ds out, through a letter from Susan that he was not meant to read until Elizabeth-Jane’s wedding day, that she is not his real daughter. “It is . . . Henchard’s ignorance and pseudogenteel hypocrisy that make him subsequently estrange himself from Elizabeth-Jane”(Seymour-Smith 42). The roles take a turn from Henchard doing the rejecting to Henchard being the rejected. Elizabeth-Jane rejects Henchard after she discovers the deceit Henchard put between her and Newson. She is torn between the love that she has acquired for Henchard and the anger she feels toward him. “I said I would never forget him. But O! I think I ought to forget him now!”(Hardy 391). Elizabeth-Jane feels she must reject Henchard but it hurts her to do so. When comparing the circumstances for rejection, Henchard’s motivation is pride while Elizabeth-Jane’s motivation is confusion and we see that both characters feel pain and remorse because of how they have rejected others.Yet, this novel does not stay in the depths of rejection and Henchard and Elizabeth Jane attempt to reconcile themselves and all of the relationships left broken; however, their methods of reconciliation differ. Henchard’s way of reconciling himself is introverted. Henchard thought that fate didn’t want him to get Susan back. “[H]e never for an instant considers that the matter can be put right”(Seymour-Smith 25). But when his former wife came to Casterbridge he sought to mend things with her again. He sent her five guineas, symbolic of the amount he had received for her purchase many years before. Henchard also asks of Susan to “Judge me by my future works”(Hardy 137). Elizabeth-Jane realizes Henchard’s way of clearing the slate. “He had not expressed . . . any regrets or excuses for what he had done in the past: but it was a part of his nature to extenuate nothing, and live on as one of h...
