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The Theme Of Love In The Mayor Of Casterbridge By Thomas Hardy

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In the book called, " The Mayor of Casterbridge" by Thomas Hardy, the past has been a very difficult situation that Michael Henchard has yet overcome. It began years ago, when Michael and his wife Susan along with his daughter, Elizabeth-Jane, enter a restaurant after a long day of searching for a job as a hay-trusser. After one too many drinks, Henchard gets drunk and sells his wife and along with Elizabeth Jane to an unknown sailor Newson. That next morning, Henchard regrets doing what he had done, and goes out in search for his wife and daughter, but was unable to find. Michael then goes to church and swears an oath that he will not drink alcohol for twenty-one years. Despite of the past, Michael continues in search of becoming a better …show more content…

Susan and Henchard meet again and remarried, but overtime Susan began to get ill and dies. After Susan's death, Henchard then goes back with Lucetta. Thomas Hardy made love a difficult emotion for the characters in the story, because for several love was a traject instead of being something beautiful. Indelibility of the past serves favor as another main theme for The Mayor of Casterbridge, for the reason that characters in the novel are hunted by the past. Even after eighteen years later, Henchard's actions from the past continues to hunt him down. In the novel, Michael Henchard spends his time trying to correct his mistakes that he committed long ago. Instead of making more wise decisions, Henchard finds himself making more grievous mistakes. In chapter XII, Henchard tells Farfrae, "...Well, I lost my wife eighteen years ago, by my own fault...", (pg. 76). Henchard confesses Farfrae about his past and his mistake losing Susan by his own fault. Henchard's continues to confess to Farfrae and says, "by doing right with Susan I wrong another innocent woman" (pg. 76). In the quote, Henchard explains that in the process of trying to make things right with Susan, he yet does another woman (Lucetta) wrong, making him commit another mistake. In the novel, Thomas Hardy used irony to help the reader be more connected to Hardy's writing and the characters. An example of irony used is that life is a sum product of consequences of one's personal choices.

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