An impetuous, headstrong man doubles down on his worst decisions. By the time he regrets it, it's much too late, so he makes up for his mistakes out of obligation. And so his life becomes a form of penance.
This is in essence the arc of Michael Henchard, the protagonist of Thomas Hardy's The Mayor of Casterbridge. Henchard is fated and flawed but somehow he's still sympathetic. Maybe it's because we recognize his behavior - or might have met someone like him. His forceful personality leads you to believe he is capable of greatness. But instead he's a spectacular failure. Why? Because "the momentum of his character knew no patience." What a brilliant description of character is that!
The novel begins with a famously shocking scene: Henchard selling his young wife Susan (and their baby daughter) at a country fair. He's drunk, of course -so it all starts off with a provocative drunken observation that men should be allowed to sell their wives when they tire of them. But the joke gets carried too far and somebody steps forward. Susan accepts the man's offer and then disappears, along with their baby daughter Elizabeth Jane.
After this, Hardy wastes no time getting into the heart of the story. Fast forward in Chapter 2, fifteen odd years later to the return of Susan and her grown daughter Elizabeth Jane, making their way to Casterbridge, where they discover that Henchard has moved up in the world and now become mayor.
Yes, suspension of disbelief is most definitely required. But one of the things that makes this novel so fascinating is the way in which Hardy switches up conditions and circumstances, playing them out with different results, depending on the characters. Both Susan and Henchard's former mistress Lucetta pursue Henchard to Casterbridge, for example, and both try their luck at holding him to his obligations, with different results.
Henchard subsequently wrongs one woman in order to honor the other. Then his employee, friend and rival Donald Farfrae does precisely the same sort of thing with Elizabeth Jane and Lucetta.
You sense a kind of fever building up - in the episode with a loose bull they encounter on a walk, for instance. Hardy suggests here that it doesn't matter who the man or woman happen to be in a given encounter. What matters is the high emotion at play, which inclines the relationship to become sexually or romantically charged.
Impulse plays a major role in many of the plot twists. Hechard sells his wife on impulse. Henchard and Farfrae become business associates on impulse. And Elizabeth Jane becomes engaged in Lucetta's household, also purely on impulse.
Meanwhile although Farfrae's temperament is the exact opposite of Henchard's, he experiences exactly the same kinds of opportunities and setbacks. Farfrae shows himself to be more admirable because of his morality and even temper. Thus he ends up trumping Henchard, inhabiting his home, marrying his mistress, winning the love of Elizabeth Jane and achieving professional success, while Henchard falls into emotional and financial ruin.
You find yourself wondering if Henchard will ever do the right thing and get rewarded for it. The answer is - no, he never will. He tries to do the right thing often enough, but since he does it out of obligation - he's never rewarded for his efforts. His life becomes a kind of penance for his impulsive and rash behavior.
The roles of the women in this novel are also fascinating. For a start, look at Susan Henchard (Newson). She's supposedly simple and naive, admitting that "foolishly I believed there was something solomn and binding in the bargain" when she was sold to Newson. But is she really so simple? After all she's clever enough to leave Newson when it seems prudent, and then to disguise the true identity of her daughter in order to protect her. She also writes anonymous letters in an attempt to match make her daughter and Farfrae.
Elizabeth Jane in contrast to Henchard is circumspect and restrained - and in spite of her strong feelings for Farfrae she "corks up the turmoil of her feeling with grand control." She is loving to Henchard when he least deserves it and always carries herself with dignity. She reflects at one point that "What she had desired had not been granted her and that what had been granted her she had not desired."
To take it a step further, Elizabeth Jane loses Farfrae because she doesn't declare her love. Lucetta's experience is precisely the opposite. She declares her love for Henchard, makes a fool of herself, and not only loses him as a result, but ultimately loses everything else as well. She's guilty only of wanting to control her fate. Her mistake is to have been too open with her feelings.
There's so much to admire and enjoy in this novel. And let's not forget the wonderful local characters - which rival Shakespeare's rude mechanicals and village personalities. Who can forget the ghastly Furmity woman, Jopp or Abel Whittle and his trousers - and the Peter's Finger pub where all the lowlifes hang out and plot the terrible "skimmity ride." Village life and the life of Casterbridge and the history buried in its hillsides is indelibly linked to the life of the town.
"Casterbridge announced old Rome in every street alley and precinct," Hardy writes. "It looked Roman bespoke the art of Rome, concealed dead men of Rome. It was impossible to dig more than a foot or two deep about the town fields and gardens without coming upon some tall soldier or other of the Empire, who had lain there in his silent unobtrusive rest for a space of fifteen hundred years He was mostly found lying on his side, in an oval scoop of chalk..."
A place like this seems worlds away - centuries removed from our lives today. But yet the psychology of the characters couldn't feel more pertinent, more vivid or more fresh.
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