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Book:	The Mayor Of Casterbridge
Writer:	Thomas Hardy
Publisher:	Everyman's Library
Reviewer:	Rajesh Pandey

    The Mayor Of Casterbridge is written by Thomas Hardy in 1876 when he was 46.The story runs around a person called the Mayor Michael Henchard who was once a poor and morally weak hay cutter. He becomes drunk at a fair at Weydon-Priors and sells his wife Susanne and his daughter to a sailor Newson for five guineas unlike the great king Harishchandra who sold himself with his family.

    The story contains many ups and downs but every instance seems to match properly. My heart pounded when I read this tragic novel, it makes you feel cry and feel sorry. One can't even imagine how beautifully the story would go twisting. Hardy has used chance in such a way that we really love the way of writing. In the story chance is the only thing that plays a vital role. Chance or circumstances are the thing we enjoy. The poor hay cutter becomes a Mayor of Casterbridge by chance. He rises by chance. His business rises there by chance. The story is a peculiar and interesting to read because it has such a thing such as selling of wife is rarely written on any novel which we cannot read in any works of any writer.

     After the death of the sailor Newson the story develops in surprising manner. He is supposed be drowned and Susan and her daughter start searching Michael Henchard. Luckily by chance they see Henchard in a party. In the mean time Farfrae, a newcomer in the story meets Henchard who uplifts the business of Henchard. Later Farfrae takes over all the belongings of Henchard. His post of Mayor shifts to Farfrae by chance. His business goes down by chance. The mistakes of Henchard lead to the footsteps of rise of Farfrae. Farfrae takes over nearly everything from Henchard. It may be called the turn of dice.

    Much of the best writing about the book is about chances and circumstances weaved beautifully in a word-web to form The Mayor of Casterbridge. It even tries to indicate that drinking alcohol can make a person fall to such a state that he even sells his family. Henchard makes mistakes when fulfilling his duty towards his wife before selling and after reunion and his duty towards his daughter. Henchard is ruined by love. Gradually as story moves his love for alcohol, love with his sexual partners Lucetta and Susan all ruin him. Firstly Henchard struggles for love with Farfrae and then later struggles with the love with his daughter Elizabeth-Jane.

    When Henchard had love he didn't care but he sold it. Later quarreled with Farfrae and dared to care Lucetta. She left him. He rejected Elizabeth-Jane when he felt she was not his daughter. Everywhere he is unable to mange relations and thus he is unable to manage love. He becomes alone and feels guilty alone. Insulted in the marriage of his daughter regrets and feels distressed ends his life alone with a tragic ending

    There is enough room for readers to take sides or against Henchard‘s mistakes. Henchard does the crimes and he gets punishments. Every negative quality is held in balance. D.H. Lawrence says about The Mayor Of Casterbridge that the story is all about Henchard’s “struggle into love and struggle with love”. It’s all about Henchard’s struggles, struggle with Farfrae and then struggle with Elizabeth-Jane. It is a story of the brooding and sometimes brutal Michael Henchard and the women with whom he searches for happiness in the harsh world of nineteenth-century rural England. – Craige Raine.

    The novel ends with sad tunes. When the story reaches the last part but before ending, you’ll find it very effective tragedy which continues till the ending. Henchard confesses: “When I was rich I didn’t need what I could have, and now I be poor I can’t have what I needed!”

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The work is a part of our University practice during our English course ENGT(101) and ENGT(102).
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Tutor : Sijan Raj Baral
Grade obtained 'A'
(In None of the other reviews I got A later)