and each performs a different role in the novel in which she appears and in which she achieves her reality as a living character in the imaginary struggles in which she (and we) becomes involved. Thus the tragic consequences of Grace Melbury becoming a lady bear no resemblance to the comic consequences of Elthelberta Chickerel becoming Lady Mountclere.EXCLUSION AND REPRESSION; THE CHORIC RUMINATION OF HARDYS CHARMING PUPPETSWith The Mayor of Casterbridge, we arrive at a full statement of Hardys universe consciousness of the inadequacy of the old order is "modern consciousness" [it] is a study in the discovery of self-alienation. Or we learn that in a sense [Henchard] is man and in his passage towards self-awareness we can read the sufferings of an entire species in its struggle to master a destiny which demands the subjection of powerful instinctive forces. THOMAS HARDY AND THE REPRODUCTION OF THE RELATIONS OF PRODUCTION At the heart of The Mayor of Casterbridge there is a sense of the cruel irony of life Hardy sums up his philosophy in the last paragraph. It is the key-note of The Mayor of Casterbridge. Life gives bitter blows . The sense of an inscrutable fate overlooking mans life hangs over [the novel] it is a novel of disillusionment, of helplessness in the face of the circumstances of life. There is a consistent emphasis on the helplessness of individuals, of the hopelessness of the human situation (H.C.Duffin is quoted to the effect that The Mayor of Casterbridge is the most hopeless book ever written. The tone of the telling, in the latter half of the story is stony despair) and of mans stoical endurance in face of the blows meted out to him by fate. And the phrase they do not come out of their experiences finer than they went in is repeated like a litany, a silent accusation of Hardys Godlessness.The more sophisticated York Notes commentaries have a firmer authorial imprint (each being written by a different...
