…‘O’ Level Literature in English (2013/1) series

THE coming of Farfrae coincides with the return of Susan and her daughter.
The return involves a falsification of Elizabeth’s identity, an act not of his (Henchard) making, but which deeply stirs the return of events against him.
Later, this ironically deals him a crippling blow when the truth is out.
Considering that these fateful incidents can hardly be discussed without the mention of his temperamental outbursts which rule his person, it is essential at this juncture to indicate his ill-treatment of Abel Whittle.
He forces him out of bed without his trousers because he has been late for work all the time.
In view of strict business rules, Whittle’s problem is a serious weakness.
However, the Master’s reaction to it is carried to extremes leading to the souring of relations between him and his manager, Farfrae, whose reactions mortifies Henchard to the dust.
Farfrae poses a direct challenge: “Not if I am manager.
“He either goes home, or, I march out of this yard for good.” (p.147)
Bearing in mind that Farfrae outshines Henchard in business management, it becomes illogically logical that the challenge resuscitates the ‘Prince of Darkness’ from his guise.
After all, although the punishment is overdone, its gravity is lessened by the time given prior for recovery, thereby hinting on the influence of something superhumanly sinister.
As if to set the Mayor’s social degradation, his preparations for the celebrations for a great national event are fatefully destroyed in their build to the success of Donald Farfrae’s miniature preparations.
The irony is that Henchard’s, which are ruined by rain, are meant to be free while Farfrae’s are paid for.
Lack of foresight and insight into possible consequences can be held accountable for this great misfortune, but since it defeats his gesture of liberality necessitating his second public defeat by Farfrae, this time also rebuffed by nature, the hand of fate can be justifiably detected.
At the extremes of hatred and jealousy, Henchard dismisses Farfrae impulsively, an act that leads him along the drain to poverty.
From here, Henchard’s fall becomes more rapid.
Coincidentally, Farfrae establishes himself as a business arch-rival in the same trade, having dropped the idea of going to America.
This virtually affects the Mayor whose customers leave him for Farfrae.
And out of his superstitious nature he seeks divine guidance from a weather prophet whose interpretation he does not follow anyway.
Considering that the superstitious nature which subsequently makes him a victim of weather uncertainties is not of his own making, but that he is a product of background, his miscalculation cannot solely be attributed to his character alone, but also to something unalterably ordained.
Hence this natural blow on his fortune spurs him to blame the mismanagement on Joshua Jopp, whom he again dismisses instantly, intensifying his bitterness and making him a worse enemy than before.
One then wonders; could it be that fate harnesses this great man’s follies to subdue his vaulting ambition in case it may overleap the pre-ordained bounds?
The way these incidents are blended into each other is beyond the truth of life without a superhuman influence.
More occurrences, subtly threaded in juxtaposition to each other, mark his life throughout the novel.
They perpetuate the inevitable as Hardy himself acknowledges: But hard fate had ordained that he should be unable to call up this Divine Spirit of his need.
The death of Susan paves way to the revelation of Elizabeth’s true parental identity which the Mayor reads from her will, unfortunately soon after asserting his fatherhood to her with success.
What a fateful blow – it invokes his bitter hatred for her leading to her estrangement from him that results in loss of love and consolation for him.
As if to substantiate the truth of the proverbial adage, ‘It never rains, but it pours’, his attempt to marry Lucetta, the lady he could have married had it not been for Susan’s return, is paralysed at the time of blooming.
When she postpones her appointment, she stirs his airs and his haughty temperament prevents him from attending to her on the right day.
In that self-dictated aloofness, Farfrae comes in (to look for Elizabeth) and snatches her heart away.
This fatal miscalculation poised by coincidence is compounded by untimely revelation of his degrading history by the furmity woman for whose case he presides in the absence of a judge.
Ill-fate exhibits itself through sudden appearance of Farfrae in Elizabeth’s absence as well as in the absence of the judge.
The revelation of his grim past strains his relationship with Lucetta so that finally he loses her to Donald Farfrae.
Surely Henchard seems to be fighting a losing battle with the unforeseen.
Interwoven into the network of these subtle coincidences is his release from the oath that makes him more careless with his actions to the extent of publicising his hatred for Farfrae clear in his song, ‘A swift destruction soon shall seize on his unhappy race; and the next age his hated name shall utterly deface’. Ironically, though referring to Farfrae the words echo his own self-destruction.
In a nutshell, the Mayor’s tragedy involving fall from his position of power (mayoral) and affluence to degradation and humiliation, more can be said about the seemingly unalterable path of his life.
The sudden return of Newson and his contribution to the Skimmington constitutes an inevitable force that builds up towards the ruination of this great man.
It ties up with Jopp’s desire for revenge that ultimates in the death of Lucetta, yet another woman destined not to call to her command the pleasures of this earth.
It gives way to the marriage of Farfrae and Elizabeth, to the re-affirmation of Newson as her actual father, finally leading to the ultimate castigation of Henchard with his desperate need for love, an emotional void that he unconsciously craved to fill.
Towards the end, reckless as he has become, he loses his business and his home; not only these, but also love and comfort.
In his last hours of life, the whole limit of predestination becomes a visible invisible.
To this end it may be necessary to recall some of his respectable qualities so that the intrusion of fate can be made more visible.
Although he has a capacity for evil he has virtues such as his wonderful self-discipline demonstrated by the reverence to the oath, the final resolution not to humiliate Lucetta, forgiving Farfrae at his mercy and the subsequent self-reproach, the capacity to take his full measure of shame and of over punishing himself.
He also has a great sense of honour which makes his fall more poignant.
Yet he appears destined to suffer despite these redeeming features.
In the end the great man sinks to the lowest possible grading a man can have.
For him Elizabeth’s philosophy counts true: ‘Happiness was, but the occasional episode in the general drama of pain’.
As he moves towards his death-bed with Whittle behind him he resigns from any claim upon the world to the extent that his state is worse off than death, clear in his tear-drowning injunction to Abel: “Can ye really be such a poor fool as to care for such a wretch as I?”
Thus leaving the reader with one impression: Because all humanity is mortal, it is good to strive for a worthwhile life of humility when opportunity still allows.