The Mayor of Casterbridge by Thomas Hardy
It confounds me as to why this story was ever published or even written.
The plot is completely predictable. There is heavy foreshadowing before almost every event. Because of this you can always guess at what is coming. Hardy never meets these expectations in unexpected ways.
Not only are the individual events predictable the meta plot of the parallel rise and fall of the two mayors is obvious and not in the least bit interesting.
Here's how to make a terrible character.
The protagonist, Michael Henchard, is a horrible person. In no way are you given any reason to like him. In the first chapter he sells his wife and daughter. He is a drunk. Even when he ‘apparently’ realises these errors, everything he does is self-serving. He is a terrible boss and never does anything for anyone else.
The other characters aren’t much better. Michael’s wife, Susan, and their daughter, Elizabeth, are both completely boring. Both Susan and Elizabeth appear almost completely without agency and when they do take action it is obvious that they have made a gross error. Despite what Hardy would have us believe, all women are not idiots.
And the alternative isn't much better.
The parallel mayor, Donald Farfrae, is a much more interesting and likable character. But he is not the protagonist. He serves, at least initially, to contrast with Michael and show us how bad Michael is. This is insulting, I’m pretty sure I could have figured that out on my own. With Farfrae’s rise he falls into the same pitfalls of arrogance and self-righteousness that we saw in the first half of the novel from Michael.
We are supposed to feel sorry for Michael, I think, as there is protracted detail of his fall. But every step he takes, even at his death is self-serving.
Elizabeth is a main side character. She becomes well studied and takes action to get away from Michael, who she believes is her father. But she doesn’t show any evidence of having learnt anything when she puts herself in the service of Lucetta who treats her just as poorly.
Perhaps Hardy is making the point that despite appearances all the rich folk are not having a good time. Which might actually be the point, given there are some old drunks that we meet early on and recur throughout the story. They appear to have a grand old time watching the events of the story play out from their perch at the inn the ‘Three Mariners’.
So what is good about this story?
The only redeeming feature of this story are the bit characters. Even though they are often two dimensional they appear more real, and are certainly more likable than any of the other players. I guess the setting is sort of interesting as well.
I wouldn’t read this if I was you. That is, unless you don’t value your time and enjoy reading in detail about unlikable and unbelievable characters. So maybe hit this if you are about turn on Real Housewives.
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