can anybody explain the social , economic , and political conditions reflected in The Book MAYOR OF CASTER BRIDGE and highlight important developments and problems existing in 19th and 20th century
Printable View
can anybody explain the social , economic , and political conditions reflected in The Book MAYOR OF CASTER BRIDGE and highlight important developments and problems existing in 19th and 20th century
do you honestly expect us to write your school essay for you? its simple. read the book twice. first time is just to familiarise yourself with the story. second time, you read it while taking dense analytical notes on certain topics, such as politics and economics. if you want the best grades, i suggest reading the book at least 3 times.
Hardy was at once a "child of his age and a rebel against it". The Victorian age was marked by a spirit of compromise and the leaders of thought had somewhat arrived at a self-complacent philosophy which finds its poetic expression in Browning's famous lines :-
"God is in His Heaven
All's right with the World"
Hardy was a stern realist, who looking steadily at life was profoundly affected by the sham and hypocrisy of modern civilization. Thus in a famous passage in "Tess" he makes one of the characters quote the lines of Browning : with peculiar emendations of his own--
" God's not in His Heaven, all's wrong with the World" Hardy condemns the whole of modern civilization in the most emphatic terms and in this respect he was like Rousseau, an extremist in revolt.
The scenes of Hardy's novels are laid in a primitive corner of England, where civilization has not made its appearence. For this region Hardy revived its old name of Wessex. It is partly real and partly imaginary. As to the social background we find that the life of the people still ran in the old groove. It was quite untouched by the faintest sprinkle of modernism. Some of the traditional customs and beliefs still persisted. Thus the curfew still rang in the evenings as a signal for putting out household fires. Old superstitions die hard in Casterbridge. The custom of burning of the waxen image of a person in the belief that person thus represented may be harmed in some way, prevails among these rude and primitive people.
Interesting comments, Dipen. Hardy was a realist in that he worked hard at describing his characters and their lives true to what he saw and felt. However, Hardy also made extensive use of intensifications that seem so implausible as to lack credibility. In Tess, Angel's behavior while sleep walking is hard to accept as realism. In turn, Tess' "experience" in rejoining Angel following her killing Alec might be a parallel to sleepwalking and perhaps an entirely fantasized experience by a character who has lost her grip on reality owing to her body and soul being disassociated and adrift. Using an unrealistic fantasy brings the reader closer to the reality of Tess' desperate state.
The point I'm trying to make, not to deny your point but to expand it a bit, is that Hardy didn't mind approaching reality with intensifying means at his disposal, including the surreal.
One very quick reply would be the phenomenon of urbanization, especially the growth of agricultural towns, i.e towns serving the surrounding villages. Also, except for mention of newson who has been to the americas, there seems to be no concern for international events, for example the situation in india
But as others have pointed out, you should possibly go through it yourself a couple of times after finding the period the novel was set in and doing your research on the historical events that occurred during that period