Giles Winterbourne (The Woodlanders)

[kev67]

I have nearly finished the book, so watch out for spoilers.

I wonder why Giles had to be such a saint. When Grace came to him for help, surely he should have told her that he was ill, rather than sleeping under some sort of wood shelter so that she could sleep in his hut. Surely his health was more important than her reputation. He might even have reasonably asked her for some help. As it was he died and stuck her with a bad conscience, which she in no way deserved.

Actually, I wonder what disease it was that carried him off. It was a disease he made a partial recovery from but then caused a relapse. It didn't seem to be consumption for a change. Would proper nursing have made a difference? Had Giles not have been evicted from his house, his old family retainer, Robert Creedle would surely have been there to nurse him. Dr Fitzpiers gave Grace a phial of some drug that cured her of the disease, which she had caught by kissing Giles (I think). I suspect this drug is one of Hardy's own alchemical inventions, which existed in Wessex but not in the real world.

[Maple]

Why did Giles sacrifice his dwindling health for Grace's comfort and purity? Wasn''t Giles health and life was worth far more?

It's a good question because it's hard to imagine any readers not asking it. The following are my unworthy speculations.

1. If Giles had stayed in his cabin with Grace people would have assumed Grace's impurity regardless of the truth. This would have made the novel altogther different. Hardy seems to craft his novels with a main character being a moral exemplar. It's Giles death, after all, that boosts him from being a good and dependable man who's a loser in love into a moral exemplar worshiped in death.

2. As I recall, in all of Hardy's major novels an important character dies, sometimes more than one. The death of these characters added at least a little intensity to the novels. Now, if Giles had died falling from a tree that wouldn't necessarily have intensified much. But, to die in uncomplaining self-sacrifice for Grace, a woman he loved, his life means more and is noble in its altruism.

3.` With the inability of Grace to be divorced from Fitzpiers, Giles accepts that he cannot ever act out the love he has for Grace. While he bears that disappointment stoically, he not only felt the loss deeply but probably wondered about the purpose of his life. In that depressed state nobly sacrificing his life to Grace may have seemed like the reasonable thing to do. In death, he may have felt, he gave the fullest expression of his love of Grace possible. To quote from John 15:13: "Greater love has no one than this, that one lay down his life for his friends."

4. Hardy often included characters in his novel intended to help describe other characters. In the case of Giles, he's a clear contrast to Fitzpiers in a number of ways. Perhaps the most important trait in contrast is how they treat the woman they both love. Fitzpiers spoke of wishing Grace were dead so he'd be free to romance Felice Charmond. Where Fitzpiers is mercurial and unfaithful in love, Giles is resolute and holds his love for Grace more deeply in his heart than his own survival instinct.

Regardless of why Giles sacrificed himself to Grace, readers seem to accept it. The novel was successful when first published and it remains well regarded today.

[Maple]

Kev, following Giles death Fitzpiers suggests it was typhoid that killed him. What was in the vial (phial, if you must) that Fitzpiers provides Grace that prevents the disease is a mystery.

On the point of Giles' self-sacrificing death inflicting a needless misery on Grace, on one level you're right. On another level, however, the consequence of this misery is to deepen Grace's appreciation of Giles and altruism evidenced in his example. While Grace was never a bad person, she began the novel without maturity. She has feelings but her actions are directed by her father, who is not a wise counselor. The miseries that befall Fitzpiers and Grace are key in leading them towards being better people. Again Hardy exhibits better people as those who act for the well being of others, i.e. altruism.

[kev67]

Grace is not exactly rebellious. I was surprised she was so prepared to go along with her father's plans for her so readily, first to marry Winterbourne, then to marry Fitzpiers, neither of whom she really loved. Her attitude to Giles ranged from cool to fond, but never impassioned. TBH, I am not sure Grace really needed a lot of improvement, just to meet some more young men. Surely these are what all those dances in Jane Austen's books were for. I doubt Fitzpiers will improve much. Grace does appreciate Giles very much when she learns how much he sacrificed himself for her, but it was still silly of Giles imo. At the end of the book, Grace and Fitzpiers prepare to leave the area and Marty South will continue to mourn for Giles on her own. The sad thing for me is that Giles never reciprocated Marty's feelings.

[Maple]

Kev, I agree. It is sad about Marty's unrequited love for Giles; unrequited love by a good person is sad. But there are few if any characters in The Woodlanders with happy love lives. Giles love for Grace was fulfilled only by sacrificing his life for her. Grace was slow to discover even nascent love for either Giles or Fitzpiers. Fitzpiers enjoyed Suke Damson and was infatuated with Felice Charmond, but we can only hope he's on the path to genuinely love Grace at the novel's end. George Melford second wife, Grace's stepmother, was married because George felt she'd be good for Grace, not that he loved her. Tim may have loved Suke, but after two months of marriage he was disillusioned and considered his marriage a failure. Suke seems to have loved Fitzpiers. The love Grace exhibits resembles contented compliance to a role or duty.

Hardy seems to be telling us that you have to be very lucky to find happiness in marriage. In light of that message, we might reconsider how sad we should be about Marty. She knew Giles and knew his virtues. This being a Hardy novel, it's likely if Marty had married Giles they'd have found unhappiness. But, in her unrequited love Marty's high view of Giles will never be dampened and she'll love him dearly for the rest of her life. Hardy might've thought she was one of the luckiest characters in the novel.

[kev67]

Hardy seems to be telling us that you have to be very lucky to find happiness in marriage. In light of that message, we might reconsider how sad we should be about Marty. She knew Giles and knew his virtues. This being a Hardy novel, it's likely if Marty had married Giles they'd have found unhappiness. But, in her unrequited love Marty's high view of Giles will never be dampened and she'll love him dearly for the rest of her life. Hardy might've thought she was one of the luckiest characters in the novel.

Yes, probably. All the same, Marty must have known Giles all her life. If he had many character faults, she would probably know about them.

I have read elsewhere that it is unusual for children who grow up together to fall in love. For example, I have read that no children who grew up in Kibbutz (sp?) ever married. I believe it's a psychological response to prevent inbreeding. I wondered therefore whether Marty's love for Giles, or even Giles' love for Grace was realistic. I am not sure what practices were like back then. Did most people marry people from their own village, or did they look a little further afield? I have heard that even the invention of the bicycle extended people's range, so that they could find someone in a neighbouring village, not just their own. The atmosphere in the book is claustrophobic. Most the woodlanders are perhaps a little bored with each other. Maybe this is what made Fitzpiers so interesting: he was a new man in the village.

I wondered about George Melford's attitude to his second wife. George dotes on his daughter, but his second marriage was a marriage of convenience. George was happy with that arrangement, but I wondered what his wife thought. Why didn't they ever have children?

Thomas Hardy had an unhappy marriage, which is maybe no surprise after reading his books.

[Maple]

Kev, the Kibbutz, as I understand it, is a close knit communal existence in which children of similar age bond with each other similar to siblings within families. Also in the Kibbutz communities live was oriented around the common task of agriculture so that everyone shares and works at a common interest. From the little I know about Little Hintock, the children of other families knew each other more like "the girl next door", who sometimes becomes a love interest in adulthood.

You, I and most of us might find Little Hintock confined and its residents boring, but Hardy seems to find it idyllic. Hardy describes the residents as in harmony with itself and the land. To make this point clearer virtually every intrusion of modernity and outsiders causes Little Hintock harm. This harm begins with the fox hunters who insult George Melford who convince George Melford to raise Grace to be the fox hunters social equals. Then Barber Percomb, acting as Felice's agent, shears Marty's scalp so Felice can have a nice wig. It goes on this way with all the foreign inserts into Little Hintock. What happens at Little Hintock is not unlike what happens to Eve and Adam with the snake coaching self-consciousness, and worldly knowledge.