Untitled Essay, Research Paper

The plot of The Mayor of Casterbridge, by Thomas Hardy, can often be confusing

and difficult to follow. The pages of this novel are filled with sex, scandal,

and alcohol, but

it provides for a very interesting and unique story. It all begins one day

in the large Wessex

village of Weydon-Priors. Michael Henchard, a young hay-trusser looking for

work, enters

the village with his wife and infant daughter. What follows next, is certainly

a little out of

the ordinary, and this book provides and interesting plot, that is sure to

brighten up any

boring day.

Michael Henchard, looking for something to drink, enters into a tent where

an old

woman is selling furmity, a liquid pudding made of boiled wheat, eggs, sugar,

and spices.

Henchard consumes too many bowls of furmity spiked with rum. Feeling trapped

by his

marriage and under the influence, Henchard threatens to auction his family.

The auction

begins as a kind of cruel joke, but Susan Henchard in anger retaliates by

leaving with a

sailor who makes the highest bid. Henchard regrets his decision the next

day, but he is

unable to find his family.

Exactly eighteen years pass. Susan and her daughter Elizabeth-Jane come back

to

the fair, seeking news about Henchard. The sailor has been lost at sea, and

Susan is

returning to her “rightful” husband. At the infamous furmity tent, they learn

Henchard has

moved to Casterbridge, where he has become a prosperous grain merchant and

even mayor.

When Henchard learns that his family has returned, he is determined to right

his old wrong.

He devises a plan for courting and marrying Susan again, and for adopting

her daughter.

A young Scotsman named Donald Farfrae enters Casterbridge on the same day

as

Susan and Elizabeth-Jane. Henchard takes an instant liking to the total stranger

and

convinces Farfrae to stay on in Casterbridge as his right-hand man. Henchard

even tells

Farfrae the two greatest secrets of his life: the sale of his wife and the

affair he has had with

a Jersey woman, Lucetta. Henchard is confused as to how to make good on his

bad acts.

Henchard remarries Susan, who dies soon afterward, leaving behind a letter

to be

opened on Elizabeth-Jane’s wedding day. Henchard reads the letter and learns

that his real

daughter died in infancy and that the present Elizabeth-Jane is actually

Susan and the sailor’s

daughter. Henchard also grows jealous of Farfrae’s rising influence in both

Henchard’s

business and in Casterbridge. The two men quarrel and Henchard fires Farfrae,

who then

sets up a successful competing grain business. Henchard is rapidly going

bankrupt, after

several bad business deals.

Soon after Susan’s death, Lucetta Templeman, Henchard’s former lover, comes

to

Casterbridge to marry Henchard. In order to provide Henchard with a respectable

reason

for visiting her, Lucetta suggests that Elizabeth-Jane move in with her.

Henchard tries to

force Lucetta to marry him, but she is unwilling. She has fallen in love

with Farfrae and

soon marries him. Henchard’s business and love life are failing; his social

position in

Casterbridge is also eroding. The final blow comes when the woman who ran

the furmity

tent in Weydon-Priors is arrested in Casterbridge. When she spitefully reveals

Henchard’s

infamous auctioning of his wife and child, Henchard surprisingly admits his

guilt. The news,

which is harmful to Henchard’s reputation, rapidly travels through the town.

Henchard is

soon bankrupt and forced by his poverty to become Farfrae’s employee. He

moves to the

poorest section of town.

Farfrae and Lucetta buy Henchard’s old house and furniture. The Scotsman

then

completes his embarrassment of Henchard by becoming mayor of Casterbridge.

Later,

Henchard challenges Farfrae to a fight to the death. Henchard is on the verge

of winning

when he comes to his senses and gives up. As the mayor’s wife, Lucetta becomes

the stylish

and important woman she has longed to be. But she fears her secret affair

with Henchard, if

revealed, might destroy her marriage to Farfrae. She begs Henchard to return

the damning

letters she had written him years before. Henchard finds the letters in his

old house and

reads some of them to Farfrae. He intends to reveal their author as well

but relents at the

last minute. Later, he asks Jopp, a former employee, to deliver the letters

to Lucetta.

Henchard doesn’t realize Jopp hates both him and Lucetta. Jopp shares the

letters with some

of the lowlife of the town. Lucetta sees herself paraded in mimicry, and

the shock kills her.

Henchard reconciles with Elizabeth-Jane, who continues to believe Henchard

is her

father. He sees his final chance for happiness crumbling, however, when

Elizabeth-Jane’s

real father, the sailor Newson, comes to Casterbridge to find his daughter.

Henchard lies to

the sailor, telling him Elizabeth-Jane died soon after her mother’s death.

Newson leaves, but

Henchard worries that the sailor might return to reclaim Elizabeth-Jane.

During the

following year, Henchard’s life becomes fairly settled. He lives with

Elizabeth-Jane and runs

a small seed store. Farfrae begins flirting with Elizabeth-Jane, and the

two plan to marry.

Then the sailor returns, and Henchard flees Casterbridge.

Henchard appears at Elizabeth-Jane and Farfrae’s wedding to deliver a present.

Elizabeth-Jane spurns him, and Henchard sees that Newson has taken over as

father of the

bride–a role Henchard can never play. He leaves Casterbridge broken-hearted.

A few days

later, Elizabeth-Jane discovers Henchard’s present, a bird in a cage. The

unattended bird has

died of starvation. Touched, she and Farfrae go in search of Henchard. Too

late, they learn

he has just died in the hovel where he had been living with the humblest

of his former

employees. The young couple read Henchard’s pitiful will, in which Henchard

asks that no

one remember him.

As one can see, to often scandal can end in tragedy, as in the case of poor

Michael

Henchard. He lived a risky life, and paid for his mistakes in the end. The

Mayor of

Casterbridge proves to be an interesting novel, that provides everything

modern day critics

hope to keep out of the hands of children. The book proved to be at times,

quite exegesis,

but the plot is presented well, and the settings described beautifully. Thomas

Hardy creates

a masterpiece in describing the rise and fall of one Michael Henchard.