The Mayor of Casterbridge :: Free Essays Online

The Mayor of Casterbridge The Mayor of Casterbridge, which was subtitled The Life and goal of a Man of Character, was written by Thomas braw. The books main focus is the spiritual and material c arer of Micheal Henchard, whose governing inclinations are tragically at war with each other (Penguin Classics, Blurb). Henchard, in a fit of drunkenness, has obstinate to sell his wife and daughter at a fair. Afterwards, Henchard becomes a wealthy man and the mayor of the town Casterbridge. His wife and shaver seek him out years later. In the end, it is neither his supposed child, Elizebeth-Jane, nor his wife, Susan, who ruins him solely his own self-destructive nature. The novel was published serially in the pictorial and in harpists hebdomadally. The Graphic was the English version and Harpers periodical was the American version. They ran concurrently over the nineteen-week period from January instant to May fifteenth in the year of 1886. There were no ma jor(ip) differences between the serial versions except that for reasons of space Harpers Weekly omitted some passages which were restored in later editions (Norton Critical Edition, xiii). There were three speed of light changes from the manuscript. Essentially, they were only minor local improvements. For example, in the Graphic the slang lecture damn it become hang it. It appears that the American Harpers Weekly was not so worried about the novels wont of inappropriate language. There were versatile cancelled plotlines for The Mayor of Casterbridge. The notes or plans Hardy had made for the novel before he began writing have not survived (Norton Critical Edition, xiii). Therefore, there is a great interest in the manuscript as evidence of these ever-changing plotlines. The Norton Critical Editon of the novel says that through the various plotlines they deducted that as Hardy began writing, large areas of the action were still to be decided at one stage there were twain be two daughters, one staying with Henchard, the other going with Susan and Newson (xiii). Furthermore, the Elizebeth-Jane of the opening chapters was not to die, so the manikin we meet in the body of the novel was to be Henchards strong daughter (xiii). Hardys reasoning for the many plot changes was to dish up the interest of the novel more evenly (xiii).