rural simplicities and he wrote about them beautifully. But it is far from truth to say that he was deeply distressed at the fall of this old order. Challenging the truth of Brown’s statement of Hardy’s theme, J.I.M. Stewart observes: “…… that he was deeply troubled by the decline and fall of the older agricultural order seems to me quite untrue.”1 Stewart is of the view that Hardy was not averse to changes taking place in country life. If he lamented the disappearance of “village tradition- a vast mass of unwritten folk-lore, local chronicle, local topography and nomenclature”2, he also expressed his happiness over the improved conditions of village life. Stewart arrives at a quite different conclusion from that of Douglas Brown. He says, old orders change, and give place to new – and some sort of balance of advantages results. This, on the whole, seems to me how Hardy views things. If anything, he was inclined towards change. It was as an advanced man and progressive thinker, after all, that throughout his life he consistently viewed himself.3 Some critics of Hardy are much worried over the fact that his “chance” seems sometimes very like a malign force or a wanton boy. Discussing the irony of Fate in the novels of hardy H.C. Duffin comments, In one sense he idealizes his world – he makes it almost ideally cruel… in life it is the unexpected that happens, in the world of Hardy’s novel it is the undesirable unexpected.4 1 J.I.M. Stewart, op. cit., p. 45. The Life of Thomas Hardy, pp. 312-13 3 J.I.M. Stewart, op. cit., p. 45 4 H.C. Duffin, op. cit. , p. 184. 2 To a quite unnatural and unverisimilar degree, Hardy’s chance deals out far more “pain” than “blisses”. The objective picture may be dark, but he insists on darkening it further. Something like this is the opinion expressed by T.S. Eliot in After Strange Gods. According to him Hardy is a thoroughly marbid writer. He wishes he knew more of modern novelists and shows a very limited knowledge of Hardy. He remarks that Hardy’s characters come to life only in “emotional paroxysms”. He finds “a world of pure Evil” in “Barbara of the House of Grebe”, and concludes that it was written “solely to provide a satisfaction for some marbid emotion.” In his view The work of the late Thomas Hardy represents an interesting example of a powerful personality uncurbed by any institutional attachment or by submission to any objective beliefs… He seems to me to have written as nearly for the sake of ‘Self- expression’ as a man well can, and the self which he had to express does not strike me as a particularly wholesome or edifying matter of communication.1 In many of the recent studies of Hardy we find a thorough refutation of his supposed morbidity. Irving Howe, for example, finds the remarks of T.S. Eliot as “wrong” and “small-spirited”. He does not believe that Hardy’s powerful personality was “uncurbed by any institutional attachment” and that the “self” revealed in his writings was unwholesome. Howe considers Hardy as one living “by the imperatives of christian morality” and observes, The ‘self’ Hardy revealed in his writings was admirably free from hauteur and snobbism, untarnished by any prejudice, and notable for 1 Quoted, Irving Howe, Thomas Hardy, Weidenfeld & Nicolson 1968, pp. 26-27. its moral earnestness, natural piety and encompassing sympathy for human beings.1 F.R. Southerington, also, while discussing Far from the Madding Crowd , contradicts Eliot by interpreting his view in a quite different light.2 Hardy’s own view on his supposed pessimism is also worth noting. He says, As to pessimism. My motto is, first correctly diagnose the complaint- in this case human ills- and ascertain the cause: then set about finding a remedy if one exists. The motto or practice of the optimist is: Blind the eyes to the real malady, and use empirical panaceas to suppress the symptom.3 D.H. Lawrence, in his “Study of Thomas Hardy” has expressed the view that there is no real tragedy in the novels of Hardy. A lack of “sternness”, “a hesitating between life and public opinion” diminishes the Wessex novels from the rank of pure tragedy. According to him the tragedy of Hardy’s characters is that when they break out of “comparative imprisonment of the established convention” in to the wilderness of life, they die. The real tragedy of the lives of Eustacia, Tess, Sue and Jude is, he suggests, that they are not faithful to the greater unwritten morality; they do not “bide by the best” that they have known, rather they succumb to “lesser good”. Lawrence makes the trenchant comment that Jude the Obscure is not a true, an essential tragedy. Jude and Sue, he feels “were not at war with God, only with Society”. Yet they were cowed by the mere judgment of man upon them, and all the while by their own souls they were right. It was the judgment of man that killed them, not the judgment of their own souls, or the judgment of eternal God. He stresses that this 1 Ibid. , p. 27 F.R. Southerington , op. cit. , pp. 65-66 3 The Life of Thomas Hardy , p. 383. 2 is the weakness of modern tragedy, where transgression against the social code is made to bring destruction, as though the social code worked our irrevocable fate..1 Thus in Lawrence’s opinion Sue’s recantation and return to Arabella, who had merely entrapped him sexually with her vulgar wiles, were essentially false and Hardy weakened the tragedy by not daring to write from his own inner belief that Sue and Jude should have remained faithful to each other and defied society. Hardy’s moral sense was so bourgeois that the exceptional had to die. Lawrence saw society and individual self as two conflicting elements. He was all for the individual and the subjection of the individual to the social conventions always filled him with rage. His criticism of Hardy tells us more about him than about Hardy. Some critics in the light of modern social and psychological theories have explored certain new aspects of Hardy’s complex richness. W.R. Rutland and H.C. Webster, for example, set him in the context of nineteenth century thought. Rutland gives an excellent account of the climate of the Victorian England when Christianity was under attack. 2 H.C. Webster has shown the development of Hardy’s thought with reference to the novels.3 Certain aspects of the new scientific mode of thinking are applied as criteria to evaluate the novels. These critics have traced the various influences on Hardy’s thought. They maintain that evolution through natural selection, the origin of man, the long stretch of geological time behind him, the displacement of a transcendental personal Deity by immanent process without mind and purpose, Herbert Spencer’s philosophy of the unknowable and John Stuart Mill’s essays on the religious and social liberty of the individual left their mark on Hardy’s vision of man’s place in nature. 1 D.H. Lawrence , Phoenix , 1936, p. 420 W.R. Rutland , Thomas Hardy : a Study of his Writings and their Background, New York, Russell 7 Russell, 1962. 3 H.C. Webster , On a Darkling Plain; London, frank Cass, 1964. 2 A.J. Guerard and Richard Carpenter have defended the grotesque, anti- realistic elements in Hardy’s novels and shown them to be powerful expressionistic images of existential absurdity and irrationality of subconscious drives. Guerard has undermined the popular notion that Hardy regretted the passing of the old agricultural order and on this point his views are similar to those of Stewart discussed earlier. He praises Hardy’s imaginative genius and emphasises that his “anti-realism” was aesthetic rather than metaphysical. The abundance of grotesque and supernatural incidents, Guerard suggests, show the powerlessness of man against the unpredictable. His conclusion that “thing not men are to blame” shows that it is the unpredictable which brings about tragedy in the lives of Hardy’s characters. Roy Morrell’s study1 of Hardy’s novels is a refreshing criticism because it challenges many stale judgments inherited from the critics, and insists on a faithful reading of Hardy. It contends that we ought to allow much more weight than we do to Hardy’s claim that idea of “evolutionary meliorism” is at the basis of his thinking. Morrell does not believe that Hardy enforces upon us an entirely pessimistic determinism. His characters are not puppets in the hands of fate (as David Cecil believed), they are presented with choice and the making of decisions. In Morrell’s view Hardy is a meliorist. He shows that Providence simply is not there. But we can help ourselves. We have a fair chance of mastering our environment if we are only sufficiently alert and adaptable which science shows to be the prime evolutionary demand. For Morrell, Hardy’s chief concern is with success and failure (mostly failure) in “man’s power of adaptation to changing circumstances.” F.R. Southerington also holds similar views and sees Hardy not a fatalist but as a meliorist. According to him Hardy’s Characters are not puppets in 1 Roy Morrell, Thomas Hardy : the will and the way, Kuala Lumpur, University of Malaya Press, 1965. the hands of Fate; on the contrary, they have freedom of action and as such they themselves are responsible for their sufferings. Circumstance, no doubt, affects the course of action, “Yet it does not affect the responses of any major character at moments of decision, except to re-enforce the decision already taken.”1 Greatly influenced by Darwin, Hardy, in Southerington’s view, underlines the organic unity of man and nature. But he does not accept all the implications of Darwinism. Like Darwin, Hardy sees man as a part and parcel of nature, but unlike Darwin, he attaches special significance to human beings. Man is distinguished from nature by his possession of consciousness. Southerington observes, The recurring irony of Hardy’s world is that man, though evolved with and through the rest of nature, has none the less a consciousness which isolates and distinguishes him.2 Hardy sees ruthless struggle for existence everywhere in nature and stresses the need for wariness and adaptability. 1 2 Southerington, op. cit. , p. 56 Ibid., p. 74. The survey of Hardy-criticism made in the foregoing pages evinces that critics are not one in their views regarding the prime cause of tragedy in the world of Hardy. In fact, Hardy himself is not quite clear and decided on this point. He says: Tragedy should arise from the gradual closing in of a situation that comes of ordinary human passions, prejudices and ambitions, by reason of the characters taking no trouble to ward off the disastrous events produced by the said passions, prejudices and ambitions.1 Here we find that Hardy sees the characters as themselves mainly responsible for their tragedies. People who let themselves be slaves to passions and prejudices, and take no trouble “to ward off the disastrous events produced by the said passions and prejudices” suffer. Hardy was grieved to see “not the disaster but the unnecessariness of the disaster”. Man invites tragedy by his own foolish and irresponsible actions. Hardy once told William Archer “… man makes life worse than it need be.”2 He believed that things could be made better if man tried. But unfortunately man cannot really try- there are warring elements within him – and as we see in Jude and Sue, people are destroyed partly because they have an impulse to self destruction. Man is torn between the conflicting demand of flesh and spirit. 1 2 The Life of Thomas Hardy, p. 120. Quoted, F. B. Pilion, A Hardy Companion ; Macmillan, 1968, p. 178. Sometimes it seems that Nature causes life to be full of struggle, defeat and destruction. Hardy saw in all Nature a ruthless struggle for existence. The tragic aspect of the world of nature is that life feeds on life. The bird eats the snail, and she in turn is trapped by man. Man has to practice deceit in order to get his food. He must trap the rabbits (as Giles does in The Woodlanders ) and he must kill the pig that he has fed with his own hands ( Jude). Cruelty, disease and suffering are the consequences of the general struggle for survival. Social unrest, which it created, class distinctions, nationalism and war reflect this cut- throat competitiveness and the struggle for existence in man. Thus Nature, too, seems to be a cause of tragedy in Hardy’s world. But at other times Nature becomes a sympathiser with the sorry state of people and tragedy seems to be caused by some unknown power other than Nature. Hardy calls this power by different names- God, Fate, Chance, Immanent Will, Prime cause and so on. Unlike the Greeks, Hardy does not believe that suffering is caused by some past error. In Tess he observes that, “… though to visit the sins of the fathers upon the children may be a morality good enough for divinities, it is scored by average human nature; ….”1 The abundance of chance and coincidence in his novels implies that things happen without any explicable cause. Men are “as flies” in the hands of “wanton boys”, but they are killed without a purpose, not even for sport. The Immanent Will has no consciousness and it works blindly and mechanically. Nobody can foretell who will be the next victim of this blind power. Thus Hardy’s explanation of the state of things is more distressing than that of the Greeks. One of the worst enemies of Hardy’s characters is society. Like D.H. Lawrence, Hardy too believes that society is just man-made institution 1 Tess of the d’ Urbervilles, Macmillan & Co. Ltd. , 1961, p. 91. and its rules are not in keeping with Nature. He says, “That, which socially is a great tragedy, may be in Nature no alarming circumstances.”1 Social convention is a prison to man’s natural, individual desire, a desire that compels him, whether he feels justified or not, to break the bounds of the community. But in the long run, the community remains intact, and the individual trying to break forth from it dies. His death may be due either to his own lack of strength to bear the isolation and exposure, or to the direct revenge from the community or to both. In The Woodlanders society plays havoc in the lives of Marty, Giles and Grace. Similarly Tess’s eventual fate is caused mainly by ill-adapted social ordinances. She has not acted against Nature, still she feels shame because society has termed such acts shameful. The novelist tells us, Feeling herself in antagonism she was quite in accord. She had been made to break an accepted social law, but no law known to the environment in which she fancied herself such an anomaly.2 In Jude, too, we find that society can and does inflict pain on people if they go against its rules. In reply to an inquiry by the editors of the Parisian paper L’Ermitage, Hardy wrote : I consider a social system based on individual spontaneity to promise better for happiness than a curbed and uniform one under which all temperaments are bound to shape themselves to a single pattern of living. To this end I would have society divided into groups of temperaments, with a different code of observance for each group.3 1 The Life of Thomas Hardy, p. 218. Tess of the d’ Urbervilles, p. 104. 3 The Life of Thomas Hardy, p. 258. 2 Although it is doubtful if this Utopian scheme possessed Hardy’s fancy for any long time, yet it reflects his scorn for soulless social codes. Circumstances or situation, too, often becomes an obstacle in the way of happiness. While writing Tess, Hardy makes a note : When a married woman who has a lover kills her husband, she does not really wish to kill the husband; she wishes to kill the situation.1 Sometimes it appears that the pains and sufferings of Hardy’s characters are due to a clash between agricultural and urban modes of life. It is the invasion of the New order upon the Old one which causes tragedy in life. Hardy’s rustic world is peaceful and happy in itself. In “The Dorsetshire Labourer” he has observed that “… it is among such communities as these (the simple rustic) that happiness will find her last refuge.”2 The peace of this rustic world is distributed by an outsider which very often proves tragic for the protagonists. Maybold (Under the Greenwood Tree) or Sergeant Troy (Far from the Madding Crowd) or Dr. Fitzpiers ( The Woodlanders ) are modern men, who cause disruption in an otherwise peaceful and happy world. Hardy felt the ache of modernism and found it greatly responsible for the suffering of mankind. He regretted the uprooting of the villages and the loss of tradition : The labourers have become more and more migratory…. For one thing, village tradition- a vast mass of unwritten folk-lore, local chronicle, local topography, and nomenclature- is absolutely sinking, has nearly sunk, into eternal oblivion.3 1 Ibid. , p. 221 Thomas Hardy’s Personal Writings, p. 169. 3 The Life of Thomas Hardy, pp. 312-13. 2 Many of Hardy’s women – Fancy, Eustacia, Grace etc. - are attracted towards the glamour of the shallow new world and they have to suffer for it. Urban life, with all its snobbery and modern ways has nothing to offer but disappointment: This hum of wheel – the roar of London : What is it composed of ? Hurry, speech, laughters, moans, cries of little children. The people in this tragedy laugh, sing, smoke, toss off wines, etc. , make love to girls in drawing rooms and areas; and yet are playing their parts in the tragedy just the same. Some wear jewels and feathers, some wear rags. All are caged birds, the only differences lies in the size of the cage. This too is a part of the tragedy.1 Hardy’s women also seem to be agents of fate. By dint of their beauty and charm they attract even those who are far stronger than they and play an important role in setting their courses. Cricket believes that “Fate’s nothing beside a woman’s schement:”2 Geoffrey Day observes, “Doom is nothing besides a elderly woman – quite a chiel in her hands :”3 Jocelyn St. Cleeve warns his nephew that “… the woman sits down before each as his destiny, and too frequently enervates his purpose, till he abandons the most promising course ever conceived.”4 Characters like Boldwood, Clym, Giles, and Jude are led on to their tragic destiny by Bathsheba, Eustacia, Grace and Sue respectively. 1 The Life of Thomas Hardy, p. 171. Desperate Remedies, Macmillan , 1903 , p. 149 3 Under The Greenwood Tree , Macmillan, Papermac, 1966, p. 105. 4 Two on a Tower, Macmillan , 1952, p. 138. 2 At times heredity and environment, too, play an important role in bringing about tragedy in the lives of Hardy’s characters. Speaking after the publication of Tess Hardy commented: The murder that Tess commits is the hereditary quality, to which I more than once allude, working out in this impoverished descendant of a once noble family. That is logical. And again, it is but a simple transcription of the obvious that she should make reparation by death for her sin….1 To a great extent it is the hereditary factor which mars the happiness of Jude and Sue. To quote Evelyn Hardy, Hardy, while writing Jude the Obscure was interested in the problems of heredity. In the novel, Jude and Sue are cousins, their family suffers from a pathological fear of marriage and marriage ties which “snuffs out spontaneity and cordiality”, and finally love, until they break the ties and flee. 2 Hereditary causes of suffering work in collaboration with environment. In The Return of the Native environment wrecks havoc in the lives of Eustacia and Clym. I have devoted no separate chapter to the discussion of heredity and environment, for in my humble opinion the former may be treated as a form of fate while the latter does not seem to be other than nature and society taken together. 1 Black and White, August 27, 1892, quoted by F.R. Southerington, op. cit. , p. 132 2 Evelyn Hardy, Thomas Hardy : A Critical Biography, The Hogarth Press, London, 1954, p. 258. Thus we see that tragedy in the novels of Hardy does not arise from a single cause. Taken separately it is not Fate, nor Nature, nor society, nor human frailty, which can be blamed for bearing the sole responsibility for pains and sufferings in life. The error in the judgments of Hardy’s critics lies in the fact that they have emphasized this or that factor as the sole cause of tragedy in life, and in so doing they have unjustly ignored the contribution of the other factors. Really, it is not this or that but this and that which inflicts suffering on Hardy’s people. In this respect he differs from the tragedians of the previous ages. The Greeks believed that tragedy is due to some evil act of men whether willed(as in Agamemnon’s sacrifice of his daughter Iphigenia) or unwilled (as in Oedipus’ killing of his father and marriage with his mother). Man reaps what he sows, and Retribution or Nemesis is sure to follow every crime. For Seneca, tragedy is “the downfall of a great figure or a whole house because of some curse upon it, some overpowering destiny not to be avoided.”1 In Senecan tragedy there may well be some great crime or sin in the background which has brought a curse upon those involved and all connected with them, but the sense of direct responsibility and guilt is absent in him. English tragedy is greatly influenced by the Greeks. The idea of ‘poetic justice” or Nemesis is dominant in the English morality plays. In Shakespearean tragedy, too, retribution follows crime, but Shakespeare holds the characters as themselves responsible for their sufferings. They suffer because of some inherent weakness in them. Shakespeare presents man as the master of his destiny. No doubt, chance and circumstances go a great way in moulding character, but man is free to choose what he likes and in so choosing he decides his own fate. It is not that some external power compels the hero to resort to the wrong act. On the contrary, it is an act done voluntarily because the hero has a choice of doing either of the two things of which he chooses the wrong. He is 1 J.M.R. Margeson , The Origins of English Tragedy, Oxford, 1967, p. 77. aware of this choice, he thinks and hesitates over it, but just because he is what he is he does the wrong thing. The tragedy of Macbeth, Othello, Brutus, Hamlet etc. is due to some flaw in the characters themselves. If some other person is put in the place of the hero, there would be no tragedy at all simply because the error will not have been committed in the circumstances. But in Hardy the pattern of tragedy is a complex one. There are very many factors which contribute to the sufferings of mankind. Generally, critics have analysed Hardy’s concept of Destiny and the roles of Fate and Nature in bringing about tragedy in his novels. The role of society and the responsibility of the individual have not been fully explored. In his novels it is felt occasionally that the narrator’s point of view dominates and the reader is emotionally influenced by the writer’s commentary on the supposed actions of indifferent Fate and inimical Nature. If the reader can guard himself against the undue influence of the writer’s comments and ejaculations, the full seriousness of the character’s thoughts can be realized and the responsibility of their actions can be fully assessed. The thesis aims at exploring the extent to which the characters themselves stand responsible for their suffering and tragedy. It aims further at discovering a pattern of tragedy which is Hardy’s own and in which Fate, Nature, Society, Individual- all have their assigned roles to play. However, the role of the individual concerned crowns all. ----------- * ---------- “Mankind, you dismay me Acting like puppets Under Time’s buffets, In superstitions And ambitions, Moved by no wisdom Far-sight or system, Led by sheer senselessness And presciencelessness Into unreason And self-treason.” Thomas Hardy (Collected Poems, Macmillan, 1930, p. 798). CHAPTER II Impulse Vs Reason (The role of man) Most Hardy’s critics are of the view that his novels are tragedies of Fate rather than tragedies of character. They have presented Hardy as a fatalist and have noted that his characters are brought to ruin by events over which they have absolutely no control. These critics have reduced the roles of individual characters to nothing. Hardy’s characters, in their opinion, helplessly dance to the tune of Fate, which robs them of their choice and freedom of action. But this seems to be an erroneous view. To regard Hardy’s character as puppets in the hands of a blind Fate is to overlook his purpose and meliorative philosophy which does not rule out a “modicum of free will”. It is true that Hardy stresses the action of Fate, but he does so to stress, too, the human responsibility to deflect Fate from its path before it is too late. Misery, which teaches Henchard “nothing more than a defiant endurance of it”1 , teaches Oak to keep one step ahead of an insentient world of defect. The adaptive resourcefulness 1 The Mayor of Casterbridge, Signet Classic, New American Library, 1962, p. 123. of Farfrae modifies a Fate that seemed predetermined. Their conscious purpose redefines the concept of Fate as what must be only if no resistance is made. Tragedy in the world of Hardy is caused not by circumstances surrounding a man or a woman, but by his or her own reactions to those circumstances. Hardy is concerned with individual reactions to a specific situation and he makes it clear that the responsibility for those reactions always rests with the individual themselves. People are led astray by their own passions, prejudices and ambitions and thus land themselves into trouble. Hardy’s view of tragedy is that A plot, or Tragedy should arise from the gradual closing in of a situation that comes of ordinary human passions, prejudices and ambitions, by reason of the characters taking no trouble to ward off the disastrous events produced by the said passions, prejudices and ambitions.1 It is significant to note that Hardy insists on the emotional life of his characters. His very choice of types leads him away from those intellectual complexities that delighted George Eliot or Meredith. His heroes are stolid unreasoning type of men who adhere to one point of view through all their changes of fortune. His heroines are wayward and capricious on whom reason dawns only when they have landed themselves in some difficulty by their impulsive actions. Again and again, when disaster strikes, we feel that there was something that could have been done to prevent it. The plot of Desperate Remedies, for example, turns on the “accident” of a fire which burns down a number of cottages. But we feel that the fire could have been avoided by a greater foresight on the part of Farmer Springrove. The accident took place because he 1 The Life of Thomas Hardy, p. 120. failed to see that the heap of rubbish he lit up was very close to his old inn called Three Tranters “which was constructed … entirely of combustible materials”.1 He foolishly concluded that “ as long as the heap was not stirred, and the wind continued in the quarter it blew from then, the couch would not flame.”2 But what guarantee was there that the wind would continue to blow “in the quarter it blew from then”? Moreover, it is in the nature of the heap of couch grass, when kindled in calm weather, to smoulder for many days, and even weeks, ad during this period, if not watched properly, it is liable to be fanned into flame any moment by a sudden breeze. But Springrove shut his eyes to this fact. Even the railway porter, who had brought to the inn the luggage of Mrs. Manston, foresaw the danger : “If those cottages had been his, he thought, he should not care to have a fire so near them as that- and the wind rising.”3 The author, too, observes: Had the farmer narrowly watched the pile when he went to close the door, he would have seen, besides the familiar twine of smoke from its summit, a quivering of the air around the mass, showing that a considerable heat had arisen in side.4 But the farmer was not watchful. No wonder if the old inn caught fire and “burnt almost as fiercely as a corn-rick.”5 A number of other cottages were also burnt down. Certainly, there is truth in what Manston says, “The case is the clearest case of fire by negligence…6 1 Desperate Remedies ,Macmillan ( Greenwood Edition) , 1966, p. 198. Ibid. , p. 192. 3 Ibid. , p. 194. 4 Ibid. , p. 193-94. 5 Ibid. , pp. 198. 6 Ibid. , p. 216. 2 Manston took advantage of the situation arising out of the negligence of the farmer. His plan was to exploit the accident of the fire and compel Edward Springrove to renounce Cytherea and marry Miss Hinton or else he might be forced to rebuild the cottage burnt down. His plan bore fruit because of yet another failure on the part of Farmer Springrove. Even if the accident of fire took place, the consequences thereof could have been avoided by a more urgent attention to the insurance policies which guarded the gutted row of buildings. But the farmer had not taken any such precautionary measures. He tells his son : Six months ago the office (the Helmet Fire Office) which had been raising the premiums on thatched premises higher for some years, gave up insuring them altogether, as two or three other fire offices had done previously, on account, they said , of the uncertainty and greatness of the risk of thatch undetached. Ever since then I have been continually intending to go to another office, but have never gone.1 The Farmer realises his mistake too late and repents his negligence: This is more than we can bear, Ted-more than we can bear: Ted, this will kill me. Not the loss only- the sense of my neglect about the insurance and everything …. It is all misery now. God help us- all misery now.2 But at this stage no amount of repentance can be of any use to him. F.R. Southerington has rightly observed that “No amount of coincidence affects the 1 2 Ibid. , p. 208. Ibid. , p. 234. characters of Desperate Remedies as much as these two failures on the part of one man.”1 Most Hardy’s characters suffer because of their inability to take timely decisions. They allow their judgment to be swayed by their momentary impulses which bring about tragedy in their lives. Initially they are free to decide their course of action and no fate interferes with their responses at the time of decision. But they allow their power of decision to become atrophied and thus they court disaster. Indecisiveness on the part of the individuals is largely responsible for tragedy in the lives of the principal characters in A Pair of Blue Eyes. Much of the suffering of Elfride Swancourt is due to her own fickleness of mind. We learn from Mrs. Jethway that she was once young Jethway’s “well-agreed sweetheart, and then proved false – and it killed him.”2 Elfirde denied this charge. She may not have deliberately encouraged him, but, she led him to think he was being encouraged. She knew the consequences of this encouragement and yet she refused to take any lesson from it. Having learnt nothing from her past experience, She again encourages Stephen. Her decision to attempt an elopement with him is based on a frivolity of behaviour that outweighs any interference by chance. Her encouragement to Stephen Smith leads to her eventual rejection by knight. Granted that Knight was obstinate in his attitude towards her, but we feel that but for her own actions with Stephen in the past, Knight’s obstinacy would not have shown itself in such a disastrous form. Her abandonment of Stephen was a piece of gratuitous folly. Stephen was her counterpart in everything except birth, the man she could have 1 2 F.R. Southerington, op. cit., p. 51. A Pair of Blue Eyes , London, Macmillan , (The New Wessex Edition), 1975, p. 296. been happy with. But she discarded him and turned to Knight just as she had previously discarded young Jethway and turned to Stephen. Her creator rightly remarks that Elfirde was markedly one of those who sigh for the unattainable – to whom superlatively, a hope is pleasing because not a possession.1 Knight was undoubtedly superior to Stephen in birth and education but inferior to him in humanity and warmth of love. Knight’s life has been, as he says, so “absurdly” unspotted that he, unlike, Angel Clare, has some right to expect his fancy for an inexperienced wife to be realized. Elfirde could and should have known it and saved herself from his unerring archery by keeping herself far away from him. Apparently there was nothing common between them. She has a guilty past and so she hesitates to acquaint Knight with it, although she fears that her previous relations with Jethway and Stephen will, sooner or later, come to his knowledge. Her guilty past continually preys upon her mind. Once she tells Knight: “Mr. Knight, I want to tell you something …. It is about something I once did, and don’t think I ought to have done.”2 Knight does not conceal his mind and tell her explicitly: Elfride, there is one thing I do love to see in a woman – that is, a soul truthful and clear as heaven’s light. I could put up with anything if I had that- forgive nothing if I had it not… Depend upon it, my dear girl, that a noble woman must be as honest as a noble man. I specially mean by honesty, fairness not only in matters of business 1 2 Ibid. , p. 229 Ibid. , p. 292 and social detail, but in all the delicate dealings of love, to which the licence given to your sex particularly refers.1 In her endeavour to find something common between herself and her lover Elfride once asked Knight if he had ever been engaged before, hoping that he had been and if so, she would make that a ground for telling him a little of her conduct with Stephen. But Knight’s reply shut her mouth: “No, I never was…. I have been rather absurd in my avoidance of women. I have never given a woman a kiss in my life, except yourself and my mother.”2 In the light of these glimpses of Knight’s character Elfride should have realised that she was not a suitable match for him. But she allowed her judgment to be blinded by “the intoxication of the moment”: “She dismissed the sense of sin in her past actions, and was automatic in the intoxication of the moment.”3 Even when she rescued Knight by helping him to come down the cliff safe, he simply thanked her and she felt that he did not love her, on the contrary, he was only grateful to her. Nevertheless, she continued to love him arguing in her mind that “it was infinitely more to be even the salve of the greater than the queen of the less.”4 Moreover, Elfride was not honest and truthful in her dealings with either Stephen or Knight. In her talks with Knight “She never alluded to even a knowledge of Knight’s friend.”5 We are told that Her natural honesty invited her to confide in Knight, and trust to his generosity for forgiveness: she knew also that as mere policy it would be better to tell him early if he was to be told 1 Ibid. , p. 295 Ibid. , pp. 315-16 3 Ibid. , p. 290 4 Ibid. , p. 246 5 Ibid. , p. 281 2 at all. The longer her concealment the more difficult would be the revelation. But she put it off.1 The question is: why did she put it off? Was she forced by fate not to confine in Knight? Certainly not. It was her own guilty past which haunted her and for which no body else was to blame. Prior to her meeting with Knight she loved Stephen and had promised to marry him. Blinded by the impulse of the moment she had even made an elopement with him. But for her fickleness of mind, they would have been united in wedlock. When she saw Knight she, “with the quickness of conviction characteristic of her mind, got familiar with him”2 “And that evening”, the author says, “she went to bed… without thinking of Stephen at all.”3 She deliberately concealed her love for Knight from Stephen. Her fickleness of mind can be seen in her action when she comes in receipt of presents from both of her lovers: There before her lay the deposit-receipt for the two hundred pounds, and besides it the elegant present of Knight…. She almost feared to let the two articles lie in juxtaposition: so antagonistic were the interests they represented that a miraculous repulsion of one by the other was almost to be expected…By the evening she had come to a resolution, and acted upon it. The packet was sealed up – with a tear of regret as she closed the case upon the petty forms it contained – directed, and placed upon the writing table in Knight’s room. And a 1 Ibid. Ibid. , p. 188. 3 Ibid. , p. 189. 2 letter was written to Stephen stating that as yet she hardly understood her position with regard to the money sent, but declaring that she was ready to fulfill her promise to marry him. After this letter had been written she delayed posting it - although never ceasing to feel strenuously that the deed must be done. Several days passed.1 The dilemma she was in was her own creation. Marriage with Stephen was unlikely to prove ideal after her love for Knight, but a refusal to marry Stephen at this stage was also risky. When Stephen returned from India, his mother handed him Elfride’s note which read, “Yes, I will meet you in the church at nine tonight.”2 He eagerly went to the church but Elfride failed to turn up there. The only implication which can be drawn is that Elfride, by her own impulsive action, has placed herself in an incongruous situation from which there seems to be no escape. She is well aware of the fact that her love affairs of the past will sooner or later come to the knowledge of Knight. But instead of confiding in him, she confides in Mrs. Jethway, her sworn enemy, and requests her in writing “Do not, I beseech you, Mrs. Jethway, let any one know what I did : It would ruin me and break my heart.”3 In her nervousness she expects Mrs. Jethway to save her from ruin. Mrs. Jethway who was in search of an opportunity to let Elfride down, encloses this letter with that of her own which she writes to Mr. Knight, and which eventually brings about the tragedy of Elfride, Thus, Elfride herself invites her troubles by her lack of foresight. Mrs. Jethway rightly accuses her of wantonness: 1 Ibid. , pp. 225-26. Ibid. , p. 259. 3 Ibid. , p. 327. 2 Well, you harshly dismissed him ( young Jethway), and he died. And before his body was cold you took another to your heart. Then as carelessly sent him about his business, and took a third ….. Fickleness towards a lover is bad, but fickleness after playing the wife is wantonness.1 She predicts that Knight would discard her if he comes to know the facts: “Does your man know of it? I think not, or he would be no man of yours:”2 Decisions, however, are not taken in vacuum and Elfride is not solely responsible for her fate. Whatever she decides is judged in a context which includes others too, most notably, Henry Knight. Knight sees the world through his books and betrays an ignorance of real life. He refuses to adapt himself to the realities of life as they are. His moral rightness is praiseworthy but unfortunately he has too much of it with the result that it altogether banishes his humanity. In his intellectual arrogance and dogmatism he stands in line with Angel Clare. His dreams are too ideal to be realised in real life. He wants to see truth in too clean and pure a form. He expects his wife to have “a soul truthful and clear as heaven’s light” and agrees to marry Elfride because he thinks she has such a soul, if ever woman had. But when he finds himself mistaken in supposing her pearless, “nothing on earth could make him believe that she was not so very bad after all.”3 Disapproving Knight’s treatment of Elfride Hardy comments: It is a melancholy thought that men who at first will not allow the verdict of perfection they pronounce upon their sweethearts or wives to be disturbed by God’s own testimony to the contrary, will, once 1 Ibid. , p. 297. Ibid. 3 Ibid. , p. 365. 2 suspecting their purity, morally hang them upon evidence they would be ashamed to admit in judging a dog.1 Michael Millgate has noted the Hamlet motif in the character of Knight.2 According to him, Knight’s obsessions, like Hamlet’s emerge in indecision, morbidity and disgust. His indecision and incompetence in the everyday business of life is seen in the purchase of ear-rings for Elfride. He purchases a pair of ear-rings and returns to his residence. Then he thinks that the pattern chosen will not suit her after all. He goes to return that pair of ear-rings and changes it for another set. After a great deal of trouble he reselects this pair of ear-rings and returns to his residence. These ear-rings remain with him till the afternoon, when after contemplating them fifty times with a growing misgiving that the last choice was worse than the first, he felt that no sleep would visit his pillow till he had improved upon his previous purchases yet again.3 He goes anew to the shopdoor, is absolutely ashamed to enter and give further trouble, goes to another shop and buys another pair at an enormously increased price. Thus he loses a whole day. How can we expect that this man will ever select a wife and remain happy with her? Knight is inconsistent in his behaviour. He condemns Elfride’s love for adornment, but feels a sense of triumph in buying her the very ear-ring he professes to despise. 1 Ibid. , p. 358. Michael Millgate , Thomas Hardy : His Career as a Novelist, London, The Bodley Head Ltd., 1971, p. 69. 3 Ibid. , p. 218. 2 One of the causes of his tragedy is that he judges by principle, not by perception. The morality of his behaviour is questionable because he treats Elfride not as a person, but as a thing. Elfride makes her plea with good reason: Am I mere such a characterless toy? …… Haven’t I brains? ……. Have I not some beauty? ...... Yet all these together are so much rubbish because I- accidentally saw a man before you?1 But all this falls flat upon Knight. He seems to be so concerned with his “dignity” that he loses all sense of proportion and sympathy. F.R. Southerington rightly observes that “Knight’s role in Elfride’s destruction is considerably more important than any played by chance.”2 One should not infer from this that chance or circumstance plays no part in the world of A pair of Blue Eyes. The novel abounds in coincidences – H.C. Webster has counted thirty seven “major” coincidences3 – which affect the course of action. But we should not forget that these chance happenings do not affect the responses of any major character at moments of decision, expect to reinforce decisions already taken. When Knight’s life was in danger on Cliff, he lost all hopes of life and thought that it was a “cosmic agency, active, lashing, eager for conquest.”4 But Elfride used her presence of mind and formed the rope which saved his life. This incident shows how intelligence may overcome circumstance. 1 A Pair of Blue Eyes, p. 344. F.R. Southerington, op. cit. , p. 56. 3 H.C. Webster, op. cit. , p. 104. 4 A Pair of Blue Eyes, p. 242 2 Thus, we can say that A pair of Blue Eyes is a novel in which there is a continual stress on the unseen forces, yet it places its final stress on the defeat of those forces by human intelligence. Anne, in The Trumpet Major, lands herself in trouble by her unworthy attachment to Bob. The plot of the novel implies that Anne and John were better matched in sensitivity, intelligence and constancy than Anne and Bob. Anne was free to choose either of the two for her husband. The story implies that if she had chosen John she might have escaped much of her sufferings. Her troubles were due to her ill choice for which she herself was to blame. In the choice of her husband she did not use her reason and allowed herself to be led astray by her momentary impulse. She well aware of the fact that Bob was inconstant in love and unreliable too: Then, Captain Loveday, I will tell you one thing, one fault, that perhaps would have been more proper to my character than to yours. You are too easily impressed by new faces, and that gives me a bad opinion of you – yes, a bad opinion.1 But she deliberately refused to reconsider her choice. Bob first loved Anne and had given her a curl of his hair as a token of love. But when he came in contact with Matilda Johnson, he got ready to marry her forgetting all about Anne. He even slighted Anne when he returned home to marry Matilda: It never came into my head till this moment that I used to be your beau in a humble sort of way. Faith, so I did, and we 1 The Trumpet Major, Macmillan ( New Wessex Edition) , 1975, p. 189. used to meet at places sometimes…. and once I gave you, or somebody else, a bit of my hair in fun.1 It was this curl of hair which Anne burnt in to ashes when she learnt that Bob was going to marry Matilda. The marriage of Bob and Matilda would have materialised but for the intervention of John. But Anne took no lesson from this incident and foolishly persisted in her love for Bob. Anne undergoes affliction because inspite of her knowledge that Bob was not dependable she depended upon him. More than once Bob had given proof of his inconstancy. During his absence from home he got himself engaged to a “very nice young master baker’s daughter.”2 When Anne learnt this from Jim Cornick, her anguish knew no bounds. She retired to her room and fainted. When she came to her senses she murmured: “If he had been dead, I could have borne it, but this I can not bear.”3 She suffered a similar anguish when Bob praised Matilda in her presence. And yet she refused to reconsider her desire to marry him. Anne’s anguish may be compared to that of grace Melbury. She, too, was sick to her heart’s centre when she came to know that Dr. Fitzpiers was not faithful to her and had his love-affairs with many women. But the conditions of Anne and Grace were not the same. Grace was married to Fitzpiers and as such she was helpless to get herself free from him. Society stood in her way. But there was nothing like this in the case of Anne. She was free to renounce Bob but she didn’t. Hence her sufferings. Mrs. Martha Garland, Anne’s mother, having learnt that Bob meant to break off with her daughter, suggests her to encourage John. The Miller, too, advises her to renounce Bob and marry John : 1 Ibid. , p. 138. Ibid. , p. 290. 3 Ibid. , p. 290. 2 It would please me, my dear little girl, if you could get to like him better than that weathercock, master Bob…. John is as steady and staunch a fellow as ever blowed a trumpet. I’ve always that you might do better with him than with Bob. Now I’ve a plan for taking him into the mill, and letting him have a comfortable time o’t after his long knocking about; but so much depends upon you that I must bide a bit till I see what your pleasure is about the poor fellow. Mind, my dear, I don’t want to force ‘ee, I only just ask ‘ee.1 If Anne had not allowed herself to be swayed by her emotions and had acted upon the god counsel of her mother and step- father, she would have been spared much of her humiliation and suffering. These are not accidents, but regions in which human responsibility can reasonably be expected to play a part. So far as John is concerned, he loves Anne from the core of his heart, but hesitates marry her because he knows that Bob also loves her. He sacrifices his own happiness to ensure that of his younger brother. But we feel that his was an unworthy sacrifice, for Bob was not very serious about his love affairs with Anne. When he goes to join navy on his own accord, he tells John: Now, Jack, these be my last words to you: I give her up ….. you have more right to her than I. you chose her when my mind was else where, and you best deserve her; for I have never known you forget one woman, while I’ve forgot a dozen. Take her then, if she will come, and god bless both of ‘ee.2 1 2 Ibid. , p. 299. Ibid. , p. 275. The Miller, during Bob’s absence, asks John “to think less of him (Bob) and more of thyself”, as “it would be a good thing for all.”1 Towards the end of the novel Anne herself encourages him, but in vain. John seems determined to mar his happiness. It is critically fashionable to regard Bathsheba of Far From the Madding Crowd as a wronged heroine. She is said to be a victim of fate, which employs “a human instrument” to cause her sufferings. “Fate”, writes Lord David Cecil, often employs a human instrument to encompass the tragedies which overtake Hardy’s heroines. Tess and Bathsheba, Thomasin and Grace are the victims of Don Juans.2 But it is hard to agree with Cecil. The plot of the novel under discussion shows that Bathsheba is not an innocent and helpless victim of fate; on the contrary, she herself is the author of her misfortunes. The early Bathsheba is full of tomboyish charm and saucy provocativeness. We first see her sitting in “an ornamental spring waggon”,3 surveying herself attentively in a looking glass and smiling at her own beauty : “She blushed at herself, and seeing her reflection blush, blushed the more.”4 Gabriel Oak, who secretly watches her actions from a distance, rightly remarks that the lady suffers from “vanity”,5 for There was no necessity whatever for her looking in the glass. She did not adjust her hat, or pat her hair, or press a dimple into shape, or do one thing to signify that any such intention had been her motive in taking up the glass. She simply observed herself as a fair product of Nature in the feminine kind, her thoughts seeming to glide in to 1 Ibid. , p. 296. L.D. Cecil, op. cit. p. 31. 3 Far From the Madding Crowd , Macmillan ( The New Wessex Edition), 1976, p. 43. 4 Ibid. , p. 44. 5 Ibid. , p. 45. 2 far-off though likely dramas in which men would play a part- vistas of probable triumphs – the smiles being of a phase suggesting that hearts were imagined as lost or won.1 Bathsheba, proud of her beauty and living in a world of romance, is utterly blind to the grim realities of the real world. In the real world one has to be cautious and wary at every step or else one may land oneself in unnecessary troubles. But Bathsheba does not understand this. She is “too wild”2 and seldom thinks before she acts. We agree with Desmond Hawkins that “Her vulnerable point, on which the whole action hinges, is her insensibility to the possibly great issues of little beginnings.”3 She philanders with Oak and when he proposes to marry her she snubs him saying “It wouldn’t do Mr. Oak. I want somebody to tame me; I am too independent, and you would never be able to, I know.”4 Bathsheba does not understand that landslides of disaster can spring from a moment’s surrender to impulse which an age of prudence can never retract. She takes delight in tantalising men. In a fit of impulse she sends an anonymous valentine to her sober- sided negihbour, Farmer Boldwood, without pausing to think of the effect on this repressed and melancholy man and the possibility that he may discover her authorship (which he does). Like Angelo before he saw Isabella in Shakespeare’s Measure for measure , Boldwood is a sexually dry – stick until Bathsheba flaunts her charms before his bewildered face. Then, the old Adam, long dormant in him, stirs. He assumes the valentine to be seriously intended and the intensity of his submerged, inner life is suddenly released, revealing an emotional violence that had been belied by his dull exterior. 1 Ibid. , p. 44. Ibid. , p. 64. 3 Howkins, hardy: Novelist & Poet , David & Chares, Lonodn, Newton Abbot, 1976, p. 52.. 4 Far From the Madding Crowd, p. 68. 2 Bathsheba is culpable in her rash sending of the valentine. The author says that the deed was done “so very idly and unreflectingly.”1 The words of the seal – “MARRY ME”-2 tickled the imagination of Boldwood and he came to her with a proposal of marriage: “I want you for my wife – so wildly that no other feeling can abide in me, but I should not have spoken out had I not been led to hope.”3 Bathsheba could not confess her guilt: I know I ought never to have dreamt of sanding that valentine – forgive me, sir – It was a wanton thing which no women with any self respect should have done. If you only pardon my thoughtlessness. I promise never to. 4 She does not reject the proposal of Boldwood in univocal terms, rather she keeps him in suspense. Fond of flattery, she is not prepared to listen to any sane suggestion. Oak disapproves of her girlish prank upon Mr. Boldwood : My opinion is …… that you are greatly to blame for playing pranks upon a man like Mr. Boldwood, merely as a pastime. Leading on a man you don’t care for is not praiseworthy action.5 Proud Bathsheba, instead of appreciating this suggestion, loses her temper and bursts out : “I can not allow any man to – to criticise my private conduct … So 1 Ibid. , p. 131. Ibid. , p. 132. 3 Ibid. , p. 160. 4 Ibid. 5 Ibid. , p. 167. 2 you’ll please leave the farm at the end of the week .”1 No wonder, if such an impulsive woman is plunged in to trouble. George Wing has rightly remarked that Bathsheba is irresistibly flirtatious: her mating- calls are uncontrollable and irresistible, and if she pays for this high and undiscerning sexuality, there would seem, under her contemporary social code, to be no great injustice done.2 Bathsheba fails to exercise any control over her impulse and this is the main cause of her sufferings. Having stirred Boldwood out of a contented bachelordom, she now encourages Sergeant Troy. Troy is the aforesaid Don Juan, who is said to have wronged her. But it is difficult to establish from the text of the novel that Troy wronged her. The truth is that Bathsheba damaged his life almost as much as he damaged hers. In the darkness of night she encounters Troy. Her dress is caught in his spur. She allows herself to be drawn into a bewitching conversation and finds she is no match for his silver-tongued flattery. He showers lavish praises on her which tickle her “vanity”. She is attracted towards him. Her “adventurous spirit”3 relishes his sword play and she allows herself to be kissed by him. Her love affair with Troy is a piece of gratuitous folly. Hardy comments : We now see the element of folly distinctly mingling with the many varying particulars which made up the character of Bathsheba Everdene ……. Her culpability lay in her marking no attempt to control feeling by subtle and careful inquiry into consequences. She 1 Ibid. , p. 167.. George Wing, Hardy, London, Oliver and Boyd, 1968, pp. 49-50. 3 Far From the Madding Crowd, p. 215. 2 could show others the steep and thorny way, but ‘reck’d not her own rede.’1 She is so much blinded by her impulse that she shamelessly follows Troy to Bath and secretly marries him, an impulsive act, which brings unhappiness in her own life as well as in the lives of Troy and Boldwood. Her own account of marriage shows her to be guilt – conscious. She tells Oak: “…… I was grieved and troubled … and then between jealously and distraction, I married him.”2 Prior to his love affair with Bathsheba, Troy was prepared to stand by Fanny Rabin. But for a slight incautiousness on the part of Fanny, he would have married her. He waited for her in a church named All Saints’, but Fanny did not turn up there as she had mistakenly gone to the wrong church. This mistake was due to her nervousness which was consequent upon her pre-nuptial sexual indulgence resulting in pregnancy. We find a curious warmth in the shallowness of the dandy’s heart, and an unexpected fidelity in his fickleness. As he stands before Fanny’s rough coffin, seized by the jealous Bathsheba, he is quite unequivocal and, we, think, sincere : ‘Ah : don’t taunt me madam. This woman is more to me, dead as she is, than ever you were, or are, or can be. If Satan had not tempted me with that face of yours, and those cursed coquetries, I should have married her. I never had another thought till you came in my way. Would to God that I had; but it is all too late : I deserve to live in torment for this : ‘He turned to Fanny then. ‘But never mind darling, he said, ‘in the sight of Heaven you are my very, very wife.’3 1 Ibid. , p. 219-20. Ibid. , p. 282. 3 Ibid. , p. 327. 2 Unlike Boldwood, Bathsheba escapes ruination inspite of her impulsiveness, because she has Oak as a continual reminder of the nature of reality. Also, there is in her a capacity for learning from experience which Boldwood potently does not possess. Boldwood is man of forty, and not inexperienced – “it was possible to form guesses concerning his wild capabilities from old flood marks faintly visible.”1 – Yet he has learnt nothing. He abandons himself without resistance to an excitement which literally tends to deprive him of his reason : he is “ a man showing himself to be so entirely the vane of a passion …..”2 Unlike Oak, he is a man of extremes and this causes his tragedy : His equilibrium disturbed, he was in extremity at once. If an emotion possessed him at all, it ruled him, a feeling not mastering him was entirely latent. Stagnant or rapid, he was never slow. He was always hit mortally, or he was missed.”3 He fails to adapt himself to his circumstances and this ruins him. Disillusioned over Bathsheba’s clandestine marriage, he confesses to Gabriel Oak that he has entirely neglected his ricks. Ultimately, his reason subordinated to his impulse, he kills his rival, Troy, in the very presence of his sweetheart, inviting thereby his final doom. Gabriel Oak is clearly Hardy’s hero. Unlike Boldwood, he never shows himself as “the vane of a passion”. He passes through many trials and tribulations, but he never loses his mental balance. He is always guided by reason to which his impulses are subordinated ; he is governed by his acquired and selftaught qualities, which subordinate the natural man to the needs of others. No doubt, he loves Bathsheba, but he never allows his passions to rule him. Oak is 1 Ibid. , p. 153. Ibid. , p. 233. 3 Ibid. , p. 153. 2 man without extremes of temperament. He stands in sharp contrast with Boldwood or Troy. His grief over his flocks takes place in a setting where everything seems to invite death : over the oval pond “hung the attenuated skeleton of a chromeyellow moon …. The pool glittered like a dead man’s eye”.1 But he adapts himself to his changed condition and regains his equilibrium by rigid self-control. Troy, in his despair, loses his equilibrium. It is Oak who reaps the laurels. He rises up and ultimately marries Bathsheba. Thus, in Far from the Madding Crowd Hardy stresses the necessity of the dominance of reason over impulse. People who allow themselves to be ruled by their passions, court disaster and it is unfair to blame others for their sorrows and sufferings. The plot of The Return of the Native stresses that the catastrophe is caused by the consequences of personal failure among the principal characters. Here, the whole climatic sequence of tragic event is triggered by Eustacia’s failure to open her door and welcome her mother – in –law. To the humble cottage where Clym and Eustacia’s are living in near poverty Mrs. Yeobright comes on a pilgrimage of reconciliation. Wildeve is already in the cottage. Clym, exhausted from his labours as a furze-cutter - which he has become – is sleeping. Eustacia, fearing the interpretation that Mrs. Yeobright may put on Wildeve’s presence, is concerned to smuggle him away and assumes that Clym will awake and welcome his mother when she knocks. But Clym, tired as he is, sleeps on. Mrs. Yeobright having seen enough to believe that Eustacia refuses to admit her, turns back rebuffed. The long walk in the heat of the day exhausts her: she sinks down, is bitten by an adder and dies what must be described as a symbolically venomous death, bequeathing to others her description of herself as “a brokenhearted woman cast off by my son.”2 1 2 Ibid. , p. 73. The Return of the Native , London, Macmillan, 1963, p. 294 Here we feel that Eustacia could have totally averted the catastrophe by waking Clym after his mother’s call, or, when he awoke, by telling him of it, or she could herself have made an active search of the heath immediately after her failure to open the door. Hardy says that Mrs. Yeobringht did not follow the path, but she could hardly have gone far. The fact that Eustacia did not do these things is directly attributable to her own consciousness of a guilty past with Wildeve, but this, too, is a consequence of her own actions. Eustacia resembles Cleopatra in her pride, her passion and her scorn of consequences : “In heaven she will probably sit between the Heloises and the Cleopatras.”1 This romantic lady refuses to adjust herself to the earthly realities and so she suffers. She is ever in a spring of discontent and one can never conjuncture a phase or situation in which she would ever be contented. There is an insatiability about her. Her restlessness is due to her unceasing demanding. Her “Pagan eyes” have “nocturnal mysteries”2 , her soul is “flame – like”3, and her prayer is : “send me great love from somewhere, else I shall die.”4 She seeks excitement and adventure indiscreetly and recklessly takes any person who offers to be taken, feeling all the while that she does so only for want of a better person. Like Elfirde, Eustacia, too, is “markedly one of the those who sigh for the unattainable ……”5 This “Queen of Night” also resembles Flaubert’s Emma Bovary in her romantic cravings. “To be loved to madness – such was her great desire”;6 but there was nobody mad or great enough to do so. Eustacia seems to have absolutely no restraint of reason over her impulses. Her sensuous nature is 1 Ibid. , p. 80. Ibid. , p. 74. 3 Ibid. 4 Ibid. 5 A Pair of Blue Eyes, p. 229. 6 The Return of the Native , p. 77. 2 incapable of thought. Her every act is the instant product of impetuous desire. To quote H.C. Duffin, “she has no guide but emotion and animal wants.”1 One of the causes of Eustacia’s tragedy is that she overestimates herself. She regards herself as an exceptional being and is too conscious of her dignity. She looks down upon people around her : “I have not much love for my fellow creatures. Sometimes I quite hate them.”2 Because of her sultry grandeur, because of her disdain for the Egdon peasants, she incurs the enmity of the women especially. Mrs. Yeobright calls her “a voluptuous idle woman.”3 Susan Nunsuch pricks her in church “with a long stocking needle”4 and later, as if signing her deathwarrant, thrusts pins into her wax image. The author tells us that Eustacia “seemed to long for abstraction called passionate love more than for any particular lover.”5 The conjugal life of such a woman is bound to be unhappy. She herself admits that “there is not that in Eustacia Vye which will make a good home – spun wife.”6 She encourages Wildeve for want of any other suitable man. Wildeve, who has promised to marry Thomasin, changes his mind when he sees Eustacia. Diggory Venn goes to her and requests her in the name of humanity to give Wildeve upto Thomasin. But proud Eustacia turns down this request. It hurts her sense of pride to be defeated in love by a girl, far inferior to her. But she herself deserts Wildeve when she comes to know that he has been rejected by Thomasin , her poor rival. She can love a man only so long as that man is loved by others, too. By discarding 1 H.C. Duffin, op. cit. , p. 227. The Return of the Native, p. 193. 3 Ibid. , p. 211. 4 Ibid. , p. 184.. 5 Ibid. , p. 77. 6 Ibid. , p. 206. 2 Wildeve she committed a mistake, for Wildedve would have proved a better match for her than Cylm. Like her, Wildeve, too, was a “man of sentiment.”1 Eustacia wanted “music, poetry, passion, … and all the beating and pulsing that is going on in the great arteries of the world.”2 Clym could not give her these things. She might have got them somehow if she had been less proud. In the end, Wildeve had the means and the desire to offer them to her, but to ask Wildeve for pecuniary aid without allowing him to accompany her was impossible to a woman with a shadow of pride left in her : to fly as his mistress …. was of the nature of humiliation ….. He’s not great enough for me to give myself to – he does not suffice for my desire: …. If he had been a Saul or a Bounaparte – ah : But to break my marriage vow for him – it is too poor a luxury.3 So, instead of humiliating herself, she prefers to die. At this point she resembles Ibsen’s heroine, Hedda Gabler, who, finding herself to be at the mercy of judge Brack, commits suicide. Eustacia also commits suicide and we can not blame any body but herself for her tragic end. In the light of the facts mentioned above we can not believe her when she cries in a frenzy of bitterness “……. I do not deserve my lot.”4 She could have escaped her tragic destiny, if she had accepted the offer of Wildeve. Proud Eustacia does not tell Clym of her behaviour towards Mrs. Yeobright. Clym comes to know of it from other sources and he guesses the worst and the untrue, but like Henchard before Elizabeth, Eustacia withholds her 1 Ibid. , p. 223. Ibid. , p. 289. 3 Ibid. , p. 360. 4 Ibid. , p. 361. 2 excuses. Had she spoken out everything, Clym would have forgiven her sooner. But she is not a woman to beg pardon : “Who of any dignity would take the trouble to clear cobwebs from a wild man’s mind….”1 Eustacia, who triggers the whole sequence of tragic events by not opening the door to receive her mother-inlaw, refuses to take the blame on herself and thus incurs the author’s disapproval : She had certainly believed that Clym was awake, and the excuse would be an honest one as far as it went, but nothing could save her from censure in refusing to answer at the first knock, yet, instead of blaming herself for the issue she laid the fault upon the shoulders of some indistinct, colossal Prince of the world, who had framed her situation and ruled her lot.2 Mrs. Yeobright rightly remarks, “I have never heard that she is of any use to herself or to other people.”3 The author also tells us that “As far as social ethics were concerned Eustacia approached the savage state, though in emotion she was all the while an epicure.”4 This ego-centric woman, this bundle of neuroses tingling in a body of great physical beauty was too Shelleyan a thing for the didactic but earth – bound Clym. Their marriage creates an incongruous situation for both of them. Duffin suggests that the tragedy of The Return of the Native arises out of incongruity of situations. But the incongruous situation is not forced upon the characters by fate, on the contrary, it results from their own impulsive actions. Fate, no doubt, intervenes here and there only to intensify the tragedy which the charters themselves have invited by obeying the dictates of their unreasoning impulses. 1 Ibid. , p. 332. Ibid. , p. 304. 3 Ibid. , p. 186. 4 Ibid. , p. 103. 2 Clym Yeobright, after his proposal of marriage and its acceptance by Eustacia, is conscious of having taken an unwise step. He is well aware of the fact that she loved him rather as a visitant from a gay world to which she rightly belonged than as a man with purpose opposed to that recent past of his which so interested her … though she made no conditions as to his return to the French capital, this was what she secretly longed for in the event of marriage; and it robbed him of many an otherwise pleasant hour.1 As if to stress how conscious Clym has become of the rash nature of his action Hardy adds: “Now that he had reached a cooler moment he would have preferred a less hasty marriage, but the card was laid, and he determined to abide by the game.”2 No fate can be held responsible for the sufferings of such a man, who takes decisions rashly and holds to them even when there is time to withdraw, in the illusion that life is a game and that a card once played cannot be withdrawn. Clym’s tragedy owes much to his vague idealism. What is worse is that he is ruthless in the execution of his idealistic plan, sacrificing the claims of personal relationship to an unspecific cause. It is his “obstinate wrong headedness”3 which puts him in an awkward situation. He believes that he can bring reform to society and do good to people by educating them. One cannot doubt his intention, but as Mrs. Yeobright puts it, “It was very well to talk of, but ridiculous to put in practice.”4 He should “have seen the folly of such self – 1 Ibid. , p. 208. Ibid. , p. 215-16. 3 Ibid. , p. 211. 4 Ibid. , p. 199. 2 sacrifice,”1 but he didn’t. Even simple heathfolks see the impracticability of his plans : He’ll never carry it out in the world’s, said Fairway. ‘In a few weeks he’ll learn to see things otherwise.’ Tis good-hearted of the Youngman’, said another. ‘But for my part, I think he had better mind his business.’2 His mother, too, warns him : It disturbs me Cylm, to find that you have come home with such thoughts as those. I hadn’t the least idea that you meant to go backward by your own free choice. Of course I have always supposed you were going to push straight on, as other men do …. when they have been put in a good way of doing well.3 Cylm, certainly, was “put in a good way of doing well” but he went backward by his “own free choice”. Hardy explicitly censures Clym for his “wrong headedness” and remarks that his mind was not well – proportioned: Was Yeobright’s mind well- proportioned? No. A well – proportioned mind is one which shows no particular bias…. Its usual blessings are happiness and mediocrity… It never would have allowed Yeobright to do such a ridiculous thing as throw up his business….4 Had Clym thought over the pros and cons of his ethereal plan before it was too late, he would have escaped much of his raving despair. 1 Ibid. Ibid. , p. 199. 3 Ibid. , p. 132. 4 Ibid. , p. 180. 2 In fact, Clym is in an excess of passion. Having been fed up with making diamond pendants in Paris, and disillusioned of the glamour of city life, he returns to his native place in the mood of an ascetic. But when he sees Eustacia, he forgets all his asceticism and, blinded by his momentary impulse, marries that very sort of woman for whom the symbols of self- indulgence and vainglory are made. His decision to marry Eustacia clearly indicates the subordination of his reason to his impulse. This surrender to a momentary impulse puts him in an incongruous situation, which ultimately brings about tragedy in his own life as well as in the lives of Eustacia and Mrs. Yeobright. Had he used his reason in the choice of a wife, he would not have married Eustacia, who was so widely different from him in taste and temperament. His mother wanted him to marry Thomasin and Hardy tells us that “From every profident point of view his mother was ….. undoubtedly right…..”1 Thomasin would have proved helpful to him in carrying out the plan he had in mind; for she, too, like him, was a native of Egdon. Moreover, this marriage would have pleased Mrs. Yeobright, and the “ghastly breach”2 between his mother and himself would have been avoided. But Clym, in a fit of impulse, married Eustacia, who hated Egdon and in the end fulfilled her own prophecy regarding her doom in relation to the heath : “ ‘Tis my cross, my shame, and will be my death.”3 Clym’s treatment of his mother and his wife is cruel in its unflinching hardness. He offends his mother, firstly by renouncing his business in Paris and secondly, by marrying Eustacia Vye. For these offences no fate can be held responsible. Clym deliberately does these deeds which led him in trouble. Having won the passionately wild Eustacia, eagerly anticipating a metropolitan and civilized life, he heaps indignity after indignity upon her. He intensifies the insult of his young bride by adopting the garb and way of life of a 1 Ibid. , p. 196. Ibid. , p. 230. 3 Ibid. , p. 93. 2 furze – cutter, the meanest of labourers. He stretches out on the floor, like a beast, to sleep after his swink. It is under these circumstances that Eustacia is accused of infidelity. Had Clym tried to mend the matter before it was too late, the tragedy might have been averted. Clym postpones visiting his mother till it is too late. He admits that ‘She was always ready to forgive if asked to do so, but I seemed to her to be as an obstinate child, and that made her unyielding.”1 He is also unduly harsh in his behaviour towards his wife after the tragic end of his mother. The memory of his mother takes complete possession of him. Had it been balanced by an equal love for his wife, the tragedy would not have taken place. Granted that Eustacia did not open the door at the first knocking, but she had good reasons for that. Only recently Mrs. Yeobright had visited the cottage of Clym and quarreled with her saying that she (Mrs. Yeobright) had come only to see her son. Then Clym was absent from his cottage. This time he was present and Eustacia did not know that he was fast asleep. As she says : I confess that I – willfully did not undo the door the first time she knocked – but – I – I should have unfastened it the second – if I had thought you had gone to do it yourself. When I found you had not I opened it, but she was gone. That is the extent of my crime towards her. Best natures commit bad faults sometimes, don’t they? – I think they do.2 It is worth remembering that Mrs. Yeobright knocked at the door when Eustacia was engaged in conversation with Wildeve. We are told that “They could hear Clym moving in the other room, as if disturbed by knocking, and he uttered the word ‘Mother’.”3 ‘Yes – he is awake – he will go to the door’, she 1 Ibid. , p. 314. Ibid. , pp. 335-36. 3 Ibid. , p. 290. 2 said, with a breath of relief.”1 At the time of Wildeve’s departure from her cottage, she requests him like a good wife “Now, one word, Damon. This is your first visit here, let it be your last. We have been hot lovers in our time, it won’t do now. Good-bye.”2 Viewed in the light of these facts the crime of Eustacia does not appear to be so grave as Clym thinks it to be. He treats her brutally in a fit of impulse. Eustacia leaves him in protest against his brutal behaviour to her. She makes up her mind to do away herself. She admits that she has made a “bad bargain with life,” and that now she is tired of it. But even now she oscillates between decision and indecision : Having resolved on flight Eustacia at times seemed anxious that something should happen to thwart her own intention. The only event that could really change her position was the appearance of Clym.3 But the wrong headed Clym does not do any such thing as to assuage her. It is at the instance of Thomasin that he writes a letter to Eustacia, but postpones despatching it. His egotistical mind stands in the way. He thinks “If she does not come before tomorrow night I will send it to her.”4 There is nothing to wonder if such a heartless husband loses his wife. Mrs. Yeobright who “had a singular insight into life”5 rightly comments on the troubles of this couple : Their troubles are of their own making.”6 Clym and Eustacia regard themselves as exceptional beings and are blind to the fact that nature and circumstances do not give special treatment to any individual. The Return of the Native is typically modern. Unlike the classical tragedians, who showed man’s greatness, Hardy, under the influence 1 Ibid. , pp. 290-91. Ibid. , p. 291. 3 Ibid. , p. 355. 4 Ibid. , p. 353. 5 Ibid. , p. 196. 6 Ibid. , p. 279. 2 of Darwin, shows man’s triviality. In the scheme of nature man is “of no more account in life than an insect.” Mrs. Yeobright, too, contributes to the tragedy in her own way. She regards Clym as “a part of her” and fails to see that he is also an adult individual. In her assertiveness she resembles Mrs. Morel of Lawrence’s Sons and Lovers. Mrs. Yeobright speech, “You answer me; you think only of her. You stick to her in all things”1, is similar to the speech of Mrs. Morel, “…. You only want me to wait on you – the rest is for Miriam.”2 She quarrels with Clym; Clym goes and she lets him go. “The trouble with these two”, says Duffin, “is that they are too strong.”3 If either of the two had been a little soft, the whole black structure of misery would have tumbled down. In The Mayor of Casterbridge Hardy directly involved the concept that “Character is Fate,”4 It is significant to note that instead of introducing the hero immediately as the sober and respected mayor, the novelist introduces him as a man who falls an easy victim to impulsiveness, irresponsibility and violent selfwill sufficient to drive him to sell his wife on the whim of a moment. This recklessness cahracterises Henchard and it is demonstrated recurrently in his subsequent actions. Henchard’s fall is directly attributable to the flaws of his character, and one of the flaws of his character is that he is inconsiderately impulsive. Nothing can be more thoughtless and reckless than the sale of a wife like a horse or a cow. By putting his wife on auction Henchard violently breaks the closest 1 Ibid. , p. 211. D.H. Lawrence, Sons and Lovers, Harmondsworth, 1948, p. 261. 3 H.C. Duffin, op. cit. , p. 20. 4 The Mayor of Casterbridge, p. 117 2 social link that he can form and thus casts on his whole life an indelible stain that refuses to be wiped out. His wife appeals to him, warns him, tries to bring him to his sense; but no, brutal obstinacy is habitual with him. Once his mind is made up, he persists in ways perverse and unreasonable. Henchard is not only foolish, but also stubborn in his folly. Certain events in this novel remind us of the Greek tragedy Oedipus Rex, but the hero, unlike King Oedipus, meets his down – fall because of the shortcomings of his own character rather than for some past sin or curse. He had committed a crime in the past and he may feel guilty at times, but no supernatural power compels him to pay for his crime. In his perversity and under the influence of strong rum he forgets the difference between animals and human beings and says to the people in the refreshment tent : For my part I don’t see why men who have got wives and don’t want ‘em , shouldn’t get rid of ‘em as these gipsy fellows do their old horses. Why shouldn’t they put ‘em up and sell ‘em by auction to men who are in need of such articles? …. I’d sell mine this minute if anybody would buy her :1 As he prepares to sell his wife the company is distracted by a swallow, one among the last of the season, which had by chance found its way through an opening into the upper tent…. In watching the bird till it made its escape the assembled company neglected to respond to the workman’s offer, and the subject dropped.2 1 2 Ibid. , p. 16. Ibid. , p. 17. Here Henchard is offered an opportunity to avoid an action the consequences of which later enmesh him. He is as free as the bird which made an escape after furnishing him with an opportunity to do the same. But Henchard, stubborn as he is, refuses to reconsider his previous decision in the light of reason and puts himself in an awkward position by his own foolish and inhuman action. At the end of the novel he brings Elizabeth - Jane a caged bird, which like him dies. We have here a symbolic link, and it is not difficult to see Henchard as a creature, initially free, but now caged by the consequences of his own misdeeds. Henchard is selfish and looks to his own interest even at the cost of other people’s. As the main corn- factor of Casterbridge he supplies “growed wheat” in his contracts and thus makes money by defrauding others. People grudge and grumble against this selfish attitude of the business world which has deprived them even of wholesome bread. When Susan and Elizabeth – Jane enter Casterbirdge, the first thing that they hear is the complaint against the bread supplied by the corn-factor : Oh, ‘tis the corn – factor - he’s the man that our millers and bakers all deal wi’, and he has sold ‘em growed wheat , which they didn’t know was growed, so they say , trill the dough ran all over the ovens like quicksilver, so that the loaves be as flat as toads, and like suet pudden inside. I’ve been a wife , and I’ve been a mother, and I never sees such unprincipled bread in Casterbridge as this before.1 This deliberate act of cheating on the part of the Mayor tells adversely upon his reputation, already on wane. The resentment of the people over this shoddy deal grows so strong that people begin to accuse him openly. Solomon Longways tells Elizabeth – Jane : 1 Ibid. , p. 38. …. I must say that I have never before tasted such rough bread as has been made from Henchard’s wheat lately. ‘Tis that growed out that ye could a’most call it malt, and there’s a list at bottom o’ the loaf as thick as the sole of one’s shoe.1 At a great public dinner at King’s Arms, while Henchard was laughing and making others laugh by “telling a story of his hay – dealing experiences, in which he had outwitted a sharper who had been bent upon outwitting him”,2 some one from outside the room interrupted him and asked the bad bread with which he had cheated the market. Henchard pleaded accident as an excuse. But the compliant was not to be silenced, and he was much put out by this interruption. Henchard declines to accept his responsibility and make amends to people by undergoing a loss himself and thus he alienate himself from the society of which he is a member. Let alone sympathising with the troubles of his fellowcreatures, at the slightest instigation he shows the same temper “which, artificially intensified, had banished a wife nearly a score of years before.”3 We get glimpses of his temper on many occasions and at many deserving and undeserving persons. A creature of impulse, he acts as he feels. Conventional suppression of feeling is foreign to his nature. He is immoderate in both generosity and cruelty. He will mortify the flesh of poor Abel Whittle for unpunctuality, although he keeps his (Abel’s) mother in coals all through the winter. When he is attracted towards Farfrae he finds nothing but virtue in him and says that he resembles his own brother : “Your forehead, Farfrae , is something like my poor brother’s – now dead and gone, and the nose, too, isn’t unlike his.”4 But once he falls out with 1 Ibid. , p. 43. Ibid. 3 Ibid. , p. 43. 4 Ibid. , p. 55. 2 him, he sees him as evil incarnate and his hatred of him becomes almost demonic in its ferocity. Henchard’s knowledge of himself is so imperfect that “his understanding of others is limited to a simple dichotomy of identification or opposition.”1 As Duffin points out, “the unruly volcanic stuff of his nature constantly heaves and surges, and he loves and hates with Buffalo wrong headedness.”2 Henchard praises the judgment and the knowledge of Farfrae: In my business, ‘t is true that strength and bustle build up a firm. But judgment and knowledge are what keep it established. Unluckily, I am bad at science Farfrae, bad at figures – rule o’ thumb sort of man. You are just the reverse – I see that.3 But when others also begin to “see that” and show a preference for Farfrae’s common sense and practicality, Henchard feels hurt and wronged. Instead of trying to ignore the whole thing, he seems to find some cruel pleasure in hurting his own feelings by drawing out more truths about people’s opinions of him. He is filled with bitterness towards a person whom he had impulsively made his best friend. It is sheer unreasoning impulse which now drives him to a senseless rivalry with Farfrae. His simple wife sees wherein lies the good of all of them and she tries, in her weak way, to bring Elizabeth and Farfrae together. But Henchard, it seems, is bent upon bringing about his own ruin. He does not only prevent Farfrae from paying court to Elizabeth, but also makes it known that he regards him as his 1 Robert Kiely, vision and viewpoint in The Mayor of Casterbridge” , Nineteenth Century Fiction, Vol. 23, No. 2, September, 1968, p. 191. 2 Duffin, op. cit. , p. 85. 3 The Mayor of Casterbridge, p 55. sworn enemy. Burning with jealously he compels the churchmen to sing Psalm the Hundred and Ninth : A swift destruction soon shall seize On his unhappy race; And the next age his hated name Shall utterly deface.1 And when Farfrae passes that way, Henchard says openly : “There’s the man we’ve been singing about.”2 He is blind to the ironical implications of the psalm to himself. Thus, by openly expressing his jealously of Farfrae he lowers himself in the eyes of the churchmen. After Susan’s death, a great loneliness came upon him. Under the stress of an irresistible impulse, a fierce craving for having some one whom he might call his own, he revealed to Elizabeth – Jane that she was really his own daughter. He reassured her with the utmost affection, and even piteously appealed to her not to “take against him.”3 He wished her to take his sur-name. While hunting for some document to prove it all to her he came by the last letter of his wife. Ignoring the direction on the envelope “Not to be opened till Elizabeth – Jane’s wedding day”4 he allowed his eyes “to scan the letter”5 , and came to know that Elizabeth – Jane was not his daughter. Suddenly all his soft feelings for the girl vanished : He jumped up in an impulse, kicked off his slippers, and went with a candle to the door of Elizabeth – Jane’s room….. He steadfastly regarded her features….. In the present statuesque repose of the 1 Ibid. , p. 230. Ibid. , p. 231. 3 Ibid. , p. 125. 4 Ibid. , p. 121. 5 Ibid. , p. 127. 2 young girl’s countenance Richard Newson’s was unmistakably reflected. He could not endure the sight of her, and hastened away.1 All his love for her turned in to hatred, he began to deride her openly for her petty lapses till she left him under the impression that he “scorned her”.2 Henchard holds “some sinister intelligence” responsible for the “blasting disclosure”, but Hardy comments : ….. had he obeyed the wise directions outside her letter this pain would have been spared him for long-possibly for ever, Elizabeth – Jane seeming to show no ambition to quit her safe and secluded maiden courses for the speculative path of matrimony.3 Henchard is as much the victim as the agent of his own misfortune. He is striped of social dignity, of personal affection, and of self-respect by his own misdeeds. For his personal contacts become impossible because he has himself destroyed them. His behaviour at the reception of the Royal Party shows how he himself causes his own humiliation. Although he is no longer a member of the council, yet he insists on joining the councilmen in the reception of the Royal visitor. Farfrae tires to make him understand that his inclusion in the reception party will be objectionable : “The council are the council, and as ye are no longer one of the body, there would be an irregularity in the proceeding. If ye are included, why not others ?”4 But Henchard is not a man to take advice. He is 1 Ibid. , p. 128. Ibid. , p. 137. 3 Ibid. , p. 130. 4 Ibid. , p. 259. 2 headstrong enough to continue in an error. He says, I’ll welcome his Royal Highness, or no body shall :”1 On the day of the Royal Visit, we are told, Everybody else, from the Mayor to the washerwoman, shone in new vesture according to means, but Henchard had doggedly retained the fretted and weather – beaten garments of by-gone years.2 When he came forward with “a flag of somewhat homely construction, formed by tacking one of the small Union Jacks …. to the end of a deal wand – probably the roller from a piece of calico”,3 Farfrae as the Mayor had no alternative but to drag him back : “He seized Henchard by the shoulder, dragged him back, and told him roughly to be off.”4 We cannot blame any body but Henchard himself for his disgrace in the face of the whole town. He showed the same foolishness when he sat in judgment upon the furmity woman. He too readily admitted the truth of the statement of the old woman, who disclosed in his court that he himself had once sold his wife and as such he was no better than the accused. Here we feel that Henchard might have taken advantage of his position and silenced her. His clerk tried to shut the mouth of the old hag : “ ‘Tis a concocted story. So hold your tongue.”5 But Henchard was not practical and worldly enough to understand his own good. Instead of contradicting the statement of the furmity woman, he confessed, “ ‘Tis as true as light”6, and thus exposed himself to public disgrace. It was not that he never spoke a lie. To keep Elizabeth – Jane with him he lied to Newson impulsively without thinking of its consequences. This act of cheating her real father led her to think badly about him : 1 Ibid. Ibid. , p. 261. 3 Ibid. , p. 260. 4 Ibid. , p. 262. 5 Ibid. , p.199 . 6 Ibid. 2 I could have loved you always - …… But how can I when I know you have deceived me so – so bitterly deceived me : You persuaded me that my father was not my father – allowed me to live on in ignorance of the truth for years; and then when he, my warm hearted real father, came to find me, cruelly sent him away with a wicked invention of my death, which nearly broke his heart. O how can I love as I once did a man who has served us like this :1 Henchard’s unwise actions created misunderstanding in the mind of Elizabeth – Jane. A timely confession of the truth and of his need for her would have gained her forgiveness. But he was not one to appeal for love and understanding to any body. He deliberately waived his privilege of self – defence. We are told that “he did not sufficiently value himself to lessen his sufferings by strenuous appeal or elaborate arguments.”2 The grim bitterness of his will is a piece of the same stuff that his whole life was made of. One of the causes of Henchard’s tragedy is that he refuses to take any lesson from his past experiences. The author tells us that “Misery taught him nothing more than defiant endurance of it.”3 To say that a man learnt “nothing more than” is to imply that he has within his grasp the power to learn. We agree with F.R. Southerington that “The recurring tragedy of Hardy’s heroes and heroines is their failure to learn, and within this framework the Mayor is firmly established.4 Critics like Lionel Johnson and Douglas Brown have seen Henchard as a victim of agricultural and social changes. They opine that he cannot live on 1 Ibid. , p. 319. Ibid. 3 Ibid. , p. 128. 4 Southerington, op. cit. , p. 104. 2 the terms of the new order. But the fact is that he cannot fit into any society. His social alienation is traceable to purely personal factors – his treatment of Susan, Elizabeth – Jane, Farfrae, Abel Whittle and other fellow creatures. Society attempts to be rational and controlled, adapting itself to conditions which it cannot avoid. But Henchard is impulsive and uncontrolled, refusing to adjust himself to his conditions. His conduct displays an abuse of the limited free will given to man because he seldom bases his choice on an accurate reading of his situation. Hardy calls him “Prince of Darkness”1 “misadventurer”2 and so on. From “the pillar of the town”3 and the Mayor with “diamond studs”4 he becomes “an outcast and a vagabound”5 by his own misdeeds. Much of the tragedy of The Woodlanders springs from the passivity of the principal characters. Giles Winterborne, Grace Melbury and Marty South badly lack in assertiveness. Giles dies, and we feel that his death was hastened by the fact that he cared too much for propriety and for people’s opinion. He lies shivering with fever outside his own hut because, having yielded it as a shelter for Grace, he does not wish any word of scandal to pass. There is a flaccid, inhuman martyrdom in his restraint. His blind submission to the Victorian ethos is suicidal. He is too honourable and too self – effacing. Like Edward Springrove and John Loveday, he is an unmasculine man; not sexually perverted, but miserably lacking in assertiveness. This is why, he is out-manoeuvred in sex conflict. His passive chivalry wins our admiration but disappoints his sweetheart. George Wing has rightly remarked that “a little more caddishness and assertiveness at opportune moment would have paid dividends.”6 1 The Mayor of Casterbridge, p. 269. Ibid. , p. 290. 3 Ibid. , pp 42-43. 4 Ibid. , p. 41. 5 Ibid. , p. 307. 6 George Wing, op. cit. , p. 59 2 Giles is too conscious of his inferiority to Grace. When Grace is just waiting for him to own her, he is too convinced of his own incompetence and unsuitability as her life-partner and writes to Grace’s father relieving her of his claims. He thinks that she is a lady of refined taste and as such “she would hardly be contented with him, a Yeoman, immersed in tree planting….”1 His tragedy emanates from the fact that he neither renounces Grace philosophically, nor claims her passionately. This type of engagement between two persons of unequal social status is surely nor promising, and if pursued it may lead to unhappiness. Marty silently adores him, but he seems to ignore her for Grace, whom he himself thinks to be out of his reach. He is aware “that this engagement of his was a very unpromising business”2 but he foolishly pursues it. Very shy of his love, he fails to tickle the woman in Grace and is, therefore, rejected by her. We are told that “He was one of those silent, unobtrusive beings who want little from the others in the way of favour or condescension ……”3 Little wonder, if he loses Grace. Had he demonstrated his love more boldly he might have won the favour of his sweetheart. When Grace was disillusioned by her husband’s infidelity, she renewed her old familiarity with Giles. Her father, too, now wanted to see them “a little advanced” in love. It was only on seeing that “Grace…. was virtually asking him to demonstrate that he loved her”4 that he gave way to the temptation “deciding once in his life” to embrace and kiss her. Had he shown his masculinity earlier too, Grace might have married him instead of Fitzpiers. Towards the end of the novel we hear her say, “Giles, if you had only shown half the boldness before I married that you show now, you would have carried me off for your own, first instead of second.”5 Like Marty, Giles loved too well but not wisely. Just as he 1 The Woodlanders , Macmillan , 1961, p. 72. Ibid. , p. 72. 3 Ibid. , p. 294. 4 Ibid., p. 300 2 5 Ibid., p. 301 remained ignorant of the depth of Marty’s love for him, because it was never adequately demonstrated, so did Grace underrate his love for her, because it was mute and undemonstrative. Opportunity comes, but he is not prompt enough to seize it. He foolishly incurs the wrath of Mrs. Charmond and as a result, loses his cottage. Driving a heavy load of timber he encountered Mrs. Charmond’s brougham. The coachman ordered him to back his cart so that he (the coachman) might pass. But Giles argued with him and refused to give way. At last Mrs. Charmond’s brougham had to back. Mrs. Charmond, greatly offended by this audacity of a villager, wanted to know who “that rude man”1 was. Giles readily disclosed his identity : “A younger man in a smaller way of business in Little Hintock. Winterborne is his name.”2 The great lady departed with Giles’s words embedded in her bosom like envenomed barbs. Later, she punished him by refusing to renew the lease of his cottage on his life. Thus, by his own foolishness Giles was rendered homeless. The loss of his cottage resulted in the cancellation of his engagement to Grace. Grace’s tragedy, too, arises from her passivity. She does not use her own judgment and blindly follows the dictates of her father. At his command she would have married Giles, at his command she marries Fitzpiers instead : at his command she again encourages Giles and again leaves him. She does not have a strong personality. In her heart she knows the worth of Giles, but does not do anything except rubbing out the word “lose” and inserting “keep” on the wall of Giles’s house. There is conflict within her between her modern nerves and her primitive feelings. Vacillating between the two attractions, she is unable to understand what is really good for her. Like Lettie of Lawrence’s The White Peacock, Grace loves the simple, unassuming, but true and faithful Giles, but lets herself be persuaded to marry Fitzpiers. Just as Lawrence’s heroine has to lead a 1 2 Ibid. , p. 103. Ibid. meaningless life because she rejects George who, like Giles, is a rustic and unsophisticated but truly devoted to her, so also Grace is doomed to a life of unhappiness. Mr. Melbury’s foolish ambition brings unhappiness in his own life as well as in the lives of others. In his vanity and his craving for social position he resembles John Durbeyfield. When Grace returns home from boarding school, Melbury becomes as vain as Tess’s father after the discovery of his grand lineage. Like a good father he wants to see his daughter well-placed in society, preferably as a member of the upper class. With this end in view, he gets her married to Fitzpiers about whose character he knows nothing. His craze for social position renders him blind to the virtues of the simple and unsophisticated Giles who is truly devoted to Grace and thus makes the “almost irreparable error of dividing two whom nature had striven to join together in earlier days.”1 He realises his mistake too late and we feel pity for him when we see him begging for his daughter’s happiness from a woman like Mrs. Charmond. If he had not allowed his judgment to be dazzled by the splendour and sophistication of the modern world, he would not have found himself in such a humiliating situation. In his last two novels, namely Tess of the Urbervilles and Jude the Obscure, Hardy seems to imply that human suffering is attributable to hereditary causes. In Tess, he has hinted more than once that Tess’s tragedy is due to some past sin committed by one of her ancestors. In Jude, he studies the phenomenon of an ancestral curse. The family of Jude and Sue, cousins by relation, suffers from a pathological fear of marriage ties which snuffs out spontaneity and cordiality, and finally love, until they break the ties and flee away. In this respect Hardy is comparable to the Greek tragedians in whose plays suffering is caused by some past sin. In the Oresteia Aeschylus studies a curse upon a house. He turns to the legends of the House of Atreus which told how 1 Ibid. , p. 285. Atreus and Thyestes, sons of Pelops, became enemies, how Thyestes wronged Atreus’s wife, how Atreus in revenge slew Thyestes’s children, and served them to him in a ghastly banquet. The curse came into being as a result of theses horrible crimes. Such was the inheritance of Agamemnon and Menelaus, the sons of Atreus. Agamemnon sins in his turn and sacrifices his daughter, Iphigenia, to appease the wrath of Artemis. Clytemnestra, the wife of Agamemnon, angry at the loss of her daughter, takes as her lover, Aegisthus, Thyestes’s sole surviving son, who is burning with a desire to revenge himself upon Agamemnon upon his return from Troy. Electra and Orsetes, daughter and son of Agamemnon, slay their mother, Clytemnestra, and her lover, to avenge their father’s murder. Thus, one person’s crime leads to another crime, even though the motive is just to revenge the previous crime. And so the cycle of suffering goes on and on. In Tess, when John Durbeyfield, dies and his family is turned out of the house, Hardy suggests that the law of retribution might be the cause of all this trouble : Thus the Durbeyfields, once d’Urbervilles, saw descending upon them the destiny which, no doubt, when they were among the Olympians of the county, they had caused to descend many a time, and severely enough, upon the heads of such landless ones as they themselves were now. So do flux and reflux – the rhythm of change – alternate and persist in everything under the sky.1 Early in the novel, when Tess, “practically blank as snow as yet”, falls a victim to Alec’s lust, the author reflects : Why it was that upon this beautiful feminine tissue sensitive as gossamer, and practically blank as snow as yet, there should have 1 Tess of the d’Urbervilles, Macmillan, 1961, p. 394. been traced such a coarse pattern as it was doomed to receive; why so often the coarse appropriates the finer thus, the wrong man the woman, the wrong woman the man, many thousand years of analytical philosophy have failed to explain to our sense of order. One may, indeed, admit the possibility of a retribution lurking in the present catastrophe. Doubtless, some of Tess d’Urberville’s mailed ancestors rollicking home from a fray had dealt the same measure more ruthlessly towards peasant girls of their time.1 Hardy refers to the legend of the d’Urberville coach to explain the cause of Tess’s tragedy. Tess occasionally hears the sound of a non – existent coach. She hears from Angel that one of her ancestors committed a dreadful crime in his family coach; and since that time members of the family see or hear the odd coach. Alec, also, tells her the same story : This sound of a non – existent coach can only be heard by one of d’Urberville blood, and it is held to be of ill- omen to the one who hears it. It had to do with a murder, committed by one of the family, centuries ago … one of the family is said to have abducted some beautiful woman, who tried to escape from the coach in which he was carrying her off, and in the struggle he killed her – or she killed him ……2 Tess’s vision of this non – existent coach implies that the sin committed by one of her ancestors has set the Nemesis at work which demands retributive justice. When Tess murders Alec and, in return is hanged to death, Hardy concludes, “ 1 2 Ibid. , pp. 90-91. Ibid. , p. 397. ‘Justice’ was done and the President of the Immortals, in Aeschylean phrase had ended his sport with Tess.”1 But we should not infer from all this that Tess is quite blameless in herself, and that she suffers for no fault of her own. Hereditary factors, no doubt, are there, but they are not the sole cause of her tragedy. The author says, But though to visit the sins of the fathers upon the children may be a morality good enough for divinities; it is scorned by average human nature and it is therefore does not mend the matter.2 In fact, Tess’s troubles spring from her own misdeeds. At crucial moments she commits blunders, which are directly responsible for her tragedy and which far outweigh any interference by hereditary factors. Tess’s lack of worldly wisdom is the main cause of her tragedy. When Angel proposes to marry her, she hesitates to accept the proposal because her so- called sin continually preys upon her mind. She fails to decide whether she should or should not tell Angel of her seduction. Her indecisiveness at this crucial moment proves fatal for her future. Her zeal for truth prompts her to reveal her secret but her fear of losing Angel prevents her from doing so. If she had used her judgment and disclosed her secret to him before marriage, or having failed to do so, if she had kept it a secret ever after, she might have been spared much of her sufferings. But she was foolish enough to adopt neither of these courses inviting thereby her own doom. Her mother seeks to temper Tess’s zeal for truth with these gems of prudence that make her letter to her daughter a classic of its kind : 1 2 Ibid. , p. 446. Ibid. , p. 91. I say between ourselves, quite private but very strong, that on no account do you say a word of your Bygone Trouble to him. I did not tell everything to Your father, he being so proud on account of his Respectability, which perhaps, Your Intended is the same. Many a woman – some of the Highest in the Land – have had a Trouble in their time, and why should you Trumpet yours when others don’t Trumpet theirs?1 This suggestion was a wise one, which if followed, would have saved Tess. The author observes : Her mother did not see life as Tess saw it. That haunting episode of bygone days was to her mother but a passing accident. But perhaps her mother was right as to the course to be followed, whatever she might be in her reasons. Silence seemed, on the face of it, best for her adored one’s happiness : silence it should be.2 Tess should have foreseen the dangers of trumpeting her past sin to her husband. Angel himself had told her that he admired spotlessness, “even though I could lay no claim to it and hated impurity as I hope I do now.”3 But Tess’s approach to life was not practical at all. She allowed her judgment to be swayed by her impulse. Inspite of her mother’s warning, inspite of her own knowledge of the fact that her husband liked “spotlessness” she foolishly showed him her spot, her black spot, which marred her happiness forever. Tess’s tragedy can be attributed to the confrontation within her of her natural and social components, a confrontation that becomes tragic when recognised self- consciously. It is this confrontation which provides a 1 Ibid. , p. 219. Ibid. , p. 220. 3 Ibid. , p. 256. 2 psychological battle ground for the novel. Tess is at war with herself. Her spiritual beliefs and her bodily needs pull her in opposite directions and she finds it very difficult to reconcile the Ideal with the Real. Hardy says that “She – and how many more – might have ironically said to God with Saint Augustine : ‘Thou hast counselled a better course than thou hast permitted.’”1 When we consider her union with Alec, we feel that she herself contributes to it and that she does so consciously, though half- willingly. We cannot believe that throughout her sexual union with Alec she remains fast asleep and wakes only to find that she is “maiden no more”. Her nature is passionate: we hear from her mother that “She’s tractable at bottom.”2 Moreover, at this time of her life, as the author tells us, she “was a mere vessel of emotion untinctured by experience.”3 She allows her reason to be swayed by her emotion for which she has to pay dearly. After her fall the author observes : She had never wholly cared for him, she did not at all care for him now. She had dreaded him, winced before him, succumbed to adroit advantages he took of her helplessness; then, temporarily blinded by his ardent manners, had been stirred to confused surrender a while : had suddenly despised and disliked him, and had run away. That was all.4 It is clear from this passage that in her temporary blindness she consents to her sexual union with Alec. If no consent were given, there seems little reason why she should have remained at Trantridge after this evening, yet she remains for a further two months. The incident takes place in her second or early third month at 1 Ibid. , p. 118. Ibid. , p. 36. 3 Ibid. , p. 22. 4 Ibid. , p. 100. 2 Trantridge, at her departure she Alec’s “four month’s cousin.”1 She admits Alec has “mastered her”2 and that she “detests herself”3 for her weakness. Another cause of Tess’s suffering is that she is over-sensitive and is always ready to reproach herself for things. She looks “upon herself as a figure of Guilt.”4 This guilt complex and self-reproach goes a long way to invite her tragic destiny. Although she had no conscious hand in Prince’s fatal accident, yet she cried out, “ ‘Tis all my doing – all mine.”5 Nobody scolded her for her negligence, but “this did not lesson the self – reproach which she continued to heap upon herself.”6 Hardy rightly observes that “Nobody blamed Tess as she blamed herself.”7 She “regarded herself in the light of a murderess”8 and so was compelled to do things which really made her a murderess in the end. Waiving her privilege of self – defence she accepts her rejection by Angel passively. Hardy tells us that “her mood of long suffering made his way easy for him, and she herself was his best advocate.”9 Her pride, too, betrays her at crucial moments. She does not stay with her parents, where she would have been comparatively safe, and where her husband had assumed that she would be safe, but goes out into all the great dangers of field life – dangers for a character, and beauty such as hers. When she comes to the end of her resources, and is aware that, under the terms of her husband’s instructions, she ought to have applied to his father and mother for more means, she is deterred from doing so by the most trivial pride, which was natural enough, but which the sense of her general unportectedness ought at once to have 1 Ibid. , p. 96. Ibid. , p. 95. 3 Ibid. , p. 100. 4 Ibid. , p. 104. 5 Ibid. , p. 42. 6 Ibid. , p. 43. 7 Ibid. 8 Ibid. , p. 44. 9 Ibid. , p. 287. 2 overruled. Still worse, when she finds herself once more in the snares of Alec, who had been her ruin; instead of at once taking refuge with her parents- in- law, who were her legal guardians, she trusts entirely to the letters she had addressed to her husband, now in Brazil. We feel that she shrinks from the obvious and emphatic duty of the hour. If she had been what the author calls her, a really “pure woman”, she could not possibly have hesitated to apply to her husband’s parents, when she felt, as she did feel, that it was a question of life and death to her fidelity of purpose and purity of heart. But her pride and her guilt-complex stood in her way. Had she sought help from her natural guardians instead of accepting the offer of that very man, who had betrayed her in the past, the tragedy might have been averted. Tess is unfortunately caught between the contrasting personalities of two men – both superior to her in birth, wealth and education – who dominate her. If Alec sacrifices her to his lust, Angel sacrifices her to his theory of womanly purity. As Jean R. Brooks points out, Both deny Tess the right to be human, Alec in obedience to the subhuman impulse of sex, Angle to the super-human power of the image that substitutes essence for existence.1 The one obeys a natural law, the other social law, and Hardy has no hesitation in assigning to the latter the greater blame. The main defect of Angel is that, like Henry Knight, he judges by principle, not by perception. Like Clym Yeobright, he , too, is thought-ridden : His thought had been unsuspended, he was becoming ill with thinking, eaten out with thinking, withered by thinking, scourged out of all former pulsating flexuous domesticity.1 1 J. R. Brooks, op. cit. , p. 236 Like Henry Knight, he is too delicate in his tastes. His conventional standard of judgment sees sin where none exits – at least none according to the laws of nature. He is incapable of loving a woman. The author tells us that Within the remote depths of his constitution, so gentle and affectionate as he was in general, there lay hidden a hard logical deposit, like a vein of metal in soft loam, which turned the edge of everything that attempted to traverse it. It had blocked his acceptance of the Church, it blocked acceptance of Tess.2 The woman he imagined he had been loving was not a being other than Tess (“the woman I have been loving is not you”3) ; she was a figment of imagination, a private fantasy, no woman at all. The author rightly observes that ‘Clare’s love was doubtless ethereal to a fault, imaginative to impracticability.”4 The blunder of angel was that he saw Tess as he wanted her to be and not as she actually was : “In considering what Tess was not, he overlooked what she was, and forgot that the defective can be more than the entire.”5 He realises his mistake and the depth of Tess’s love too late, and so Tess ends in tragedy. Thus, he brings about the ruin of both himself and his wife. In Jude the Obscure, too, as in Tess of the d’Urbervilles, Hardy raises the issue of heredity. Time and again we are reminded of the unhappy married lives of the ancestors of Jude and Sue. Aunt Drusilla warns Jude : “The 1 Tess of the d’Urbervilles, p. 275. Ibid. 3 Ibid. , p. 260. 4 Ibid. , p. 277. 5 Ibid. , p. 300. 2 Fawleys were not made for wedlock; it never seemed to sit well upon us.”1 Mrs. Edlin acquaints Jude and Sue with the tragic and of the married lives of their ancestors : She ran away from him, with their child, to her friends; and while she was there the child died. He wanted the body, to bury it where his people lay, but she wouldn’t give it up. Her husband then came in the night with a cart, and broke into the house to steal the coffin away; but he was catched, and being obstinate, wouldn’t tell what he broke in for. They brought it in burglary, and that’s why he was hanged and gibbeted on Brown House Hill. His wife went mad after he was dead.2 Sue who gets nervous to hear this story, tells Jude, “It makes me feel as if a tragic doom overhung our family, as it did the house of Atreus.”3 Jude, after the ghastly tragedy of his three children, quotes from the chorus of Agamemnon, “Nothing can be done, ……. Things are as they are, and will be brought to their destined issue.”4 But we must not infer from all this that Hardy presents human beings as mere puppets in the hands of destiny. The text of the novel provides ample proof that something could have been done to deflect the course of destiny. The important characters of the novel, owing to their inherent weaknesses, fail to decide things according to the needs of the moment and hence they suffer. Both Jude and Sue are ahead of their times. Towards the end Jude says “Our ideas were fifty years too soon to be of any good to us.”5 They have to pay dearly for their being ahead of their times. They regard themselves as exceptional beings. One of 1 Jude the Obscure, Macmillan, 1949, p. 81. Ibid. , p. 340. 3 Ibid. , p. 341. 4 Ibid. , p. 409. 5 Ibid. , p. 484. 2 the causes of their tragedy is that they can neither adjust themselves to the ways of society nor are they powerful enough to change society. Jude’s aims are scholastic but at the same time he has some weakness : “My two Arch Enemies …… my weakness for womankind and my impulse to strong liquor.”1 When he is busy preparing for admission to Christminster, he sees Arabella and is attracted towards her. He forgets all about his studies and against his better judgment promises to see her on the next Sunday. Later, he reconsiders his promise and makes up his mind not to see her again. But when the Sunday arrives, his impulse overrules his reason and he sets out to meets Arabella. The author says : In short, as if materially, a compelling arm of extra-ordinary muscular power seized hold of him – something which had nothing in common with the spirit and influence that had moved him hitherto. This seemed to care little for his reason and his will, nothing for his so-called elevated intentions, and moved him along, as a violent school master a schoolboy he has seized by the collar, in a direction which tended towards the embrace of a woman for whom he had no respect, and whose life had noting in common with his own except locality.2 Jude’s seduction, like that of Tess, hss a centrality of importance. His marriage to Arabella, which proves fatal for him, is the direct result of this section and for this Jude himself is responsible. George Wing rightly observes that 1 2 Ibid. , p. 427. Ibid. , p. 48. here there is no pilling – up of malignant outside forces and ill chance. Apart from the existence of Arabella, there is no one to blame for Jude’s seduction but his own lustful self.1 Against his better judgment he abandoned himself to his impulses and married Arabella who had “around and prominent bosom, full lips, perfect teeth, and the rich complexion of a cochin hen’s egg”, and who “was a complete and substantial female animal – no more, no less.”2 It is but natural that Jude’s spirit and mind should be starved in her company. Arabella has contempt for Jude’s finer instincts and Jude has the same for her animal and coarse ones. The text of the novel shows that Arabella could never be refined, but Jude could be governed by his gross impulses. Jude repents for his misdeeds: “what a wicked worthless fellow he had been to give vent as he had done to an animal passion for a woman, and allow it to lead to such disastrous consequences …. 3 Having been deserted by Arabella, he turns to Sue, his cousin. Here, too, he is swayed by his gross impulses. Although his love for Sue was inspired by his animal passion, he affected to think of her quite as one of the members of his family, since there were crushing reasons why he should not and could not think of her in any other way : The first reason was that he was married, and it would be wrong. The second was that they were cousins. It was not well for cousins to fall in love even when circumstances seemed to favour the passion. The third : even were he free, in a family like his own where marriage usually meant a tragic sadness, marriage with a blood 1 Wing , op. cit. , p. 75. Jude The Obscure , p. 42. 3 Ibid. , p. 107. 2 relation would duplicate the adverse conditions, and a tragic sadness might be intensified to a tragic horror.1 Jude allowed himself to be driven by his passion which elbowed away his reason. He knew well that his passion for Sue was just an animal passion (that of sex) but he practised self-deceit pretending to think that it was just a “family feeling” and nothing more. It has been pointed out that the pattern of Jude is that of Tess reversed. Tess was ruined by two men of opposite natures, Jude by two women. But we must not forget that these women did not force their entry in to his life, rather he himself was driven to them by his unreasoning impulses. His parentage of bastard children posed a problem for him and he was despised by society for this. He should have realised that he could not change society and as such he should have tried to adapt himself to its ways. But he failed to do so and hence he suffered. Sue, with her modern ideas and advanced thinking brings about unhappiness in her own life as well as in the lives of Jude and Phillotson. She abhors marriage and is averse to physical love. According to D.H. Lawrence “she was not alive in the ordinary human sense… the senses, the body did not exist in her; she existed as a consciousness.”2 Time and again Sue is referred to in the novel as an “aerial being”,3 “phantasmal, bodiless creature”4 and so on. Sue wants Jude to kiss her, “as a lover incorporeally.”5 Sue is incapable of loving a man, but like Eustacia Vye, she has a passion for being loved. Towards the end of the novel she tells Jude : 1 Ibid. , p. 105. Phoenix , p. 501. 3 Jude The Obscure , p. 261. 4 Ibid. , p. 312. 5 Ibid. , p. 381. 2 At first I did not love you, Jude, that I own. When I first knew you I merely wanted you to love me… the craving to attend and captivate, regardless of the injury it may do the man – was in me….. I couldn’t bear to let you go – possibly to Arabella again – and so I got to love you, Jude. But you see, however fondly it ended, it began in the selfish and cruel wish to make your heart ache for me without letting mine ache for you.1 Such a woman can only give and receive unhappiness and dissatisfaction in life. Sue is cruelly insensitive to the feelings of others. Despite her formal words of regret and self-censure, she seems almost to relish the complaint of the student that “she was breaking his heart by holding out against him so long at such close quarters.”2 She hurts and torture Jude by asking him to participate in her marriage an