NewUnderstandingofHenchard’sTragedyinTheMayorofCasterbridge-2019年精选文档

1、NewU nderstanding of Henchards Tragedy in “The Mayor of Casterbridge ”： No masterpiece by great writers is single-sided.It is always polyhedron and is bound to show new sides if we read it in a different perspective. Traditionally,“theMayor of Casterbridge ”, one of the important novels by Thomas Ha

2、rdy, is an illustration of the inevitable doom of the patriarchal economy in the English countryside in the 19th century England due to the merciless squeeze by industrial expansion. However, considering the widespread accepted theory of AdamS mith s economic man and moral man, we could find that ma

3、n are always in conflict between the two. Someone who are very rational and perfectly informed to pursue their own profits and wealth regardless of others interests could always successfully gain their wealth with the cost of losing their own happiness, while others who always care about someone els

4、e, put themselves in someone else s places, and regard someone elseshappiness as their concerns could eventually get their real happiness and sweet life with a sympathetic heart. Adam Smith thinks that the egoism (economic man) and thealtruism (moral man) are both human s natural instincts. Only a m

5、oderately prudent balance and union between the two could both develop the economy and gain the happiness. In “The Mayor of Casterbridge ”, Henchard s tragedy just lies in the abundance of egoism but the shortage of altruism. That s to say, he possesses too many characteristicsofeconomic man but too

6、 little of moral man. Then Henchard inevitably begins his tragic way with no repentance.1 Adam Smith s economic man, with wealth gained but happiness lost“The Mayor of Casterbridge ” was exactly written under the circumstances that most people were convinced that wealth and happiness consisted in mo

7、ney, or in gold and silver. In short, wealth and money were, in common language, considered as in every respect synonymous. When wealth was obtained, there was no difficulty in making any subsequent purchase. Gradually, people became materialistic, commercialand driven by their own selfishambitions

8、and desires. People became so selfish that they never thought of others during their process of pursuing wealth, and only themselves were their gods. They all set high ambitions and possessed the spirits of pursuing their own interests, regardless of the cost, expense and happiness. In their misshap

9、en minds, wealth equaled their happiness. They could sacrifice all their belongings to earn their wealth, even betraying their family, just like Henchard selling his wife and daughter. No one could escape being influenced and driven by such kind of cruel and selfish materialistic thoughts. They were

10、 completely appalled, cowed, or defeated by the features of the economic man shallowness, inanity, stupidity, self-delusion, greed and hypocrisy. In short, they performed their economic activities excessively in the economic but immoral way. They gained wealth at the cost of losing their real happin

11、ess which was the true meaning of life. 2 Adam Smith s moral man, with happiness gainedThe introduction of moral man came into world sinceAdam Smith had published his first work“The Theory ofMoral Sentiments ” in 1759. The so -called moral man was a man of sympathy and altruism, who was devoted whol

12、e-heartedly to others and society with no consideration of his own profits. Smiths aim in his book was to explain the source of mankinds ability to form moraljudgments, in spite of mans natural inclinations toward self-interest. He also proposed a theory of sympathy in which the act of observing oth

13、ers made people aware of themselves and the morality of their own behavior. Through sympathy, people perceived an imaginary impartial spectator of themselves which formed the basis of their morality. That was to say, Adam Smith thought of it as a natural thing that men were economic and materialisti

14、c,butmen should also do all the activities with sympathetic hearts. If men had all conformed to the rules and restrictions of morality, the whole society would live in harmony, stability and progress forever. No matter how economic a man was, he should still possess the sympathetic characteristic of

15、 a moral man. No matter how selfish the man was, in his genius, there must obviously exist some natural instincts that let him care about others destines and consider their happiness as his own business, even if eventually he could get nothing except the happiness of witnessing others happiness duri

16、ng the whole course of helping. In short, the altruism (sympathy) of a moral man is as crucial as the egoism of an economic man to the market economy. Even at the height of market economy, the freeeconomy couldn t have gone through well without morality. If the greed and jealousy of luxury wantonly

17、had gone on the rampage for a time, would people still support the market system? The answer was definite that without the basic morality, the whole society would collapse in one day sooner or later. AdamS mith once wrote a very sharp example about butchers and bakers to illustrate the importance of

18、 morality and the perfect union of egoism and altruism. He said the food that we ate was not from the bakers or the butchers benefaction but their own profit pursuit. As to this idea, we would think that everyone was doing his utmost to pursue his own interests. But few of us came into consciousness

19、 that there lay a much more important idea connoted. Although it seemed that the bakers and butchers gained the wealth by means of selling food to people, it was also a beneficent action to serving the whole public.Because if they were really too greedy and selfish, they could also sell the bad food

20、 to gain more money and let their profits maximized. But their altruism and sympathy restricted their immoral action, so that their characteristicwas the right union of altruism and egoism.They gained not only their happiness by means of servingwholeheartedly for the public, but also their wealth in

21、 the proper way of accumulating wealth step by step. From the explanation above, we could find that Adam Smith completely considered the economy as the art of life happiness. On one hand, human beings were egoistic and dominated in the invisible hands; on the other hand, human beings were altruistic

22、and pursing own happiness in the wayof witnessing others happiness. The individual maximum referred to the maximum of happiness rather than wealth which was just the material basis of happiness. It was irrational to put wealth and happiness as synonymy. As a whole, the pursuit of wealth was construc

23、ted on the basis of morality. That was to say, with the altruism (the economic man) being the premise of egoism (the moral man), the welfare of people and society could be realized eventually.3 Characteristics of more economic man but less moral man in Henchard“The Mayor of Casterbridge ”was a poign

24、ant and powerful tragic novel woven out of six main strands, the lives of Michael Henchard, Susan Henchard, Elizabeth Jane, Richard Newton, Donald Farfrae and Lucetta Templeman. It was also a novel so cunningly staged and ingeniously unfolded that it seemed to move forward with an inevitable and rut

25、hless power from the protagonist Michael Henchards selfish, materialistic, and reckless egoism of an economic man in the harrowing opening scene to his spectacular rise to a mayor, and the nemesis that overtook him and his dismal catastrophe.At the beginning of the novel, Casterbridge was still a tr

26、aditional town where all goods sold were labeled with fair prices. After eighteen years, when Susan and her daughter came back, Casterbridge was no longer the same as before. The traditional business dealing was at decline, but the merchants who were skilled at playing the market dominated the whole

27、 market instead. Even an old woman selling the wine in the market also sighed with wonder at the great changes of this little town, saying“theworld s no memory; straightforward dealings dont bring profit tis the sly and the underhand that get on in these times ”. Thus it could be seen that the devel

28、opedbusiness dealing and capitalist free market greatly encouraged the economic man s egoism and dispelled the moral man s altruism in every mans thoughts.Henchards avaricious egoism which had an obvious whip over altruism was fully exposed by his immoral and brutal action of selling his wife and da

29、ughter at five guineas. Although he gained wealth at that time, his unhappy life also followed. Adam Smith wrote in“The Theory of MoralSentiments ” that “The preservation and healthful state of the body seem to be the objects which Nature first recommends to be the care of every individual”. Althoug

30、hthe care of the health and the fortunecame first in everymans life, man should still live in prudence without too much hasty desire and ambition. Just like Henchard, he lived in poor condition but still had the opportunity of living an ameliorated life by hard work and industriousness. Unfortunatel

31、y, he was immersed at the time when all the commodities were measured by the money. With wealth, people could have been the first-class people and be respected by all people. On the contrary, without money, people could have only been utilized by others and have lived bad lives. Then people became m

32、aterialistic, commercial and driven by their own selfish ambitions and desires. People became so selfish that they never thought of others during their process of pursuing wealth, and only wealth equaledhappiness. No one could escape being influenced and driven by such kind of cruel and selfish mate

33、rialistic egoism of the economic man. They could even sacrifice all their belongings to earn their wealth, even betraying their family, just like Henchard selling his wife and daughter. Seemingly he gained his so-called happiness, but in fact he lost the most precious thing love and happiness inhis

34、life.After awakening from his drunken stupor, hefound he had paid too much for his wealth, so he decided not to drink anymore. He attributed his fault to his drunken mind, never realizing that it was his subconscious egoism of an economic man that drove him to do evil. Even if he had not drunk, one

35、day he would still take the risk of selling his wife and daughter to satisfy his permanent desire for wealth. During the following twenty-one years, he kept his promise of having no wine and succeeded in turning himself from a labor to a mayor and accumulating a lot of wealth. It seemed that his dec

36、ision of selling his wife and daughter was right, because with the money, he gained his wealth, climbed up to the social status that everyone desired in the little town and should be satisfied with what he owned right now. However, Henchard, with nosecond of release and ease of mind, had always been

37、 living in regret and remorse in the following twenty-one years. Temporarily, his altruism took an advantage over the egoism. He was somewhat of a moral man. However, if we looked at the state objectively,we could easily discover that he hadbeen grumbling at his wife over being tied down by family a

38、nd couldn t do his best to realize his ambition of success to the full. Evidence could also be found in his drunken sentences “I married at eighteen, like the fool that I was; and this is the consequence ot and if I were a freeman again I d be worth a thousand pound before Id doneot. ” Henchard was

39、at first immoral under the poor circumstances, but became moral and sympathetic when he was wealthy with no regard of money. Egoism became the premise of altruism, which was totally different from AdamS mith s idea that altruism should be prior to egoism. That was to say, for Henchard, only when his

40、 egoism of economic man was satisfied, he would then follow his altruism of moral man and get concerned about others including his most intimate family members.When Susan and Elizabeth Jane came back, Henchard resumed their relationship after a long separation.Thisseemingly beneficent action was not

41、 at Henchards mercy, but the salvation and redemption of his deteriorated egoism of economic man. There was a underlying conflict between egoism of economic man and altruism of moral man which was trying to rescue the corrupted soul. However, when he found Elizabeth Jane was not his daughter, his eg

42、oistic instinct took the superior place to exclude someone else s daughter. He became a typical economic man again with no trace of moral man.Henchards commercial conflict withDonald Farfrae also stirred up his potential strong egoism of the economic man. Firstly, Henchards seeminglyzealous invitati

43、on of Farfrae staying and doing business with him in Casterbridge and not going to America was completely out of his ulterior motive as a merchant, because he thought Farfrae was a very smart man to be made use of by him and then he could earn more money with Farfrae s intellect. As time went by, al

44、though Henchard s business was getting stronger and stronger under Farfrae s help, Farfrae gradually took Henchards place to be the most admired person in Casterbridge.Henchard was pretty choked about Farfrae s talent, but his rational sense of a business man kept him from driving this capable assis

45、tant away. It was not until Farfrae disagreeing to Henchard s rude and unreasonable ask of a servant s naked dressing and letting Henchard lose face in public that Henchard was jealous of Farfrae in all ways and even hated him a lot.This little quarrel laid a foundation of their future breakup. Thei

46、r eventual split was brought about by a play program held separately by Henchard and Farfrae, with the former s failure and the latters success. Henchard sfeatures of an economic man began to flock out immediately. His egoism again took the place of altruism, because Farfrae s talent brought disaste

47、r and failure for him instead of success and wealth. As an economic man, he couldn t tolerate anything that held up his process ofgaining wealth or fame. For wealth, he could sacrifice everything that he owned; for failure, he would also keep it from happening at any cost, which were exactly the ess

48、ence of the economic man. Then he drove away Farfrae like what he had done to his wife and daughter many years ago. He was then embarking on his way of physical and spiritual ruin and finally defeated by Farfraes commercial andpolitical success.In some way, the setting of role Lucetta Templeman in t

49、his novel contributed to pushing Henchard on his way of becoming a complete economic man. At first, when Lucetta was still a poor girl, Henchard felt it beneath his dignity to marry Lucetta. However, when Lucetta inherited a considerable fortune from her remote relative, hethoughtit a good opportuni

50、ty to make use of her wealth to improve his business condition. Only taking his own profits into consideration, Henchard seldom gave thought to how selfish and avaricious he was, and further demanded Lucettaspermanent loyalty to him. WhenL ucetta finally saw through the economic man s selfishness, s

51、he met Farfrae the man she really fell in love with and got married to him. Her hasty decision really shocked Henchards narrow andmalformed spirits. He utilized the old love letters written by Lucetta to threaten her in order to take revenge on her betrayal. Although he was at the margin of extreme

52、egoism, a bit of his altruism saved him from complete ruin by not showing letters to Farfrae. Adam Smith once wrote in “The Theory of Moral Sentiments ” that “We suffer more, it has already been observed, when we fall from a better to a worse situation, than we ever enjoy when we rise froma worse to

53、 a better ” . Henchard s successive misfortunes like Farfrae having defeated Henchard in both business and political power, Susan having passed away, and Lucetta having married another man and died really let him down, nearly to the edge of ruin. All his selfishness, morality, vanity, and pride have

54、 gone away like the wind. Elizabeth Jane became Henchard s las t straw to clutch at. He wouldnt let her go even if Elizabeth s real father came to look for her,so Henchard made a lie that Elizabeth hadearly died. It was his profit-pursuing natural instinct of an economic man that let him do so ugly

55、and shameful thing. The following disaster that the lie brought to him was extremely serious. Elizabeths final reunion with herreal father made Henchard so shameful and regretful that he had to leave Casterbridge just as he had arrived twenty-five years before with no wealth and no family members. I

56、t was such a miserable scene that we couldnthelp thinking about a mans tremendous ups and downs over these years. In brief, there were too much features of economic man but too little of moral man in Henchard that leaded to his final disaster and ruin.4 Conclusion: prudence, the perfect union betwee

57、neconomic man and moral manAs a whole, a series of misfortunate cases like Farfrae s winning in both business and political power, Susans death, Lucetta s another marriage and death, and Elizabeth s hatred successively provoke Henchardsstrong potential egoism as an economic man. Then his egoism is in fierce competition with his remaining altruism. Finally, his egoism and selfishness overflow and