Works of Thomas Hardy discussion
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The Mayor of Casterbridge
The Mayor of Casterbridge
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The Mayor of Casterbridge: 1st thread: Chapters 1 - 9
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This read begins on 15th June, and we will read one chapter a day. Thomas Hardy also wrote some poems which fit into the story, so we will let you know when one of these is coming up the next day. There is a free day after every 3 chapters, irrespective of whether there are any interpolated poems. There will be 5 threads overall, plus one for each poem.
Jean will lead the first half of the novel. Connie will lead the poems and Bridget will lead the second half of the novel. We're really looking forward to this one!
**PLEASE ALLOW BRIDGET TO COMMENT FIRST WITH HER INTRODUCTORY POSTS**
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In June 1883, he purchased an acre and a half of land, a mile outside Dorchester, in a still enclosed part of Fordington Field. The church in Fordington, St. George’s, is an important place in Hardy’s biography. It was there, in his youth, that he met his dear friend Horace Moule, whose father was the vicar.
This plot of land would be the future sight of Max Gate, the house which Hardy designed and built. But The Mayor of Casterbridge was not written at Max Gate, because the house was not finished until after its publication. In the summer of 1883, the Hardys moved to Dorchester to be near the construction of Max Gate. They would never live anywhere other than Dorchester again.
Hardy once complained that he had been driven by the relentless demands of serialization to overelaborate the plot of The Mayor of Casterbridge. We shall see if we agree as we read along. Hardy wrote the novel quickly finishing in just over a year. This is quite an achievement given he was supervising the building of Max Gate at the same time.
The Mayor of Casterbridge was first issued in weekly parts in January 1886, followed by full publication in May 1886. Even with the "overelaborated plot", many people believe The Mayor of Casterbridge to be one of Hardy’s five masterpiece novels (the other four are Far From the Madding Crowd, The Return of the Native, Tess of the D’Urbervilles and Jude the Obscure).
In her biography of Thomas Hardy, Claire Tomalin says of this novel, ”The Mayor of Casterbridge is an extraordinary book and another new departure for him, not a love story but a tragedy built around a single man. It is the first of his books to be named for one person, the subtitle variously ‘The Story of a Man of Character’ or ‘The Life and Death of a Man of Character’, both good”
So, this story was a departure for Hardy, but also a very personal story for him – as we shall see. First it is set in his beloved fictional Wessex and the title place “Casterbridge” is Dorchester in all but name. He once told a friend that the only tragedy that made him weep while writing was The Mayor of Casterbridge. He also noted in his journal that between November 1885 and finishing The Mayor of Casterbridge he experienced ‘a fit of depression’. I really can’t say more now, without revealing the plot, but I think as we read along, and especially as we read the poems Connie is leading, we will see how this story touched Hardy’s heart.
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But please do not post anything about the book itself, or its plot. We will be reading one chapter a day together, with some pauses along the way, and we don't want any of the plot to be spoiled before we get there.
You'll know when you can start talking about the book, because it will be after Jean posts her first summary :-)
Thanks everyone!! I'm really looking forward to this read together.
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As Bridget says, we are really looking forward to this group read. I'm just a dozen miles from "Casterbridge" (Dorchester) right now, so all the events will feel very close at hand 🙂
I'm reading the edition on our shelves, which is just the text in an accessible (Large Print 18pt.) format. The free Gutenberg edition is here https://www.gutenberg.org/files/143/1...
I also have a Norton edition, which has some good critical essays and history of the text, but reading this is recommended only for those who know the story already. Please do not feel you will need an annotated edition, unless you prefer one of course. We will include some information and notes as we go, and everyone is welcome to ask about anything, or provide more.
The two stills at the top of this thread are from the 2 good dramatisations which are still available on DVD.
Acknowledgements: We will base our summaries on those on Litcharts, (sometimes very much edited by us!) and any illustrations from the original serial we use, were scanned on to the Victorian Web by Philip Allingham.
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Hi everyone! Thank you Bridget for your wonderful introduction and Jean for organising and moderating this new group reading!I have read The Mayor of Casterbridge in a Wordsworth Classics edition a couple of years ago and found it again!
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I'm using the Penguin Classics edition that has this bookcover
I've been using Penguin Classics since joining the Dickensians years ago, and I really like them. I especially appreciate the "notes" section at the back.
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I'm using the Penguin edition of The Mayor of Casterbridge since I've always found their notes add a lot to the read.
Bridget, that's a great introduction. I'm looking forward to finding out more about Hardy's connection to this particular story.Jean, I'll be reading on my ereader with the Harper Perenial Classics edition.
I'll be joining. It's a while now since I've read any classics so this will be lovely!
Hi - I'm reading an edition from Internet Archive - there are several available.The one I have - has some rather nice wood engravings by Alice Miller Parker and an Intro by Frank Swinnerton.
I'm not sure if I've read this but ineradicably etched in my mind is the scene from the BBC series which I watched - as a child. I remember my Dad watching with us - something he rarely did - so I knew the TV program was endorsed by his presence - of course I was shocked by the opening scene - it has a particular black and white dourness to it - plus the rough, market-tent setting. I had no comprehension of the story - I do remember watching further sections - mostly of men in dark coats on lonely walks through an old town and a focus on a large house, standing on its own in the village - clearly even to my child-mind a house of status and significance. And that's it - I'm wondering now of course from Bridget's intro - if Max Gate - is in the novel.
I won't watch any of the visuals - I'll read Hardy's original words. I'm familiar with most of his other novels - so I know I'm in good hands.
And actually the reason I've joined in because I've just finished Mary Webb's Gone to Earth (1917) in which I could feel so much of Hardy's imagination, that I wanted to revisit his books - Tess and Jude and Bathsheba feature mostly, but as the Mayor is available here - I would love to join in. Many thanks.
Hi again - just opened my laptop account of GR - so I can now see all the fabulous pictures - and yes that's the guy - the BBC drama series - 1978 - I would have been 11. My first encounter with The Mayor.
It's only in later life when you see other readers' backgrounds - whether they are American, Canadian, Australian, Spanish etc - that you realise if you grew up in the UK - you were soaked in English lit. For which I am truly grateful. :)
Hello all! I’m in for this read and know it will be enriched by all the other participants and moderated by two wonderful and insightful people. So Jean, fire up your computer and let’s go.
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Hi Laura, It's lovely to see you here, and do introduce yourself in the welcome thread if you like LINK HERE
Ah yes, for me Alan Bates will always be the major. He even looked the part and captured his personality so well. I'm not sure if I watched in in black and white at first, as I had the video later once they started, before DVDs.
Hi Jean - the BBC version wasn't black/white but that's the impression I took away. I also remember thinking - what happened to the women - it seemed like a long slog about men and men stuff - when I was 11/12.
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LOL Peter - great to see you here too! I've actually been on the computer just as much in Dorset as I am here (GR doesn't stop!) - just aware all the time of Gabriel Oak's sheep baaing on the hill beside me, the rolling green hills and the beautiful sea view when I Iook up 🙂
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Yours sounds a nice edition ... we'll be sharing all the original illustrations from the serial publication as we go. Also please note we just read one chapter a day, to try to recapture the experience the Victorian readers had 🙂
"what happened to the women ... " that's interesting, as I always think Thomas Hardy is more concerned with females than males. Even in this one with a male in the title, there are many main female characters! (But I do have in mind one whom you may have been thinking about.)
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Jean, I'll be reading on my ereader with the Harper Perenial Classi..."
Thanks Petra! So glad you liked it. Looking forward to reading with everyone.
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Ah, that's a lovely image, Jean. :-)
So looking forward to following the analysis and discussion of The Mayor of Casterbridge! I’m sure I will learn a lot from all of you. I am reading a Norton critical edition of the novel. Love beautiful Max Gate; would love to visit it one day. I framed a picture of it and hung it in my library.
Bridget wrote: "Since I talked about Max Gate so much in the previous post, I thought you all would like to see the finished product." Lovely!
I picked up my copy at the used bookstore, a 1984 Signet Classic PB edition. No intro or notes included, so appreciated the introduction by Bridget!
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So are we! And I'm so happy to see you here, Marie. I know you've been ready for a while
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Yes, she's marvellous at this, isn't she? There is so much we could have said, but the trick is how to say just enough to interest everyone without saying too much. Bridget gave us context and background, so we are intrigued and can follow the story afresh. (If you've gone a bit pink Bridget, that's exactly right 🙂)
I'm delighted to see you are with us for this one, Chris!
What a wonderful introduction, Bridget! I feel like you gave us real insight into Hardy’s state of mind at the time of writing. So interesting about Hardy thinking it was overelaborate. (I recall in a writing class once where we shared our work, writing something I thought was way over the top and being shocked everyone liked it. Maybe we readers enjoy a little overelaboration?)Jean, you are already bringing some of the air of “Casterbridge” to this read--thank you! And thanks to Hardy, I can picture you there. :-)
I’ll be reading the Modern Library edition
The Mayor of Casterbridgewhich says it “reprints the authoritative 1912 Wessex edition” ( I’d love to hear if anyone has thoughts on that). It also has a notes section which will surely help me along with all the insight I know will be shared here.
Oh boy--excited to start!
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On a late summer evening in the 1820s, a young man, wife, and child approach the village of Weydon-Priors on foot. They walk together in silence, and have evidently walked a long way. We are told that the man is a skilled countryman, but has a cynical air of indifference.
“That the man and woman were husband and wife, and the parents of the girl in arms there could be little doubt. No other than such relationship would have accounted for the atmosphere of stale familiarity which the trio carried along with them like a nimbus as they moved down the road.”
The young woman has a mobile face and can look beautiful in moments of animation. Her face softens as she interacts with her child, Elizabeth-Jane. She calls her husband “Michael” or “Mike”.
Michael reads from a ballad-sheet which he carries. On the road, they encounter a turnip-hoer and since he works as a hay-trusser, he enquires about work in Weydon.
“‘Hay-trussing — ?’ said the turnip-hoer, who had already begun shaking his head. ‘O no.’” by Robert Barnes: London “The Graphic”, 2nd January 1886
The turnip-hoer says there is no work at this time of the year, but that it is Fair Day in Weydon and an animal auction has been taking place throughout the day.
They arrive at Weydon Fair. Michael tries to lead his family to a food tent advertising good beer, ale, and cider, but Susan insists on going to the food tent selling “furmity”: a mixture of corn, milk, raisins, and currants. Michael discovers that the furmity-woman serving is lacing some bowls with rum, and pays her extra to slip rum into his food. Michael’s personality changes as he becomes drunk, progressing from jovial to quarrelsome.
Despite Susan’s reminder that they must seek lodgings for the night, Michael continues to speak animatedly with the crowd in the furmity tent. He bemoans his early marriage and bondage to his wife and child.
“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 them up and sell ‘em by auction to men who are in want of such articles? Hey? Why, begad, I’d sell mine this minute, if anybody would buy her!”
Outside the tent, the auctioneer can be heard as he sells the last, and poorest quality, horses at the fair. Michael exclaims that men should be able to likewise auction off their unwanted wives, and says he’d sell his wife then and there, if anyone wished to buy her.
Susan attempts to control her husband. He has made such jokes before in public places, but she feels he is carrying his complaints with his marriage too far. Michael begins an auction for his wife, as a short man offers himself as the auctioneer. Someone jokingly offers five shillings for Susan, but Michael says the price must be higher, and that he won’t sell her for less than five guineas. Susan stands, going along with Michael’s auction of her. No one in the tent will speak up and offer a bid, perceiving the whole situation to be primarily a joke.
Suddenly a voice from the doorway accepts Michael’s offer to sell Susan for five guineas. A sailor has appeared there as the auction progressed. He walks to the table and produces the money, the appearance of which changes the tone of the proceedings to silent seriousness. The sailor says he will buy Susan and the child, as long as she is willing, and Susan agrees that she is willing to part from Michael.
Michael takes the money, and, as Susan leaves with Newson, she whirls back to her former husband and hurls her wedding ring at him, accusing him of his dreadful temper and claiming she will try her luck elsewhere. Michael is somewhat disoriented by this outcome.
The crowd looks out of the door after the retreating trio. The world beyond the tent is peaceful: horses waiting for the journey home, the rosy clouds hanging in the sky, and the quiet woods and valleys. All of nature contrasts sharply to the scene that took place inside the tent. The other customers feel that Susan’s departure has served her husband right for his behaviour. Michael exclaims that she shouldn’t have taken his child with her. As the other customers depart, Michael falls asleep at a table, and the furmity-woman leaves him there for the night.
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Different Editions, and Hardy’s Writing Method
Bridget mentioned in her excellent introduction that Hardy made numerous changes to The Mayor of Casterbridge throughout his life. In later years he said it was “a story he had damaged more recklessly as an artistic whole, in the interest of the newspaper in which it appeared serially, than perhaps any other of his novels.”
His main purpose then was to grab the attention of serial readers. So there were lots of cliffhangers, and literary tropes the public loved, such as secret letters and meetings etc., some of which he edited out when streamlining it for novel publication. Most changes occurred then. The Hardy scholar Christine Winfield has made a detailed analysis of them all, and it is evident that changes such as names of characters, and place names altered to streamline the novel were mostly made in between the serial and the novel itself. Then over the years various editors had their own ideas about punctuation and dialect, which alterations Hardy mostly didn’t object to.
Another quirk about The Mayor of Casterbridge is that the original manuscript was donated by Thomas Hardy himself to the Dorset County Museum, in Dorchester in 1911. And it is only 374 pages long!
108 pages are missing and 5 are fragmentary. The most plausible theory seems to be that Thomas Hardy excised the missing portions of the novel because they had been written by his wife, Emma. (see Simon Gatrell, although other scholars agree.) Emma had regularly produced the fair copies of parts of his previous novels, and was a talented writer herself, who was never really allowed to shine.
Unlike some other major authors who wrote Victorian serial fiction, Thomas Hardy made notes on the actual text itself, rather than having a notebook for planning. If he had about 10 lines he had changed, then he would produce a fair copy, and throw the previous one away. This means that many alterations are visible to show his thought processes (although he sometimes rubbed or scribbled them out!) but equally a lot have been lost. He did have a notebook, but used this to note items of local interest, not his own writing.
Emma and Thomas had very similar handwriting, so in other cases some Hardy scholars have tried to identify parts of his stories which might also have been written by Emma. The manuscript in the museum has is still interesting however, as it shows quite a few cancelled plot-lines, due to his method just described.
There have been about a dozen identifiably separate editions in England and America over the years. As for the plot, there is a difference in the British and US editions right at the end which is interesting, and Bridget will tell you about this when we get there! Usually though the differences after the first editions in novel form are minor changes; a curse such as “damn it” might become “hang it”, or dialect might be lessened; that sort of thing.
Mostly nowadays critics agree that the one which most accords with Hardy’s final wishes is the Macmillan Wessex edition of 1912. As Kathleen mentioned, this is regarded as the most authoritative one. I suspect that nearly everyone here will be reading an edition based on the Wessex Edition, but published by various current publishers.
What tends to happen is that editions with critical notes will include the variations in separate articles, and analyse them at length. The Norton edition does this (and perhaps the Penguin one too?) We mods always say to read whichever edition you choose, as any variations make for a good discussion. In this particular case though, there aren’t likely to be many, despite (or perhaps because of) all his alterations over the years, which consolidated the story.
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Locations
“Weydon Priors” is Thomas Hardy’s name for Weyhill, a little village on the A 303, 3 miles west of Andover in Hampshire.
By saying “Fair Day” the turnip-hoer gives us the exact date: September 15th. This ancient fair continued until the Second World War. In 1900 the derelict cob and slate fair booths still stood by the roadside near the church. (source: my trusty Hardy's Wessex locations by F.P. Pitfield)
By the time of this novel, his 10th published one, Thomas Hardy had extended his invented county of Wessex to cover a large area, and he called the county of Hampshire (which is a different county north of Dorset) “Upper Wessex”. Michael Millgate (his biographer and main Hardy scholar) actually cites The Mayor of Casterbridge as being the point at which Thomas Hardy :
“achieved a full realisation of the Wessex concept, which depended on the establishment of Casterbridge itself as a central point: the economic, administrative, and social capital of a whole region.”
In fact that is true in real life, in that Dorchester is the capital town of Dorset, although as we know Hardy’s “Wessex” was to eventually cover parts of 5 counties. Michael Millgate goes on to say that Hardy seems to incorporate places from earlier novels, so we can be on the lookout for villages and towns (and sometimes people!) from Far From the Madding Crowd, and also ones he was to mention e.g in the other novel we have read as a group, Tess of the D’Urbervilles. This was:
“deliberately designed to draw into its [i.e. Casterbridge’s] orbit places which provide the setting for other novels and stories.”
He even put the town’s name in the title of the book, to show its importance.
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We’ve come across journeymen before. These are men who have completed their apprenticeship in a trade or craft, but who work for daily wages rather than becoming self-employed.
“Thimble riggers” is one I love! It means a professional swindler, and gets its name from the pea and cup game. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shell_game
Now we can see the sort of side-shows which went on at the Weydon Priors fair.
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Michael Millgate tells us that Thomas Hardy found instances of wife-selling in the “Dorset County Chronicle” and elsewhere. We have not yet been told who the young man is - although his wife calls him Michael and “Mike” later - nor where his wife will go to. I did feel that this was a choice by her, up to a point:
“Michael, you have talked this nonsense in public places before. A joke is a joke, but you may make it once too often, mind!”
and the sailor seems a good man:
“’Tis quite on the understanding that the young woman is willing,” said the sailor blandly. “I wouldn’t hurt her feelings for the world.”
It was written with sensitively, making the point that she has put up with a lot from Michael, and will try see if she can have better luck with this new man. We really want to know what will happen next.
The descriptions of the two are quite detailed and the illustration follows this very closely. (More in the later post, on Tuesday.)
We also know that Michael is literate, as he is reading from a ballad sheet: a broadsheet printed on one side only, usually with verses of topical interest. This is surprising since he wishes to find work as a hay-trusser: a labourer. The initial descriptions of him highlight his talents, contrasting with his lowly position as an out-of-work peasant, not even a skilled farmworker. Susan though, is characterised by her love and care for her child, who appears to be her only source of happiness.
We see them disagree over a minor matter: the food at the Fair. However this reflects their different personalities and the unhappiness of their marriage: the pair no longer gets along. The young man Michael evidently has a drinking problem, which from what his wife says is long standing. She says that he makes terrible decisions while drinking, and we see this for ourselves. Ironically enough her “safer” choice of furmity ends up with him becoming more intoxicated, as the seller doctors the mixture so that it is not a nourishing food but strongly alcoholic. Many of the people in the furmity-tent perceive this as a joke, but his wife Susan knows this behaviour of old. She feels he has crossed a line this time.
Michael’s complaints about his wife are set against the backdrop of the horse auction. This triggers his thought that he could auction off his wife. This parallel demonstrates Michael’s view of his wife as property, and reminds us that women and children were often treated as commodities at this time.
The newcomer is a stranger, whose appearance shows that he is a sailor. Thus he is a traveller, who will not be expected to stay in one place. He is only willing to purchase Susan if she agrees, demonstrating that he cares more about her free will and happiness than Michael does. Susan views this as binding; her action of throwing away her wedding ring symbolically reflects the end of her marriage. Some editions lay different stresses on the vehemence of her action.
We have not yet been told this stranger's name ...
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Wife-selling and/or Bigamy?
There was an interesting article in the Dorset County Chronicle for August 17th 1826. (As mentioned this was a local newspaper which Thomas Hardy used as source material for quite a lot of his stories.) This seemed to have been the source of this episode.
A local woman Phoebe Hooper (or Holloway) had been charged with bigamy, as an earlier marriage had taken place in 1810. It’s quite involved, and the woman didn’t deny it, but said that there had been an agreement between “them”, (i.e. the men) prepared by a lawyer, so she didn’t see how there could be a legal case against her.
Wife-selling was well known. There were many cases in that newspaper, and documented in John Timbs's "Things not Generally Known, Faithfully Explained” (1856).
Here is one example:
“Selling wife. At Buckland, near Frome, a labring [sic.] man named Charles Pearce sold wife to shoemaker named Elton for £5 & delivered her in a halter in the public street. She seemed very willing. Bells rang.”
This seems to have such an obvious similarity to the story, and the sailor’s 5 guineas, that it also seems a likely source which he referred to in his 1895 preface. We usually read the prefaces when we can be sure there are no spoilers, so in this case after a few more chapters.
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Edit: link for The Selfsame Song (poem)
We will read chapter 2 on Tuesday 17th June. I will save my post about the illustrations until then.
Great first posts, Jean, with interesting geographic background! And selling one's wife, what a Hardy way to draw us in media res!The opening paragraphs are very dense and detailed, revealing in many ways, as are Thomas Hardy’s opening lines in the eight novels I have read so far. The chapter opens up with a silence and no communication in the young couple, whoneither speak nor touch each other, even seem to make sure that they do not touch each other.
There is a sense of an invisible weight on them. The mother is carrying her child, who sometimes babbles and to whom she smiles. The man reads, or pretends to read, a ballad on a sheet of paper in his hand. He is carrying a basket of tools and is obviously looking for a job in his trade. We feel a frustration, most probably caused by precarity, but also a latent conflict, and certainly an absence of symbiosis in this young couple.
It is interesting to note that the narrator specifies the temporal context from the very beginning of the novel. This is not the case in Thomas Hardy's other stories (at least those I have read), except for The Trumpet-Major, (view spoiler). In his novels I have read so far, no dates are given, although there are clues in the story that help to establish the time frame.
"One evening of late summer, before the nineteenth century had reached one-third of its span, a young man and woman, the latter carrying a child, were approaching the village of Weydon-Priors, in Upper Wessex, on foot."
Michael, as we meet him in this chapter, is a rough man, brutal in his expression. The silence and indifference with which he surrounds his wife and daughter, his tendency to drink to the point of drunkenness (great description of the gradual stages of drunkenness) the outrageousness and disrespect of what he says to his wife in the presence of others. Nothing about him inspires confidence. The apparent misery of his/their condition, a premature marriage and obviously some previous troubles seem to have embittered him before his time. He sells his wife and child to the highest bidder, a stranger who turns out to be honest, serious and respectful of those he now intends to care for, without question.
The narrative voice insists not only on colours but also on sounds. I particularly loved the cinematrographic opening lines and closing lines, when the furmity woman goes away. I also loved the juxtaposition of hostility enhanced by alcoholic beverages inside the tent, and the horses' look outside:
"In contrast with the harshness of the act just ended within the tent was the sight of several horses crossing their necks and rubbing each other lovingly as they waited in patience to be harnessed for the homeward journey."
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JeanWhat a grand outline you have provided. The first chapter of the novel is, indeed, very powerful. I love how it is framed. We begin in the country side in ‘perfect silence’. A man, his wife, and a child. Initially, we do not know where they are walking. At then end of the chapter a candle is extinguished, a tent flap lowered, and silence again exists. But what happens in the middle! A woman is referred to as an ‘article’ and is auctioned off like a horse.
Hardy is a master of atmosphere and pathetic fallacy. There are indications that each will play a major role in the novel, and like an approaching storm, we can feel what is coming before its arrival.
This book begins with a marriage gone terribly wrong, Hmmm, sounds like ‘Sylvia’s Lovers.’ We are in for yet another masterful 19C novel.
I didn't know wife-selling was done in this time period. And this act in chapter one was a surprise to me. It certainly hooks the reader to want to know what happens to the characters.My favorite lines in this chapter were the ones that ended Claudia's comments, with the further sentence that followed Outside the fair, in the valleys and woods, all was quiet. I think Jean noted that it provides quite a contrast to what just occurred in the tent.
What a fantastic beginning! I think we’re meant to take Susan’s side at this point, and I do, but I also can’t wait to find out what horrors lead this literate hay-trusser to such a miserable state at his young age?Jean mentions the contrast between the beautiful descriptions with the emotional events going on with the characters, and Chris noted how this contrast stands out. I think this is what I’ve come to love most about Hardy: the way his bucolic descriptions juxtaposed with his troubled characters makes both shine.
Thank you for explaining the Wessex edition, Jean! And for the details on Fair Day and the Ballad Sheet, which I was unfamiliar with. I’ll share the little bit more Wikipedia told me about the Ballad Sheet, in case anyone else is curious like I was.
“A broadside (also known as a broadsheet) is a single sheet of inexpensive paper printed on one side, often with a ballad, rhyme, news and sometimes with woodcut illustrations. They were one of the most common forms of printed material between the sixteenth and nineteenth centuries, particularly in Britain, Ireland and North America because they are easy to produce and are often associated with one of the most important forms of traditional music from these countries, the ballad.”
Peter wrote: "JeanWhat a grand outline you have provided. The first chapter of the novel is, indeed, very powerful. I love how it is framed. We begin in the country side in ‘perfect silence’. A man, his wife, ..."
It seems like we have recently acquired some experience, Peter!
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Yes, I fully expected to feel sympathy with her situation as a victim, but Thomas Hardy's description of her made me feel she was a clear-thinking and reasonable woman. I think if I were in the crowd I'd have wished her luck!
You're so right about the way Hardy juxtaposes opposites ... "bucolic descriptions juxtaposed with his troubled characters" - and thanks for the supplementary details about the ballad sheet. It would be so easy to skim this term, and assume he is humming a tune and nothing else, whereas Michael is evidently interested in current events, uncharacteristic for one of his station.
This is a wonderful beginning to the story. Like others here, I was shocked at the wife selling business and that Michael went through with it. It's difficult to think that Susan agreed, yet she's at the end of her rope. We don't know how she and Michael fared before the story began but she's obviously suffering under his "rule". I guess she just thought that anywhere away from Michael would be better than with him, both for her and her child.
Like Kathleen, I wondered how a literate person would be a hay-trusser and living on the road. It'll be interesting to find out his (their) backstories and where they came from, and how they came to be wandering as they were. Michael, it seems, has turned sour because of these experiences.
As always, Hardy's writing is superb. His descriptions of places and people put me right into the story. I also liked the ending line, "Outside the fair, in the valleys and woods, all was quiet". It brought a feeling of finality to the events that just happened in the tent. There's no going back now.
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I love how Hardy foreshadows the "auction" early on, right when the little family encounters the turnip-hoer "but little real business remained on hand, the chief being the sale by auction of a few inferior animals". Even if you don't know what's about to happen int he furmity tent, I think we feel the apprehension in the disconnected couple, the pessimistic turnip-hoer and the mention of "inferior animals".
There are also multiple mentions of birds that made me feel not everything was right. Like right before they meet the man on the road "For a long time there was none [ie: no sound], beyond the voice of a weak bird singing a trite old evening song"
And then right after Michael calls for auctioning his wife, a late season swallow enters the tent and flies around looking for a way out, and everyone ignores Michael's request "in watching the bird till it made its escape". Does the bird wanting to escape the tent mirror Michael wanting out of his marriage. Or does the bird reflect Susan needing to escape a man who obviously does not care for her. Either way, I love the way Hardy incorporates nature into the story seamlessly.
This is the first time I’ve done a reading alongside others so it’s great hearing everyone’s thoughts and observations. Also, thank you for the additional historical information that really helps flesh it all out. I love this opening chapter. I was struck by how Hardy makes a point of Susan and Michael being disconnected from the start - there’s history here. I love that he tells us Susan takes the sailor’s hand as she leaves the tent - a total stranger to whom she has already entrusted herself.
I was curious about the inclusion of the paragraph about the swallow. The timing of it gives a pause in which I could feel myself say ‘look, Michael, think about what you’re doing in this moment of quiet - it’s not too late!’ followed by the horror of him continuing to pursue his decision to auction Susan off. Its departure leaves me feeling sad; just as the lone swallow has been left behind by its roost mates, so too is Michael in the dark tent, and just like the bird, he will leave alone to continue his journey.
Bridget wrote: "but little real business remained on hand, the chief being the sale by auction of a few inferior animals"..... .."Bridget, I missed this connection completely! Thanks for pointing it out.
I took the line to indicate a regular Fair where animals are auctioned off, as they have almost always been. The inclusion of "inferior" is because, sadly, we humans tend to think of animals as "inferior".
Now that you've pointed out the connection, the quote takes on a much more ominous meaning.
Works of Thomas Hardy
Books mentioned in this topic
Daniel Deronda (other topics)Tess of the D’Urbervilles (other topics)
The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (other topics)
James (other topics)
Far From the Madding Crowd (other topics)
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Authors mentioned in this topic
John Drinkwater (other topics)Thomas Hardy (other topics)
George Eliot (other topics)
Thomas Hardy (other topics)
Fyodor Dostoevsky (other topics)
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1st Thread: Chapters 1 - 9
TV film (2003)
BBC series (1978) Installment 1:
Here are LINKS TO EACH CHAPTER SUMMARY, and interpolated poem, for ease of location:
Chapter 1
The Selfsame Song (poem)
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
The Chimes (poem)
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9