The Conflicts Between Henchard and Farfrae in the Mayor of Casterbridge

Abstract

Abstract:The Mayor of Casterbridge is one of the most successful novels of Thomas Hardy, who is a famous English writer in the later part of the Victorian age. The Mayor of Casterbridge has been a very controversial novel since its publication. Critics all over the world have done lots of pieces of researchin revealing its theme, analyzing its characters and exploring its writing techniques. But very few researchers focus on the differences between the two mayors of Casterbridge. This paper intends make an all-round exploration on the conflicts between Henchard and Farfrae in the novel. Henchard and Farfrae, the two mayors of Casterbridge, have very different destinies due to their distinct characteristic. Henchard is a man from the old; he stands for the old and outdated force. It is evitable that Henchard, the old mayor, a representative from the old world will be replaced by Farfrae, the new mayor who symbolizes the new force and the new world. Two pairs of contrasts, tradition versus modernization and stubbornness versus flexibility, are discussed in details in the paper.