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Dara Miller
Dr. Murphy
ENG 445
28 January 2014
By nature something of a woman-hater: Henchards Trouble in The Mayor of Casterbridge
In Elaine Showalters feminist critique of Thomas Hardys The Mayor of Casterbridge,
she not only claims that Hardys portrayal of Michael Henchard is the fullest nineteenth-century
portrait of a mans inner life (177) but also that this portrait is only complete when Henchard is
successfully unmanned, (189) thus becoming a tragic figure. If, however, Henchards story
does provide a full portrait of a mans inner life, it is that fact, not Henchards fate, which is
tragic. Despite Henchards intermittent impulses towards creating himself as a man of character,
his relationships with women throughout the novel keep that character from ever fully being
realized. In one of his first extended conversations with his young protg Donald Farfrae,
Michael Henchard admits that despite his loneliness, he has been happy living a solitary life
since the debacle with his wife in part because he has always been by nature something of a
woman-hater, and thus found it no hardship to keep mostly at distance from the sex (Hardy
88). Once that distance is shortened by his wife and supposed daughters re-entrance into his
life, Henchards public fortunes immediately begin spiraling downward, until he is left much as
he appeared at the opening of the novel: destitute and alone. Throughout the novel, Henchards
life is plagued by his relationship with women; indeed, his years of public success are largely
characterized by his lack of affiliation with women, and Hardy at many points conflates the
tension Henchard feels between the public and private spheres of his life with his futile struggles
to maintain healthy relationships with the women in his life.
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The Mayor of Casterbridge begins before the nineteenth century had reached one-third
of its span (Hardy 7), and the bulk of the novel takes place in a time when, as Elizabeth
Langford notes, an epistemic shift in early Victorian England (77) was taking place. As
modern forces entered society, the combined forces of industrialism, capitalism, imperialism,
growing urbanism, and individualism worked together to impact dramatically the social
production of space (Langford 77). For the first time, British society began to draw clearly
demarcated lines separating not only the public and private spheres, but also the male and female
spaces. The tension in Michael Henchards character reflects social anxieties about these pulls.
He freely associates female influence with the degradation of his reputation (his life in the public
sphere), yet he is unable or unwilling to recognize that it is his private management of his
relationships, not the outside influence of others, which ultimately determines his public
standing.
Hardys depiction of this essential disconnect is evident even from the opening
description of Henchard: the young hay-trusser in the opening pages of the novel is presented
almost entirely in terms of outward appearance or public reception. His body is perfunctorily
mentioned as fineswarthy, and stern in aspect, (Hardy 7) but significantly more detail is
spent on his clothes, which mark his social status, and his tools, which provide the means for
Henchard to make himself viable in the public arena. His walk sets him apart as a skilled
countryman, (Hardy 7) again focusing on public perception of his character. Even his attitude is
marked by his clothing, as his dogged and cynical indifference personal to himself only
[shows] its presencein the regularly interchanging fustian folds (Hardy 7) of his breeches.
In contrast, Hardy describes nothing about Susans socially marked appearance, instead
focusing exclusively on her expression. Although she virtuallywalked the highway alone
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(8), her gait denotes nothing about her public identity, as Henchards does. Instead, Hardys
description provides readers with a brief insight into her emotions and personal identity; a view
that is more intimate and much more private than the sweeping gaze over Henchards
appearance. Unlike Henchard, who Hardy describes in concrete physical details and social
trappings, Susan is marked by her personal mutability:
When she looked down sideways to the girl she became pretty, and even
handsome, particularly that in the action her features caught slantways the rays of
the strongly-coloured sun, which made transparencies of her eyelids and nostrils
and set fire one her lips. When she plodded on in the shade of the hedge, silently
thinking, she had the hard, half-apathetic expression of one who deems anything
possible at the hands of Time and Chance except, perhaps, fair play. The first
phase was the work of Nature, the second probably of civilization. (Hardy 8)
The contrasts in these disparate patterns of description introduce the complexities of
Hardys treatment of gender in The Mayor of Casterbridge. Susan, at this point, seems to earn
the more sympathetic depiction she, as opposed to Henchard, is at least thinking, and her
expression is only half-apathetic, suggesting both that she is conscious of the harsh realities of
her circumstance and yet also capable of resisting, to some degree, the cruelties of Time and
Chance. However, the relationship between the two characters is already complicated by the
dichotomy between public appearance and private reality. The young couple walked side by
side in such a way as to suggest afar off the low, easy, confidential chat of people full of
reciprocity (Hardy 8, emphasis mine), but this appearance of a harmonious relationship only
emphasizes the actuality of their strained and unhappy marriage, which has become so
normalized between Henchard and Susan that she regards his purposefully ignoring silence as
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a natural thing (Hardy 8). According to William W. Morgan, Hardy regularly employs
strategic silences as a critical element in the voicing of gender issues in all of [his] texts, (182)
and in this instance the oppressive silence between Henchard and Susan ushers in the opportunity
for conflict that they find in the infamous furmity tent.
In Henchards sale of Susan and Elizabeth-Jane to the sailor Newton, he violates the
humanity of his wife and daughter as well as the sanctity of their family. This act, as Showalter
claims, also effectively alienates himself from the community of women at large (179). In this
scene, the boundaries between public and private become increasingly skewed; as Henchard
becomes increasingly intoxicated, his resentment over the state of his marriage becomes a matter
of public discussion. That this is not the first time he has made such a display is evident from
Hardys description of Susans initial reaction. If not indifferent, she at least seem[s] accustomed
to such remarks and act[s] as if she did not hear them (Hardy 12). His desire to sell his family
to the highest bidder is first a public joke, and then a matter of public tension as the scene drags
on uncomfortably long. Henchards audience offers him ample opportunity to drop the distasteful
subject, from the unexpected flattery from the smoking gentleman and the interruption of the
swallow flying through the tent to the staylace dealers admonition to Henchard to Behave
yerself moral, good man, for Heavens love! (Hardy 13). Henchard, however, does not grasp the
inappropriateness of his behavior, and instead of heeding the warnings of the public, he allows
those very warnings to goad him on and confirms his commitment to carrying out the sale.
Henchards public sale of his wife, and her eventual defiant agreement to the bargain, is
clearly an extraordinary event which will later go on to violate the moral sense of the
Casterbridge community upon its discovery, effectively cementing his social ruin (Showalter
178). This shocking opening to the novel has rightly garnered much critical discussion; however,
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a single line in the scene that seems to escaped critical notice significantly effects the
characterization of Henchard, in regards both to his relationship with Susan and to his
understanding of the nature of public and private life. As the sale concludes, Newton emphasizes
that he will only go through with the bargain if Susan is willing; offended, Henchard replies:
she is willing, provided she can have the child. She said so only the other day when I talked
ot! (Hardy 17). This line, almost thrown away at the end of the scene, highlights two significant
insights: the first, that his daughter is of little consequence to Henchard, and second, that the
subject of separation between Henchard and Susan was not only one that had occurred multiple
times, but also ostensibly in a private setting as well.
Showalter rightly notes that the sale of a daughter fits neatly into the scheme of patriarchy,
and even suggests that this is an act insidiously attractive to male fantasy, the rejection of a wife
who has borne only female offspring (179). Annie Ramel has made the additional observation
that out of all the characters in the novel, the original Elizabeth-Jane is the only one to
completely disappear, thus creating a breach in the historical continuity (259) that Henchard is
incapable of mending. While these observations succinctly foreshadow Henchards eventual
family-less fate, the second half of his defense to Newton sheds light on Hardys development of
his character. Henchards woman-hating, or at least his inability to deal productively with
women, and his crucial inability to distinguish between public and private boundaries intersect to
create his fatal flaw. Because he cannot regulate his passions based on his contexts, he airs his
private marital struggles in a public arena, and what he should make public, his subsequent
remorse and search for her, he keeps private for fear of risking public shame.
Notably, his sense of what will cause public shame only seems clear to him once he finds
himself alone; his rise to success in Casterbridge seems devoid of any scandal, implying that his
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freedom and vow of soberness have allowed him to regulate his temper and manage himself in
the public sphere with impunity. Showalter claims that in creating this new life for himself,
Henchard commits his life entirely to the male community and sells out or divorces his own
feminine self, his own need for passion, tenderness, and loyalty (179). However, in order to
purposefully eliminate the feminine self that Showalter suggests, Henchard would first have to
recognize that aspect of himself, which he does not, at least not within the first half of the novel.
He instead makes his way throughout the untold pages between his vow and his wifes return
oblivious to those needs, thinking perhaps of his own loneliness, but never of its cause. In his
early affair with Lucetta, told in retrospect to Farfrae on the night he discovers the reappearance
of Susan and Elizabeth-Jane, Henchard admits that he was even more terribly careless of
appearances (Hardy 89) than Lucetta was, once again displaying how his awareness of what
will cause public shame decreases in correlation to his involvement with women.
Throughout the remainder of the novel, Henchard struggles to reconcile the tragic
inadequacy of his codes and the arid limits of patriarchal power (Showalter 179) with his
reentrance into a life that includes relationships with women. Through these relationships, Hardy
provides Henchard with the potential to recognize his own innate feminine characteristics, and
thus come to a more complete understanding of his own humanity; however, despite his best
intentions, Henchard ultimately rebuffs these opportunities. Ramel points to the metaphor of
crevices of the canvas (Hardy 20) as emblematic of the breach[es] (259) in Henchards life,
the holes that are ripped beyond the possibility of repair (260). On Susans return, he feels that
his first duty (Hardy 60) is to her, and instantly desires to make amends. However, this sense of
duty merely extends to his idea that he should publically atone for an act of public shame; in his
focus on acknowledging that wrong he did to her, he disregards any possibility of private
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remorse, much less of private feeling for Susan. He courts her with business-like determination
and a sense of strict mechanical rightness (Hardy 92) rather than affection, even though he puts
forth great effort to appear to care for her:
Nobody would have conceived from his outward demeanour that there was no
amatory fire or pulse of romance acting as stimulant to the bustle going on in his
gaunt, great house; nothing but three large resolvesone, to make amends to his
neglected Susan; another, to provide a comfortable home for Elizabeth-Jane under
his paternal eye; and a third, to castigate himself with the thorns which these
restitutory acts brought in their train; among them the lowering of dignity in
public opinion by marrying so comparatively humble a woman. (Hardy 94)
Love and mutual respect may never have truly factored into Henchards relationship with
Susan, so perhaps it would be unreasonable that he should pursue those goals upon their reunion.
His emotional distance, however, at this point extends equally to Elizabeth-Jane, even though he
believes her to be his biological child. Instead, he substitutes material provision for any attempt
at human connection with her, and she at first scarcely ma[kes] a perceptible addition to the
contents of his house (Hardy 98). Similarly, he desires to stake a public claim in Elizabeth-Jane
by changing her surname, but when she asks him privately about it he gruffly replies with Curse
me if I care what you do (Hardy 101). After Susans death and his estrangement from Farfrae,
Henchard is once again reminded of his loneliness, and determines that Elizabeth-Jane is the
only one who could possibly fill the emotional void in his life. His loneliness, though, is a
craving unfocused loneliness rather than a desire towards another person, (Showalter 182) and
he turns to his supposed daughter as a last resort rather than out of genuine tenderness towards
her. When he reveals his version of their history to her, he is oblivious to the obvious distress this
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life-altering news causes her, instead feeling a blaze of satisfaction (Hardy 140) upon
effectively coercing her into changing her name. Like any quick-burning blaze, though,
Henchards proves short-lived, doused by yet another inconsiderate act as he reads Susans
confession despite her express wishes. Subsequently, his pride and his inability to admit his own
wrongdoing alienates Elizabeth-Jane even as she strives to think of him as her father.
Throughout the remainder of the novel, the public position he had worked so long to
maintain continues to spiral correlative to his interactions with the women in his life. His
relationship with Lucetta begins again with a sense of duty, only to devolve into jealous coercion
in the face of his rivalry with Farfrae. To some extent, even his conflict with Farfrae stems from
his inability to healthily interact with the female presences in his life. He fears that Farfrae will
steal Elizabeth-Jane, or, later, Lucetta. On a separate level, Henchards business has been wife to
him all these years, and he also views Farfraes rise to prominence above him as a particularly
painful cuckolding of its own. However, he cannot bring himself to exact revenge on Farfrae any
more than he can manage to separate himself completely from Elizabeth-Jane, but his attempts
to replace ambition with love had been as fully foiled as his ambition itself (Hardy 350) are in
vain. According to Simon Gatrell, after Henchards social downfall, his desire for love is all that
remains, and Elizabeth-Jane isthe only possible object for that desire (73). In this desire,
however, lies the crux of his struggle: even in the midst of his newfound focus on love, his
understanding of the nature of it is still warped by his attempts to maintain an impulsive control.
He remains, despite his apparent domestication, the kind of man to whom some human subject
for pouring out his heat uponwere it emotive or were it cholericwas almost a necessity
(Hardy 140). Instead of communicating openly with Elizabeth-Jane, he attempts to force his
dream of a future lit by her filial presence (Hardy 320) on her through his lie to Newson,
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effectively eliminating any real chance that they could have had for maintaining a relationship
after Newsons return. Showalter argues that his complete social downfall allows the forces of
male rebellion and female suffering to ultimately conjoin (189) in Henchard, and that his final
ruin enables him finally to learn [skills] of observation, attention, sensitivity, and compassion
(189) that he formerly associated with feminine characteristics, but yet his proud superiority
(Hardy 359) still permits him from making peace with Elizabeth-Jane on her wedding day. The
final description of his character, written in his own words through his will, likewise expresses a
melancholic self-pity that denotes little true growth to his character. Although Henchard may
have become publically unmanned, his final words still depict a man who both scorns the
thought of feminine ideals and clings to his own idea of manhood; an idea proliferated with
unnecessary pride and tainted with extreme self-absorption.












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Works Cited
Gatrell, Simon. The Mayor of Casterbridge: The Fate of Michael Henchards Character.
Thomas Hardy and the Proper Study of Mankind. Charlottesville, VA: UP of Virginia,
1993. 68-96. Print.
Hardy, Thomas. The Mayor of Casterbridge. 1912. New York: Penguin, 2008. Print.
Law. Jules David. Hardy, History, and the Gendered Body. ELH 65.1 (Spring 1998): 223-257.
JSTOR. Web. 9 Jan 2014.
Langland, Elizabeth. Private Space and Public Woman: Victorian Working-Class Narratives.
Telling Tales: Gender and Narrative Form in Victorian Literature and Culture.
Columbus: Ohio State University Press, 2002. 77-91. Print.
Morgan, William. Gender and Silence in Thomas Hardys Texts. Gender and
Discourse in Victorian Literature and Art. Ed. Antony Harrison and Beverly Taylor.
DeKalb: Northern Illinois University Press, 1992. Print.
Ramel, Annie. The Crevice in the Canvas: A Study of The Mayor of Casterbridge. Victorian
Literature and Culture 26.2 (1998): 259-272. JSTOR. Web. 28 Jan 2014.
Showalter, Elaine. "The Unmanning of the Mayor of Casterbridge." Thomas Hardy: Modern
Critical Views. ed. Harold Bloom. New York: Chelsea House, 1987. 175-189. Print.