setting atmosphere mood symbol character coincidences

Modern critics consider Hardy a great writer and they consider The Mayor of Casterbridge one of Hardy’s two great novels. Of all the Wessex’s novels, however, this is the least typical. Although it makes much less use of the physical environment than do the others, we still cannot ignore the frequently use of symbols and setting in the novel. In my essay, I‘ll analyze the function of the symbols and the setting in The Mayor of Casterbridge.

The setting place of this novel is Casterbridge (England), a fictional town based on the city of Dorchester. Unlike the other Wessex novels, the action does not revolve from place to place, but instead; everything is centered on the town, which characters leaving or entering Caseterbridge. as they are mentioned in the tale. At this extent, the town does have some features, which are important to the novel.

Definitely, it would not at all surprising us that Hardy gives a perfect description of the Wessex countryside, the detailed accounts of the daily goings in Casterbridge, even the dialects

of the natives. By doing so, Hardy made us feel that “we” ----the readers, are living in Casterbridge, we’re undergoing all the events with the tragic hero ---Henchard. I think the settings here act as the symbolic reflections of impressions and get readers more involved in the novel.

The Caged Goldfinch----In order to express his deep love to his daughter, Henchard visits Elizabeth Jane on her wedding day, carrying the gift of a caged goldfinch. He leaves the bird in a corner while he speaks to his stepdaughter and forgets it when she coldly dismisses him. Days later, maid discovers the starved bird, which prompts Elizabeth Jane to search for Henchard, whom she finds dead in Abel Whittle’s cottage. When Whittle reports that Henchard” didn’t gain strength, for you see, ma’am, he couldn’t eat.” He unknowingly ties Henchard’s fate to the bird’s: both lived and died in prison, been starved of love. The goldfinch’s was quite literal, while Henchard’s was the inescapable prison of his own personality and his past.

Thomas Hardy said, in the novel, that, “ character is fate.” Hardy's reliance on coincidence relates directly to his philosophy of the world. As a determinist, Hardy believed that human life was shaped not by free will, but by character, besides it, there are such powerful, uncontrollable forces as heredity and God. Henchard rails against such forces throughout the novel, lamenting that the world seems designed to bring about his demise. In such an environment, coincidence seems less like a product of poor plot structure than an inevitable consequence of malicious universal forces.

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