Thomas Hardy was a 19th century English novelist and poet born in 1840 in Dorset, England. He is known for his realistic novels and poems set in the fictional region of Wessex. Some of his most famous novels include Far From the Madding Crowd, The Return of the Native, Tess of the D'Urbervilles, and Jude the Obscure. His works typically deal with themes of fate, nature, social class, and criticism of Victorian morality and religion through complex characters struggling against their circumstances.
Thomas Hardy was a 19th century English novelist and poet born in 1840 in Dorset, England. He is known for his realistic novels and poems set in the fictional region of Wessex. Some of his most famous novels include Far From the Madding Crowd, The Return of the Native, Tess of the D'Urbervilles, and Jude the Obscure. His works typically deal with themes of fate, nature, social class, and criticism of Victorian morality and religion through complex characters struggling against their circumstances.
Thomas Hardy was a 19th century English novelist and poet born in 1840 in Dorset, England. He is known for his realistic novels and poems set in the fictional region of Wessex. Some of his most famous novels include Far From the Madding Crowd, The Return of the Native, Tess of the D'Urbervilles, and Jude the Obscure. His works typically deal with themes of fate, nature, social class, and criticism of Victorian morality and religion through complex characters struggling against their circumstances.
Thomas Hardy was a 19th century English novelist and poet born in 1840 in Dorset, England. He is known for his realistic novels and poems set in the fictional region of Wessex. Some of his most famous novels include Far From the Madding Crowd, The Return of the Native, Tess of the D'Urbervilles, and Jude the Obscure. His works typically deal with themes of fate, nature, social class, and criticism of Victorian morality and religion through complex characters struggling against their circumstances.
Darwin, which helped shape his thought. Thomas Hardy.
Performer Heritage Thomas Hardy
2. Works • Under the Greenwood Tree (1872).
• Far From the Madding Crowd (1874).
• The Return of the Native (1878).
• The Mayor of Casterbridge (1886).
• The Woodlanders (1887). The Hardy cottage in Higher
Bockhampton, Dorchester.
• Tess of the D’Urbervilles (1891).
• Jude the Obscure (1895).
• Wessex Poems (1898).
Performer Heritage Thomas Hardy
Features of Hardy’s .3 • novels Interest in the life of the peasants in an age of decline and decay of peasantry.
• Nostalgia for the pastoral and
patriarchal way of life.
• Deterministic view, deprived of
the consolation of divine order.
• Indifferent nature. A contemporary edition of The Return • Man’s life controlled by hostile, of the Native. cruel fate, ‘insensible chance’. of The Return of the Native.
Performer Heritage Thomas Hardy
Themes .4 The difficulty of being alive place, environment and circumstances determine the individual existence. Indifferent to man’s destiny.
Nature Sets the pattern of growth and decay.
Criticism: he exposes the most conventional, moralistic,
hypocritical aspects of Victorian society.
Difficulty or failure of communication.
Tragedy
Performer Heritage Thomas Hardy
Style .5
Superb sense of place:
description of ruins, churches, towers, walls, but also important monuments like Stonehenge.
Love of detail to strengthen
the final effect a naturalistic approach. The 1967 film version of Far from the Madding Crowd.
Performer Heritage Thomas Hardy
Style .5
• Rich in symbolism.
• Language of sense impressions.
• Use of colours.
• Victorian omniscient narrator. The 1967 film version of Far from the Madding Crowd.
• Narrative techniques similar to ‘the
Performer Heritage camera eye’ and ‘the zoom’. Thomas Hardy
Hardy’s Wessex .6 • In Hardy’s major novels there is the progressive mapping of a semi-fictional region, the south-west corner of England and his native county of Dorset. • By Wessex Hardy meant the old Saxon kingdom of Alfred the Great. Wessex transcends The Wessex of the Novels & Poems in Hardy’s own topographical limits combining drawing.
the imaginative experience of
the individual with a sense of man’s place in the universe.
Performer Heritage Thomas Hardy
Tess of the D’Urbervilles: .7
setting • The late 19th century in the county of Wessex, the fictional name of the County of Dorset. • Tess lives in the village of Marlott. • She goes to the village of Tantridge to work as a poultry maid when her family falls on hard times. • After giving birth to a baby, she moves to Talbothays Dairy in southern England to work as a milkmaid. A view across North Devon, part of Hardy's Wessex. • When her husband deserts her to go to Brazil, she takes a job at Flitcombe Ash in the fields in winter. • She finally becomes Alec D’Urberville’s mistress in the seaside resort of Sandbourne. • After killing Alec she is arrested at Stonehenge.
Performer Heritage Thomas Hardy
Tess of the D’Urbervilles: .7
characters Tess • A beautiful, innocent 16-year-old girl who lives with her poor family. • Helps her father support the family when their horse dies. • Has attended the Sixth Standard in the National School under a London teacher. • Is raped by Alec D’Urberville and gets pregnant. • Embodies the qualities of affection and trust. Gemma Arterton as Tess. • Has the powers of suffering and survival.
Performer Heritage Thomas Hardy
Tess of the D’Urbervilles: .7
characters Alec • A rich young man.
• Bears a title his father bought.
• Gives Tess a job as a poultry
maid and makes sexual advances towards her. Tess, 1979, Nastassia Kinski and Leigh Lawton. • Uses his social status to seize what he wants.
• Regardless of any morality.
• In the last part of the novel is
converted to Christianity by Reverend Clare, Angel’s father.
Performer Heritage Thomas Hardy
Tess of the D’Urbervilles: .7
Angel characters • The son of a vicar.
• Has studied at Cambridge and
wants to start a career in agriculture.
• Has modern and liberal ideas.
• Sees Tess in idealised terms.
• Proves strict and dogmatic when Tess, 1979, Nastassia Kinski and Tess confesses her past to him. Peter Firth.
• After marrying Tess, he deserts
her to go to Brazil.
Performer Heritage Thomas Hardy
Tess of the D’Urbervilles: .7
themes • Distorted Victorian morality.
• The relativity of moral values.
• The opposition between
man-made laws and nature.
• The fallen woman.
• Criticism of religious belief.
Tess, 1979, Nastassia Kinski as Tess.
Performer Heritage Thomas Hardy
Jude the Obscure (1895) .8
Jude Fawley:
•boy from a poor village;
•wants to become a student at the University of Christminster; •works as a stonemason and studies in his free time; •marries Arabella Donn; •has a son, Little Father Time; •moves to Christminster after the end of his marriage.
Performer Heritage Thomas Hardy
Jude the Obscure (1895) .8
Jude Fawley: •meets his cousin Sue Bridehead; •decides to live with her, though refusing the institution of marriage;; •has a second son and a daughter; •lives the scandalous relationship with the disapproval of the narrow-minded people of the university town; •loses his job and experiences poverty.
Performer Heritage Thomas Hardy
Jude the Obscure: setting .8
• Part I: Marygreen young Jude develops a passion for a
university education. • Part II: Christminster Jude finds that access to university is impossible for a working-class man. • Part III: Melchester Jude aims to study for the church, in the hope of entering a theological college. • Part IV: Shaston Sue asks Phillotson for her freedom and returns to Jude. • Part V: Aldbrickham Sue and Jude finally agree to live together. • Part VI: Christbminster tragedy takes place. place.
Performer Heritage Thomas Hardy
Jude’s obscurity .9 The novel follows the Victorian convention of placing an orphan at the centre of the story.
But:
•denies him the possibility to fulfill his hopes;
•takes him from defeat to defeat.
The tragedy of Jude is one of:
•frustration; •loneliness; •uprooting.
Jude is obscure because he does not ‘exist’ for
others.
Performer Heritage Thomas Hardy
Sue Bridehead .10
Represents Jude’s ideal
•The intellectual woman.
•She promises him freedom and
strength.
BUT
•She frustrates him and
retreats into conventional life.
•Unconventional but fragile. Kate Winslet as Sue
Bridehead.
•Shares Jude’s sharp
sensistivity. Performer Heritage Thomas Hardy
Jude the Obscure: .11
themes •Questioning of the sanctity of marriage vows.
•Issue of divorce.
•Issue of higher education for
the working class. Kate Winslet and Christopher Eccleston in •The new figure of woman Jude, 1996.
struggling for independence of
thought and action.
Performer Heritage Thomas Hardy
Jude the Obscure: .12
style Symmetrical pattern
marriage desertion divorce remarriage
Third-person omniscient narrator
Develops the story
Denies him the possibility through the characters’ to explain everything. repetitive dialogues.
