The Mayor of Casterbridge
The Nobel Laureate Thomas Hardy’s immortal novel The Mayor of Casterbridge is subtitled "The Life and Death of a Man of Character". It is set in the fictional town of Casterbridge. The novel seems to emphasize that “Character is destiny”. Henchard’s grave error of selling his wife and daughter to Newson works like hubris for him. He repents but the Furies and nemesis are preying upon him. He repents why he sold his wife and daughter: "If I had only got her with me—if I only had!," he said. "Hard work would be nothing to me then! But that was not to be. I—Cain—go alone as I deserve—an outcast and a vagabond." Henchard would never be happy again. The plot of Hardy’s novel is quite interesting. Henchard under the influence of wine sells his wife Susan and baby daughter Elizabeth-Jane to a sailor named Newson for five guineas. As he wakes up the next morning, he realizes his blunder, and pledges in a church that he won’t drink wine for the next twenty o...