Text and questions
Henchard is a country labourer who in the first chapters of the book gets drunk while he and his wife are travelling and stopping at a fair and promptly sells both her and his child to a sailor calle Newson. Although this was not unheard of in the early nineteenth century among the poor it had certainly died out by Hardy’s time. Time passes in which Henchard manages to accumulate wealth and respect, even becoming mayor of the town of Casterbridge. Suddenly his wife reappears with her daughter Elizabeth-Jane who Henchard wrongly supposes is his. His tragedy begins to set in as he meets Farfrae who represents the modern, cynical age of new farming methods. Farfrae is not so much his enemy as his inintended rival and gradually takes over Henchard’s life and loves including Lucetta. Worse is to come as Newson arrives to take his step-daughter and Farfrae takes over the final parts of Henchard’s former life. His great pride irrevocably tarnished, Henchard dies wretchedly on the outskirts of town. The greatest point of interest in the novel is the development of Henchard’s character from initial contentedness through bitter attempts to hold onto what he considers ‘his’ to total desparation.
The woman looked on the ground, as if she maintained her position by a supreme effort of will.
"Five shillings," said some one, at which there was a laugh.
"No insults, said the husband. "Who'll say a guinea?"
Nobody answered; and the female dealer in staylaces interposed.
"Behave yerself moral, good man, for Heaven's love! Ah, what a cruelty is the poor soul married to! Bed and board is dear at some figures, 'pon my 'vation 'tis!"
"Set it higher, auctioneer," said the trusser.
"Two guineas!" said the auctioneer; and no one replied.
"If they don't take her for that, in ten seconds they'll have to give more," said the husband. "Very well. Now, auctioneer, add another."
"Three guineas - going for three guineas!" said the rheumy man.
"No bid?" said the husband. "Good Lord, why she's cost me fifty times the money, if a penny. Go on."
"Four guineas!" cried the auctioneer.
"I'll tell ye what - I won't sell her for less than five," said the husband, bringing down his fist so that he basins danced. "I'll sell her for five guineas to any man that will pay me the money, and treat her well; and he shall have her for ever, and never hear aught o' me. But she shan't go for less. Now then - five guineas - and she's yours. Susan, you agree?"
She bowed her head with absolute indifference.
"Five guineas," said the auctioneer, "or she'll be withdrawn. Do anybody give it? The last time. Yes or no?"
"Yes," said a loud voice from the doorway.
All eyes were turned. Standing in the triangular opening which formed the door of the tent was a sailor, who, unobserved by the rest, had arrived there within the last two or three minutes. A dead silence followed his affirmation.
"You say you do?" asked the husband, staring at him.
"I say so," replied the sailor.
"Saying is one thing, and paying is another. Where's the money?"
The sailor hesitated a moment, looked anew at the woman, came in, unfolded five crisp pieces of paper, and threw them down upon the table-cloth. They were Bank-of-England notes for five pounds. Upon the face of this he chinked down the shillings severally - one, two, three, four, five.
The sight of real money in full amount, in answer to a challenge for the same till then deemed slightly hypothetical, had a great effect upon the spectators. Their eyes became riveted upon the faces of the chief actors, and then upon the notes as they lay, weighted by the shillings, on the table.
Up to this moment it could not positively have been asserted that the man, in spite of his tantalizing declaration, was really in earnest. The spectators had indeed taken the proceedings throughout as a piece of mirthful irony carried to extremes; and had assumed that, being out of work, he was, as a consequence, out of temper with the world, and society, and his nearest kin. But with the demand and response of real cash the jovial frivolity of the scene departed. A lurid colour seemed to fill the tent, and change the aspect of all therein. The mirth-wrinkles left the listeners' faces, and they waited with parting lips.
"Now," said the woman, breaking the silence, so that her low dry voice sounded quite loud, "before you go further, Michael, listen to me. If you touch that money, I and this girl go with the man. Mind, it is a joke no longer."
"A joke? Of course it is not a joke!" shouted her husband, his resentment rising at her suggestion. "I take the money: the sailor takes you. That's plain enough. It has been done elsewhere - and why not here?"
"'Tis quite on the understanding that the young woman is willing," said the sailor blandly. "I wouldn't hurt her feelings for the world."
"Faith, nor I," said her husband. "But she is willing, provided she can have the child. She said so only the other day when I talked o't!"
"That you swear?" said the sailor to her.
"I do," said she, after glancing at her husband's face and seeing no repentance there.
"Very well, she shall have the child, and the bargain's complete," said the trusser. He took the sailor's notes and deliberately folded them, and put them with the shillings in a high remote pocket, with an air of finality.
The sailor looked at the woman and smiled. "Come along!" he said kindly. "The little one too - the more the merrier!" She paused for an instant, with a close glance at him. Then dropping her eyes again, and saying nothing, she took up the child and followed him as he made towards the door. On reaching it, she turned, and pulling off her wedding-ring, flung it across the booth in the hay-trusser's face.
"Mike," she said, "I've lived with thee a couple of years, and had nothing but temper! Now I'm no more to 'ee; I'll try my luck elsewhere. 'Twill be better for me and Elizabeth-Jane, both. So good-bye!"
Seizing the sailor's arm with her right hand, and mounting the little girl on her left, she went out of the tent sobbing bitterly.
A stolid look of concern filled the husband's face, as if, after all, he had not quite anticipated this ending; and some of the guests laughed.
"Is she gone?" he said.
"Faith, ay; she's gone clane enough," said some rustics near the door.
He knew that she must have been somewhat excited to do this; moreover, she must have believed that there was some sort of binding force in the transaction. On this latter point he felt almost certain, knowing her freedom from levity of character, and the extreme simplicity of her intellect. There may, too, have been enough recklessness and resentment beneath her ordinary placidity to make her stifle any momentary doubts. On a previous occasion when he had declared during a fuddle that he would dispose of her as he had done, she had replied that she would not hear him say that many times more before it happened, in the resigned tones of a fatalist... "Yet she knows I am not in my senses when I do that!" he exclaimed. "Well, I must walk about till I find her... Seize her, why didn't she know better than bring me into this disgrace!" he roared out.
Questions on the author:
1) What were his main branches of interest in his younger years? Does this seem to you like a normal child?
2) What is the literally element that Hardy and Dickens had in common?
Questions on the text:
1) Why does Henchard go on selling his wife? What makes him determined to go on with his plan?
2) Does he expect his wife to understand that he does these things? Explain.
3) What is so naturalistic about this piece?