A Note On The Philosophy of Life in Hardy's The Mayor of Casterbridge.

Sahitya Sikshayatan
English Honours
 Discuss Hardy’s Philosophy of Life in his novel The Mayor of Casterbridge.

Critics are unanimous about the fact that to understand Thomas Hardy it is essential to examine
his philosophy of life pronounced and illustrated in his novel, stories and the epical drama called
The Dynasts. His outlook to life is as significant in his writings as Dickens’ humours in his
fictions.
A man’s philosophy of life, seen deeply, is an instinctive, temperamental theme. Optimism,
pessimism, meliorism etc. are but endeavours to express this temperamental bias in intellectual
form. The Mayor of Casterbridge is a perfectly representative novel of Hardy, and it authentically
conveys his gloomy and tragic view of life. Through Christopher Coney, Hardy is actually
expressing his own attitude to the universe. He seemed to feel about life and its surroundings--
- that they were a tragic rather than a comical theme. Hardy believed that though one could be
gay on occasions, moments of gaiety were interludes, and no part of the real drama. This is
basically echoing Webster’s view: the pleasure of life, what is it? Only the good hours of an argue.
Few who have thought at all about life, could help moods like this, because the littleness and
sordidness of life, and the great empire of pain and suffering is so frequently found to overshadow
all other opposite feelings. But with Hardy it is not merely a mood, it is the mood. It is prevalent
way of looking at things. David Cecil has correctly observed that the universe, as Hardy sees it,
is a huge impersonal mechanism directed by some autonomic principle, pursuing its mysterious
end, utterly indifferent to the feelings of mortals. Mostly man has to face the active hostility of
this impersonal force which Hardy calls Immanent Will in The Dynasts, and which is commonly
known as Fate. Against its overwhelming opposition, all human resistance is futile. Susan
Henchard represents just this attitude to life. She deems anything possible at the hands of time and
Chance, except, perhaps, fair play.
Hardy’s subject, in all his representative works is to quote David Cecil again, Mankind’s
predicament in the Universe. The environment and time in which Hardy lived, influenced this
philosophy considerably. Darwin’s Origin of Species shook the foundation of Christian belief.
Moreover, there was plenty of tragedy in the life of the Wessex labourers with its poverty and
its passion. Ignorant and dependent exposed alike to the oppression of social systems and the
caprice of weather, these people were always conscious of human helplessness in the face of
circumstances. In Hardy’s own words, the best tragedy- the highest tragedy in short- is that of the
worthy encompassed by the inevitable.
Henchard is a perfect example of this concept. He has some virtues, and the basic heroic quality
of extraordinary strength- both physical and mental-and industry. He shows through his
ascension to Mayorship, a bright promise of greatness. But apart from the flows and peculiarities
of his character, there are ironical conjunctions of opposing forces and circumstances to bring
about his downfall and ultimate death.
Wanting to make amends for his misdeed he cannot trace Newson who seemed to vanish to
nowhere after buying up his wife and baby daughter at the fair. Susan returns unexpectedly in
his life after an enormously longtime, just after he becomes involve with Lucetta that creates a
complication, to solve which Henchard seeks help from Farfrae, and confides to the later secret
of his life, only to find him soon transformed into his arch-enemy. Henchard’s popularity is
already damaged due to the malignancy of adverse weather which spoils the gains and
entertainments which he had planned in the open air to celebrate a national holiday.
To add salt to injury, the furmity-woman is brought back to salter his reputation as a gentleman
as she denounced Henchard- still sitting in the chair of Session’s judge-as the man who sold
away his wife and child to a sailor in auction. These series of incidents make us think like
Henchard, of some sinister intelligence bent on punishing him.

Fate, as David Cecil points out, is an abstraction, and in human life its existence is proved and
manifested through chance, accident and co-incident. It is not possible for human beings to
anticipate the workings of Fate, hence the result is always stunning and bewildering. Hardy’s
frequent use of charms and accidents, so adversity criticized, is therefore an integral part of his
very philosophy of life.
In Hardy’s outlook to life two points are especially insisted upon- his sense of law and his sense
of pit. The first is actually equivalent to what Greeks called nemesis, the principle of inevitable
punishment for any sign of wrong on the part of the protagonist. Moreover, once the wrong is
done all efforts and painstaking sacrifices by way of penance cannot save the blundered from
dire consequences, the spirit of vengeance inevitably arranges mishaps, co-incidences,
preventions of timely meetings and communications, and uses human beings as its agents.
However, it would be wrong to call Hardy a mere pessimist. What he saw of life was the pity of
it. In his story, man is constantly struggling against the mighty and somewhat malicious force
of Fate, and is at last crushed to death. But the defeat has yet a heroic glory about it Lucetta’s
end is pathetic, since she is a weakling. But Heanchard boldly says that his suffering is not more
than what he can hear. We are overwhelmed by both pity and admiration for the victim: we are
impressed with a sense of the passing away of something great and potentially good. That is
why it is proper to say that Hardy’s attitude to life is more tragic than pessimistic.
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A Note On The Philosophy of Life in Hardy's The Mayor of Casterbridge.

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A Note On The Philosophy of Life in Hardy's The Mayor of Casterbridge.

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Sahitya Sikshayatan

 Discuss Hardy’s Philosophy of Life in his novel The Mayor of Casterbridge.

Henchard, of some sinister intelligence bent on punishing him.

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