THOMAS HARDY

 

THOMAS HARDY 

Thomas Hardy is a writer with variable talent. He is a versatile writer and his literary output includes short stories, novels, poetry and drama. His writings reflect his insight into the deeply disturbing social and religious issues of his time. His works also reveal his empathy and compassion towards the underprivileged people who bore the force of social injustice as a result of the Victorian moral codes that were particularly discriminatory against women. Hardy’s novels are a severe accusation of Victorian beliefs about women, its adherence to archaic Church doctrines, its iniquities, the lack of equal access to educational and judicial systems, and the destructive disruptions caused in the life of the agrarian population by the industrial revolution.

THREE PHASES OF THOMAS HARDY’S WRITINGS

Hardy’s work can be divided into three phases 

-    the early phase,

-    the middle phase and

-    the later years.

These three phases correspond to the two genres of his writing: poetry, fiction and a return to poetry. He wrote both novels and poetry in both first and third phases of his life. Between 1867 and 1872, he wrote three novels- one of which, The Poor Man and the Lady, a class-conscious novel, was never published. The second one, Desperate Remedies, a less opinionated story with a dense plot had a lukewarm reception while the third one Under the Greenwood Tree, revealed his distinctive style of writing. It also reflected Hardy’s early attempts at presenting the social change that was taking place in Victorian England. In 1872, he started sending monthly installments of his next novel A Pair of Blue Eyes, which was published a year later. Hardy’s fame as a novelist began to rise from this period and his next novel was Far from the Madding Crowd, with a female protagonist wooed by three suitors. Far from the Madding Crowd was the first of the ‘Wessex Novels’. Wessex is a fictitious landscape, located in the South and South west of England, principally in Dorset which was the setting of many of his novels. The term, Wessex, has become common and been closely associated with Thomas Hardy's works.

His novels written in the middle period had a mixed response. The Return of the Native was a highly successful novel while the others like The Trumpet Major set in the Napoleonic period and two more, A Laodicean (1881) and Two on a Tower (1882) did not make the grade. The later novels, The Mayor of Casterbridge, Tess of the D’Urbervilles and Jude the Obscure are his outstanding novels and they deal with the socio-economic issues of the day and offer a sympathetic representation of the working-class people. Tess of the D’Urbervilles criticizes society’s sexual mores, and Jude the Obscure is a critique of the educational system of the latter half of the 19^th century. Both novels had a hostile reception as they affronted the Victorian sexual morality and it is then that Hardy moved away from fiction and turned to poetry.

When his poetry, written in his early years, did not receive favourable response, he switched to fiction. Later, he returned to poetry, and at the turn of the century, i.e., the 20th century, (in Hardy’s later phase) he wrote only poetry. Hardy published his first volume of poetry, Wessex Poems in 1898, a three-volume epic drama The Dynasts (1904–08) as well as several war poems in the context of the Boer Wars and World War I.

CLASSIFICATION OF HIS NOVELS

Hardy himself has classified his novels into three groups:

-    Novels of character and Environment (Rural Studies): Under the Greenwood Tree, Far from the Madding Crowd, The Return of the Native, The Mayor of Casterbridge, Tess of the D’Urbervilles, and Jude the Obscure.

-    Romances and Fantasies: A Pair of Blue Eyes, A Group of Noble Dames and The Well Beloved.

-    Novels of Ingenuity: The Hand of Ethelbert, A Laodicean and A Changed Man.

In the novels of the first category, Thomas Hardy became associated as one of the finest English novelists.

HARDY’S WESSEX

Hardy’s novels are grouped under the title, The Wessex Tales. Thomas Hardy's Wessex is a literary landscape. So, Wessex became a part of his characters with its moods and destiny.

Thomas Hardy was born in Upper Brock Hampton, Dorset, where he spent much of his adult life. He was well acquainted with the local customs and location in this part of England and which are in evidence in his novels and also his poetry. They form an integral part of his writings. Wessex was the fictional name Hardy gave to this part of Southern England. Wessex is the setting for his four major novels, Far From the Madding Crowd, Return of the Native, The Mayor of Casterbridge and Tess of the D’Urbervilles.

In Hardy's fiction, the natural world is often described in great detail, rendering it more significant than a mere setting against which the narrative unfolds. Hardy establishes a reciprocal relationship between environment and character. Hardy's narrative voice depicts the natural world in the same way the appearance of different individuals are described, and vice versa. This technique removes the sense of authority from human hands, placing humans within the natural world rather than ruling above it.

Hardy had come under the influence of Charles Darwin who in his Origin of Species had postulated the theory that the human species as it is today, is the result of natural selection which is a random selection, without any intent. It is circumstance that has enabled different species to evolve into the human species. Natural selection is the central concept of evolution which is the process where organisms evolve by adapting to their environment. Such a postulation went against the prevalent Christian belief in God as the Creator.

Hardy's emphasis on environment demonstrates the influence of Darwinian theory. The role of fate and circumstance are important features of the plot, echoing the stress evolutionary ideas place upon chance, extinction, and survival. Darwin's emphasis upon the power of circumstance to alter the outcome of natural selection is evident in Hardy's fiction. Human forces are ultimately rendered inconsequential against the unseen powers that appear to govern their immediate environment.

THOMAS HARDY AND THE NOVEL OF REALISM

Hardy was a well-read man and the literary and classical allusions in his writings serve as testimony to the vast reservoir of knowledge he had stored in his memory, from his personal interactions with the people of rural England and from his reading of newspaper articles. He was a good prose writer and equally a good poet, and his writings reflect both his talent for expression and his enormous empathy with the rural and underprivileged people.

Hardy had a tormented adult life as he recognized the problems, sadness and lack of educational opportunities for peasants and rural people. He was also highly critical of the society’s sexual mores that weighed in favour of men and victimized innocent women. He communicated his grief through his writings.

Hardy’s novels are realistic novels. They are faithful representation of reality with special focus on the representation of middle-class life. Realistic novels in the Victorian age were about the common man, in particular about the struggles of the lower classes especially when the lower class tried to gain upward mobility. Thus, these novels came much closer to real life. Charles Dickens’s Great Expectations and Thomas Hardy’s Jude the Obscure illustrate the Victorian preoccupation with this genre known as social realism. Sometimes realism is defined as a ‘slice of life writing’ that presents a close observation of contemporary life. Writers depicting realism use simple, transparent language.

The characteristics of realism in novels are:

-    An emphasis on the here and now

-    Attention to specific action and verifiable consequences

-    Realists evoke common actions, present surface details, and emphasize the minor catastrophes of the middle class

-    They employ simple direct language and write about issues of conduct

-    Characterization is very important. There is often an abundance of characters and social types.

SALIENT ASPECTS OF HARDY’S NOVELS

Hardy examines the social conventions that hinder the lives of the poor rural folk in Victorian England, and criticizes such conventions, especially those relating to marriage, education and religion, that constrained the aspirations of those people and caused them unhappiness.

In his novels, Hardy boldly takes a stand against the harsh and strict Victorian morals that do not accommodate passion and love that cuts across class differences. Tess is punished in the novel (Tess of the D’Urbervilles) for her sexual involvement with a person from the aristocratic class. Hardy wants his readers to be conscious of the societal conventions that are forced on men and women as moral codes, without factoring in the passion and emotion underlying the relationships between men and women.

Fate or chance is another important theme. In Hardy's novels, chance plays a predominant role almost reducing the characters to puppets who are pulled up and down by chance or Fate. Fate is not the same as Destiny though both terms are often used as synonyms. Fate is that which we cannot change. Destiny is something that holds the possibility of doing something by taking chances. For example, when we say someone is destined for great things, it means that the person can achieve it through making active and conscious decisions. Destiny is when we take chances even if we cannot control fate. Fate implies a force beyond human control that directs our actions. Indeed, Hardy's main characters often seem to be held in Fate's grip. Far From the Madding Crowd is an example of a novel in which chance has a major role: "Had Bathsheba not sent the valentine, had Fanny not missed her wedding, for example, the story would have taken an entirely different path.”

HARDY’S RELIGIOUS BELIEFS

Hardy’s religious views get reflected in his writings. Hardy's family was Anglican, but not very religious. He was disturbed by the struggles and tragic events of life. This made him question the traditional belief in Christianity that viewed God as all powerful and as the dispenser of rewards and punishments for good and evil committed by humans. He found it difficult to reconcile the existence of evil with the idea of God as omnipotent, omniscient, omnipresent and a repository of goodness. He substituted the Christian God by the force called the Immanent Will that controls the universe – not in an orderly divine fashion, but through indifference, arbitrariness and caprice. Hardy believed that the Universe was devoid of meaning and in place of the divine force controlling the universe, he put the blind and unconscious will. Though he remained with the church he found that institutionalized Christianity with its belief in a divine and omnipotent God was incompatible with the human sufferings he witnessed all around him. Hardy developed “a consistent world-view through the notions of Chance and Time, Circumstances, Fate, Nature, Providence, Nemesis and Will tinged with metaphysical idealism”.