![]() ![]() ![]() He is shown to act on impulse most of the time, not considering the consequences before he acts. In him we see embodied the anti-Victorian idea of a ‘no-name’ working class man rising out of his own class into a higher one– he goes from being a hay-trusser to becoming mayor of the aforesaid Casterbridge. Michael Henchard, the novel’s tragic hero, is a man of “dogged and cynical indifference”, which is shown to the reader in almost every chapter. By examining selected characters and the way they intrude on both other characters and the town of Casterbridge, it becomes clear that this theme is to be regarded in a wider context – one of social distinctions, the changing world of rural Victorian England and the individual’s struggle against overpowering forces. Throughout the novel strangers appear in and disappear from Casterbridge, overhearing instances can be found in many a chapter, and the fact that “none of the major characters in the novel is a native of Casterbridge or even of South Wessex ”is one the reader can hardly forget. ![]() It is one of Hardy’s “Novels of Character and Environment”, in which Hardy creates a uniquely detailed portrait of rural life, inspired by Dorset, the county of his birth. The theme of the intruder, defined in the Collins English Dictionary as “a person who enters without permission”, is, although it might not seem so at first, one of the key issues of Hardy’s The Mayor of Casterbridge. ![]()
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