Chapter I: Hardy as a Victorian Novelist born in the ...

Chapter I: Hardy as a Victorian Novelist Victorian Features in Hardy's Writing

Thomas Hardy (1840-1928), one of the greatest Victorian novelists and poets was born in the village of Upper Bockhampton, near Dorchester in Dorset. He was the first child of Thomas and Jemima Hardy. His father was master- mason and a violinist, which meant the Hardy family was middle class. His mother came from a family long established in Dorset. Hardy spent his childhood with his parents pleasantly. Between his parents, Hardy gained all the interests that would later appear in his novels and his own life, his love for architecture and music, his interest in the lifestyle of the country and his passion for literature. Especially, he inherited a love of music from his father, a love of reading from his mother and strength of personality from both of them.

Hardy was made a disciple to John Hicks, an ecclesiastical architect in Dorchester in 1856. He was also encouraged by Horace Moule, the brilliant son of a vicar, to whose friendship he owned much intellectual stimulus. Hardy was also encouraged by William Barnes, who was a Dorset poet. Then, Hardy continued to live at home and spent life in the small rural community, where he found refreshment and strength. In 1857, when Hardy was seventeen, he began to write verse and essays. Following the advice of friend Horace Moule, he decided not to give up architecture. In 1862, Hardy travelled to London to look for a job. There, he got a job as a draughtsman to Arthur Bloomfield and worked hard at his profession. Till this time, he was not sure whether to choose literature or architecture in his life. He went to art galleries and concerts and evening classes.

In March 1865, his first prose work ''How I built myself a House'' was published in a journal called Chambers' Journal, but he was much more interested in poetry. He

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stayed in London for four years but was never really happy there. Feeling often lonely and depressed, he became ill. So, in 1867, he returned to Dorset and again began to work for John Hicks. During 1867-68, he wrote a purpose story titled The Poor Man and the Lady and sent to four publishers to publish. But it was read by George Meredith, a major writer of the period and asked Hardy not to publish it but to write well-plotted novels. The manuscript was rewritten but never published which became first unpublished novel of Hardy. Then Hardy began to write novels.

In Hardy's novels, we find the real depiction of contemporary Victorian Society. As an observer of peasantry, he writes about the life of poor peasant family and their problems as being poor in the society. He also portrays the customs of love, marriage and the conflict between the rich and the poor. Pessimism is also a feature of his novels. Hardy conveys this sense of pessimism in two ways - through "images" and through "characterization". Because of time, place, nature and other causes, they become pessimistic.

In almost all of his novels, we find the well construction of plot. As a story teller, Hardy combines a rich inventive power with a sense of symmetrical development. Hardy never loses sight of the harmonious whole. His detailed touches have always their special significance in unfolding the burden of story. We find no loose end in his works. Sometimes, we find the interesting stories in his novels. Another important feature of Hardy's novels is the establishment of his imaginative world of Wessex. In his novels, he uses Wessex settings. He uses Wessex geography, landscape, folkways, agricultural pursuits, quaint peasantry as background of his novels.

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Presentation of domestic life and characters is another feature of Hardy's novels. As domestic life, we find the people working in the field, doing works in local dairies and in other local places and as domestic characters, we find hay-trussers, woodcutters, cider makers, farmers, dairy maids, local tranters who work hard in their villages and live miserable lives.

Poverty and family problems are also the features of Hardy's novels. In his novels, because of financial problems, either the male characters sell their family members or they send their family members to work to the rich ladies and fulfill their problems. Belief in determinism is another important feature in Hardy's novels. He believes that everything in the life is predetermined. Humans cannot change their predetermined destiny. In his novels, he shows that there is no escape for human beings from the suffering to which they are doomed.

In Hardy's works, music takes many different forms of expression and serves multiple functions, both literal and metaphoric. Music and dance are social pastimes as well as art forms. Hardy perceives that there is music and dance within and without usual. He shares with his characters an intense emotional response to music, for he senses that the insistent pulse of the tune and beat of the dance is in accord with the beat of life. He also says that the love of music and dance is frequently associated with a youthful love of life, especially with sexual love and passion. Dancing scenes and musical parties serve as a device to bring character together and develop relationships.

Hardy presents unsophisticated simple society destroyed because of rapid progress of industrialization and modernization. In his novels, he presents the people who forget their responsibilities and there become the identity crisis among them. His novels

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are mostly pictures of human beings struggling against fate or chance. Because of their ill fate and bad chances, Hardy's characters suffer much more and they struggle for existence.

Thomas Hardy died on 11th January, 1928. His death was felt as a loss and was mourned as "the last of the great Victorians." His ashes were buried in Westminister Abbey, but in consideration of his deep affection for his native Wessex and the peculiar inspiration it gave him, his heart was buried in his parish church-yard. The place of Hardy in English literature is always higher than other minor writers. His place is as high as the place of Shakespeare, Chaucer and Milton. Hardy's Regionality

Thomas Hardy is a regional novelist of Victorian Period. As a regional novelist, nearly all of his novels are set in the agricultural areas or towns of Dorset in Southwest England near Dorchester, the region, Hardy calls "Wessex". This is also an area in which he grows up in the mid 1800s. He gets ample opportunities to observe the natural sceneries round his native village which are never forgotten. His country world is his education. It is his limited region, which forms the scenic background to each of his "Wessex" novels. The same physical features like hills and dales, rivers, pastures and meadows, woodlands and heaths appear and reappear in his works. This imparts to his works a kind of scenic continuity and a touch of realism which is difficult to match within any fiction. Every event in his novels takes place within this locality.

The description of Mellstock village in Under the Greenwood Tree is so realistic that many have taken it to be an exact reproduction of the Dorset countryside. In the same way, the description of Casterbridge in The Mayor of Casterbridge is an exact

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reproduction of the town of Dorset. The dreary and desolate atmosphere of Flintcomb? Ashfarm in Tess of the d'Urbervilles is exactly the same as that of real place.

The use of local dialect in which Hardy is well versed and through which all his characters express themselves, and this imports to his works a touch of realism. Not only this, he also knows the Wessex rustics suggested more through his movement than through his speech. His eyes do not leave to portray dancing, singing and drinking as their favorite recreation. In the evening or whenever they have leisure time, they assemble and pass their time in drinking, singing and in idle gossips. In The Mayor of Casterbridge, the rustics gather at the 'Three Mariners', drink and gossip pass comments on the events of the day. In The Return of the Native, Eustacia dances with Wildieve. Similarly, in Tess of the d'Urbervilles, Tess takes part in May?Day dance. Hardy's description of the scenes and sights, characters and their traits are so vivid that readers feel that they have visited those places and met those characters in reality. In this context, John Peck writes, "The first point is that to a very great extent, Hardy is a visual novelist. He paints the scenes and we as readers are asked to interpret what we see" (41).

Hardy illustrates the latest generation of English thought and feeling which attracts the most enthusiastic attention of men of letters. He describes the physical features of his Wessex with great accuracy and realism. He has immortalized the land of Wessex, which is a living, breathing reality in his novels. Edmund Goose mentions:

In choosing North Wessex as the scene of a novel, Hardy willfully deprives himself of a great element of his strength where there are no prehistoric monuments, no ancient buildings and immemorial woodlands, . . . In Berkshire the change which is coming over England so rapidly, the

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