THE WORLD OF THOMAS HARDY

(With special reference to his Novels)

By Dr. M. V. RAMA SARMA, M.A., Ph.D. (Wales)

(Head of the English Dept., Sri Venkateswara University, Tirupati)

When we talk of Hardy we invariably think of pessimism. But perhaps this is an unfortunate term that is often associated with Hardy and his novels. Hardy did not like to be called a pessimist and he stoutly maintained that he was no atheist. While referring to pessimism he remarked: “Pessimism (rather what is called such) is, in brief, playing the sure game. You cannot lose at it; you may gain. It is the only view of life in which you can never be disappointed. Having reckoned what to do in the worst possible circumstances, when better arise, as they may, life becomes a child’s play.”¹ So pessimism was no negative attitude with him. Equally enlightening were some of his comments on philosophy and atheism. “Let every man make a philosophy for himself out of his own experience” ² and on another occasion he observed, “Much confusion has arisen and much nonsense has been talked latterly in connection with the word ‘atheist’. I have never understood how anybody can be one except in the sense of disbelieving in a tribal god, man-shaped, fiery-faced and tyrannous...” ³ These lines should clearly indicate to us that he was no village atheist brooding and blaspheming over village idiots.

In his own day critics were very much upset by his concluding remark in Tess, “The President of the Immortals has ended i his sport with Tess.” This was taken as an expression of Hardy’s faith in an all-powerful being, endowed with baser human passions, who turned everything to evil and rejoiced in the mischief he had created thereby. Hardy was vehement in opposing this misconceived view of the critics. Nothing could be more emphatic and at the same time palpably clear as the reply he gave on this occasion: “As I need hardly inform any thinking reader, I do not hold, and never have held, the ludicrous opinions here assumed to be mine–which are really, or approximately, those of the primitive believer in his man-shaped tribal God.” ⁴

Hardy’s poems also had come in for a good deal of criticism, for some of them suggested the non-existence of some Supreme Force controlling the universe justly and wisely. In poems like Hap and Nature’s Questioning this tone was marked and predominant.

“Crass Casualty obstructs the sun and rain,

And dicing Time for gladness casts a moan...

These purblind Doomsters had as readily strewn

Blisses about my pilgrimage as pain.” (Hap)

“Has some Vast Imbecility,

Mighty to build and blend,

But impotent to tend,

Framed in jest, and left us now to hazardry?”

(Nature’s Questioning)

Naturally these lines, quoted above, Suggested that the power behind the universe was an imbecile jester. But Hardy defended himself vigorously: “...a writer’s work should be judged as a whole, and not from picked passages that contradict them as a whole–and this especially when they are scattered over a period of fifty years…..A poem often quoted against me, and apparently in your mind in the lecture, is the one called Nature’s Questioning containing the words, ‘some Vast Imbecility’ etc., as if these definitions were my creed.” ⁵

All these replies that Hardy had given to the bitter critics of his day would enable us to come to certain conclusions. Hardy was not a pessimist or an atheist. Nor was he a philosopher in the strict sense. He no doubt read the works of philosophers like Bergson but his comments were not very favourable. ⁶ So his philosophy (as he himself said) was based on his own individual experiences. What then were the experiences that led him to probe into the mysteries of the universe? What exactly was the type of the world he lived in and created for others?

These two questions require a careful study. The world he lived in was essentially a rustic world, with the old order giving place to a new one. The certainties were no longer accepted as such and much of that ‘obstinate questioning’ was reflected in his novels. The world he created for the others, through his novels especially, was a tragic one. Tragedy according to him “may be created by an opposing environment either of things inherent in the universe, or of human institutions.” ⁷ So the tragic stress in his novels was based on the opposition of the unseen forces or by the cold unfeeling society. His experiences, as far as his own private life was concerned, seemed to be quite pleasant. ⁸ But with his sensitive nature he was rudely shocked in seeing much of marital unhappiness and general misery all around him. He naturally asked himself why there should be all that misery if there had been a loving and benevolent God above. So all his novels and his poems were expressions of his doubts, misgivings and perplexities as regards the justice of God. When he thought of God he had the concept of the impersonal one in his mind. He was not clear whether this spirit was capable of doing good or bad. To what extent men and women were responsible for their deeds and whether they were completely free–these problems also were taken up by him. To a large extent he believed in Man’s Free Will, though he also accepted Predestination. He even wondered whether the blind and brute chance alone was working in this universe. With his spirit of interrogation he could not just be a blind fundamentalist, nor could he be a thoroughgoing rationalist.⁹ His love for Nature and his refined sentimentalism could not make him blind to the existence of some Supreme Spirit. It was indeed a difficult task for him to reconcile within himself these two warring elements, one taking him away from everything accepted and the other drawing him nearer to convention again. Each one of his major novels bears this conflict. However, a superficial study of his novels is bound to leave us with the impression that something is wrong with Hardy’s presentation of life. It does not seem to be satisfying or satisfactory. An unbalance, a restlessness, a spiritual vacuum and an undignified humanity–these are the different phases of the world of Hardy’s novels. We realise and feel the utter futility of earthly longings. Crass casualty and pitiless Fate seem to be dominating the whole show. What a gloomy picture! But this is only one side of the picture, unfortunately the better known one.

A closer and more sympathetic examination of Hardy’s novels, his correspondence and memoirs, will yield an altogether different picture. His writings always present his inward struggle–his admiration for everything new and at the same time his hesitancy to accept the innovations as complete and final. A few lines from Tess will illustrate my viewpoint. Tess is seduced and Hardy comes forward with a series of questions, and within these few lines he presents the various worlds of thought that had been prevalent in his day: “But, might some say, where was Tess’s guardian angel? Where was the Providence of her simple faith?” This may have been the reaction of the simple country folk believing in the justice of God. The next few lines, “Perhaps, like that other god of whom the ironical Tishbite spoke, he was talking, or he was pursuing, or he was in a journey, or he was sleeping and not to be disturbed,” suggest the unbelief and the interrogative attitude that has come as a result of rationalism and the rationalist school of thought. Then in the following lines, “Why it was that upon this beautiful feminine tissue, sensitive as gossamer, and practically blank as snow as yet, there should have been traced such a coarse pattern as it was doomed to receive; why so often the coarse appropriates the finer thus, the wrong man the woman, the wrong woman the man,” there is the world of philosophical speculation trying to formulate the basis for the glaring inequalities, unfairness and marital disharmonies that loom large in the world. There is also the reference to the psychological thought with its due emphasis on Heredity and Environment as deciding factors in life, for good or for bad, as the case may be. This is well illustrated when Hardy comments, “One may, indeed, admit the possibility of retribution lurking in the present catastrophe. Doubtless some of Tess d’urberville’s mailed ancestors rollicking home for a fray had dealt the same measure even more ruthlessly towards peasant girls of their time.” ¹⁰ Ultimately he quotes the popular saying of the humble rustics of Wessex, “It was to be”. This exactly is the world he lived in. Like the above mentioned rationalists, analytical philosophers and psychologists, he has also tried to understand the complicated problems of life. But as he expresses quite towards the close of his life in one of his letters, “the scheme of things is, indeed, incomprehensible; and there I suppose we must leave it–perhaps for the best. Knowledge might be terrible,” ¹¹ he nearly accepts the last possible explanation for Tess’s seduction, “It was to be”. This apparently fatalist observation does not in any way mean an acceptance of defeat and a willful subordination of one’s own will to some unseen Force. Hardy does not portray his characters that way. They put in a mighty effort; if they fail they are not to be blamed. There is free will, but predestination can neither be ignored, nor lightly taken. Again this predestination is not a completely binding force. Henchard, Tess and Jude–they all fight to the end. They die nobly and gloriously. But peculiarly enough Hardy is always suggesting the justice involved in each one of these tragic ends given to these characters. Henchard has himself to blame. His wrongheaded diplomacy, his eerie superstition, his sentimental nature–all these make a travesty of his life. Tess murders Alec–rightly or wrongly–and she has to pay for what she has done. Jude with his unfortunate uxoriousness enters into a bad alliance with Arabella, the crude voluptuous woman and later into an unholy alliance with Sue, the romantically passionate woman. He ends up miserably. These three major creations of Hardy are essentially tragic. Despite their fall, Henchard, Tess and Jude win our sympathies, if not our admiration. To sum up, Hardy presents before us the mighty potentialities of Man, his capabilities and resources to create or to destroy. But even these powerful men and women have to go down, because ‘it has to be’. There is something greater than Man’s will. As yet–by the time he writes his novels–he has not used the term ‘Immanent Will’. It comes only with his writing of the Dynasts, his epic-drama. So man’s will, however powerful it may be, has to yield to the Immanent Will. But this tragic end given to these major characters is not based on any illogical system. They deserve their fall, they merit it. That is justice. Hardy harps on this repeatedly. It does not appear as though some wicked force is pulling down Henchard and Jude and tearing them to pieces. They have created for themselves such circumstances that they can never escape their doom. Winterborne, of all Hardy’s characters, is taken to be more sinned against than sinning. But in the novel itself there are certain clues to prove the contrary. Grace tells Winterborne. “Giles, if you had only shown half the boldness before I married that you show now, you would have carried me off for your own, first instead of second.” Winterborne is cold and moody; he lacks the persuasive eloquence of Fitzpiers and he does not possess even the assertive attitude of Gabriel Oak and Diggory Venn. Besides, his absolute indifference towards Marty South can never be justified. He knows full well that she is devoted to him and that he is in a way torturing her by not accepting her hand. Still he keeps himself busy with thoughts of Grace. Hardy could not have given to Giles what he had given to Gabriel Oak and Diggory Venn–ultimate success in love. So on the whole Hardy’s attitude towards life is one of accepting justice as the most predominant factor in the universe. But this word ‘justice’ does not have any mystic significance for him. It is simply based on the law of causation.¹² If certain deeds are done they will have their consequences. We can never escape the fruits of our action. It is not blind chance that is ruling the universe, it is a systematised process where each one of our actions will have a bearing on our future. This is the type of the world he has actually presented in his novels, not the erratic one as it is generally supposed to be.

The characters fit into this world. In Shakespearean tragedies there are certain characters like Cordelia and Desdemona who yield without much of a struggle for existence. No doubt Desdemona pleads for her life in the last minutes, but this is neither a strong plea. nor a timely one. Why should Cordelia die? Evidently there is no answer. Then it must be the perverse Fate that has dealt them a fatal blow. If this be our explanation, when surely Shakespeare too is a pessimist. And so many other writers of tragedies also come under this category, for in every tragedy there is the predominance of evil over good, at least temporarily. If we argue in this manner we will be misunderstanding the concept of tragedy itself. In some of the great tragedies there is the suggestion of retribution, whereas in some others the tragic end alone is presented. Sophoclean tragedy stresses the “death accepted in calm of mind, with strength unshaken.” Just because the good are made to suffer we need not come to the conclusion that the writer is disbelieving in the ultimate prevalence of justice or of righteousness. In the silent suffering of Desdemona and Cordelia there is the grand Sophoclean theme of tragedy. In a similar fashion the intense suffering of Henchard. Tess and Jude–apparently suggestive of pessimistic faith–is essentially the basic principle for tragedy of the Sophoclean type. As we read Hardy’s novels, especially the major ones, we tend to comment, “Tragedy’s preoccupation is with suffering....There is no dignity like the dignity of a soul in agony...The suffering of a soul that can suffer greatly–that and only that, is tragedy.”¹³ Henchard’s will and his resignation to suffering, “that Elizabeth-Jane Farfrae be not told of my death or made to grieve on account of me...that no man remember me, etc…” has that Sophoclean grandeur and tragic intensity.

Hardy often presents life as a battle. Of the six major novels (Return of the Native, Far from the Madding Crowd, Woodlanders, The Mayor of Casterbridge, Tess and Jude) in the first three there is only the presentation of the tragic stress. They are not tragedies in the real sense, as the last three are. Their happy endings–a concession to popular taste–artificial as they are, prevent them from being great masterpieces of tragedy. In these three novels the conflict is presented at the emotional level. Bathsheba (Far from the Madding Crowd) plays a crude prank with Boldwood and falls passionately in love with Sargeant Troy. The latter has already deserted Fanny, so he has to pay for his deed. Bathsheba ultimately gets Oak, the staunch, faithful type of lover as her husband. Eustacia Wye (Return of the Native) the passionate type of woman marries the cold Clym Yeobright, and Wildeve the passionate man marries Thomasin, the simple, modest woman. Thus affections are misplaced, and after the storm and stress of all these ill-suited alliances, Thomasin gets Venn, the raddleman, a husband she deserves. Grace (Woodlanders) makes herself miserable by getting married to a gay, unreliable person like Fitzpiers. In these three novels Hardy’s main purpose is to show the temperamental differences and indicate how these incompatibilities lead to tragic plights in the marital sphere. No doubt the world he presents here is a limited one–it is the world of lovers, that too unthinking, if not foolish lovers.

When he takes up the Mayor he is more experienced in the technique of writing and here the great tragedy is based on the individual eccentricities of Henchard. Henchard, the drunkard, transforms himself into a Mayor through his strong will-power and determination. The same Henchard loses everything through his stubbornness and wrongheaded policies. The conflict responsible for tragic intensity in this novel is at the personal level. Henchard need not find fault with anyone, not even with his own Fate. Hardy here poses a problem–Character or Destiny, which is more important and significant in shaping and moulding the life of Man? All thinking persons, right from the day of creation to the present day, must have thought of this relationship of Character and Destiny. Divines and theologians have waxed eloquent over this perplexing problem of Free Will and Predestination. Hardy therefore is now taking up a theme of universal interest and Henchard is all through colossal and grand. But Hardy does not make this problem so simple as that. With his own undecided mental make-up to put absolute faith in Free Will or in Predestination, he wavers between these two and presents a conflict at a personal level. Henchard seems to be fighting with what is predestined for him.

Hardy changes his technique of writing when he comes to his last two novels, Tess and Jude. Here these two great figures, Tess and Jude, have to fight the social laws, however meaningless they may be. Tess wishes to forget her past, her shameful past with Alec, and start afresh with Angel Clare. But it is not such an easy job as she expects. She does not realise the risk she is taking when she allows herself to be seduced by Alec. The consequences of that ignorant but foolish action–the birth of the child, its irreligious baptism and its ultimate exit from this world–are too distressful to be narrated. It is the social wrath that obliges Tess and her family to leave Marlott, for, “It was, indeed, quite true that the household had not been shining examples either of temperance, soberness or chastity.” (Tess). Her unfortunate alliances with men doom her completely. Her suffering comes to a close only when the black flag is flying, thereby bringing before us the Sophoclean world where suffering and its annihilation through death are the essential factors for the presentation of tragedy. Jude defies society; he gets Sue, his married cousin, to live with him. This unlicensed marriage, rather relationship with Sue, takes him away from his original plan of becoming a scholar. From place to place he moves, for, the moment the truth is known about his abnormal sexual life with Sue, he is persecuted. Hardy presents this conflict that comes at the social level with any amount of sympathetic understanding. Tess and Jude wish to live and live happily, if they can. Tess violates the social laws unknowingly, whereas Jude does it deliberately and with considered Scorn for the narrow conventionalities of society. The end is dismal for both of them. It is bound to be, for, any flagrant violation of social laws will certainly have its own repercussions. Sue’s moral scruples towards the close, as contrasted with the stubborn refusal of Jude to bow before tradition, once again shows Hardy’s immense interest in and hesitancy for the new social set-up that is fast coming up towards the beginning of the twentieth century. His liberal attitude towards Tess and Jude need not be stressed at all, for it is quite well known. At the same time his philosophical doctrines and his aesthetic preference for tragedy almost compel him to give only tragic ends to his otherwise beloved creations–Henchard, Tess and Jude.

Then a word about the machinery, the supernatural element in his novels; here omens, astrological predictions, superstitious beliefs mar the pleasant atmosphere and create a dark and dismal world. Chance coincidences always tend to be for the complete undoing of Man. They never help him; they mar his prospects. This device of Hardy is taken as an instance of his pessimistic faith. But how does Shakespeare manipulate the tragic heights of Othello–only by the dropping of a single handkerchief. A simple accident like this destroys the idyllic life of Othello and Desdemona and brings about an end that is pitiful and harrowing. Hardy does the same thing in weaving a net of unpleasant accidents and chance coincidences. Stray lines are often the basis for unhesitating comments on Hardy’s pessimism. Here is a scene from The Return of the Native. Eustacia is talking to Clym Yeobright: “Yet I know that we shall not love like this always. Nothing can ensure the continuance of love. It will evaporate like a spirit, and so I feel full of fears.” Eustacia and Clym are at the height of their emotions. This is an occasion for triumphant declarations of love and faith. But peculiarly enough Eustacia talks in a halting, suspecting vein. Unfortunately, according to the critics, this is a typical example of Hardy’s pessimism. Surely it is, if we read these lines alone. Her frank comments coming immediately after this cold calculated speech indicate to us certain valid reasons for this gloom. She has loved another man, and as she puts it, “Your mother will find ours that you meet me, and she will influence you against me.” She is correct in her fears. Her not-too-fair past is known to Clym’s mother and she is afraid of that disclosure and the possible influence of the mother over her son. Eustacia is shrewd; so the above lines suggestive of her gloom are not out of place. With a realistic approach she believes that, all her happiness may be only short-lived. In fact such lines given to the various characters in the novels should be taken only as dramatic utterances and should not be confused with the novelist’s way or thinking or his sincere faith.

Hardy, as a literary artist, thus presents ably and convincingly the Sophoclean world of tragedy with its due emphasis on suffering, and death as the reliever and redeemer of such a strife. As a philosophic thinker he presents life as a great battle fought from several angles, emotional, personal and social. At the same time he realises the limitations of Man’s efforts, however great they may be. There is always that conflict between Man’s limited will and the all-powerful will dominating the universe. This struggle is often a losing one for Man, but that does not matter, for Hardy is interested only in the presentation of the strife and not in bringing it to a successful close for Man. That is because of his peculiar poetic bent of mind. Even in great tragedies poetic justice is often not very effective. Apparently flawless persons receive the most crushing blows, that too for no fault of theirs. Yet in Hardy’s novels the sense of justice is to a large extent maintained and reflected. Despite his strong temperamental bias for Jude and Tess, he gives them the ends they deserve. These tragic ends are partly based on the law of causation and also on his individual preference for the glorification of suffering and strife in Life. Hardy has thus brought about a synthesis between his aesthetic tastes and his philosophic thinking, thereby making his novels great works of art as well as philosophical treatises.

¹ L. T. H. (Life of Thomas Hardy) by F. E. H. (Florence Emily Hardy) Vol ii. P. 91. Reflection made on Jan 1, 1902.

² Ibid. P. 91. Reflection made on Dec. 31, 1901.

³ Ibid. P. 176. “From a letter to Dr. L. Litwinski. March 7, 1917.”

⁴ L. T. H. by F. E. H., P. 4. Hardy’s reply to some critics, written down but not posted, of the year 1892.

⁵ Ibid P. 216. “From a letter to Mr. Alfred Noyes” Dec. 19th, 1920.

⁶ Ibid P. 272. “Letter to Dr. Saleeby, Maxgate, Dorchester” 16th March, 1915.

⁷ “Letter to Dr. Saleeby” P. 44. Hardy’s remark on one of the reviews on Jude.

⁸ Somerset Maugham’s Cakes and Ale is supposed to be a portrayal of Hardy’s life with his first wife. Maugham, however, denies any such intention in his Preface: “This was not my intention. He (Hardy) was no more in my mind than George Meredith or Anatole France.” Even if it had been a picture of Hardy’s domestic life it does not make us believe that he was unhappy in his marita life, for Driffield (supposed to be Hardy) in Cakes and Ale is blissfully indifferent to his wife’s flirtations.

⁹ L. T. H. by F. E. H. Vol. ii–Pages 209.210. A letter written by Hardy’s wife as he was suffenng from cold, 18-2-1920. “He (Hardy) says he thinks he is in irrationalist, on account of his inconsistencies……Moreover he thinks he could show that no man is a rationalist, and that human actions are not ruled by reason at all in the last resort.”

¹⁰ According to the theory of ‘Karma’ we are responsible not only for our deeds, but also for our parents’ deeds. Hardy’s explanation sounds like this. Different kinds of ‘Karma’ are recognised by Hindu view: praaabdha, sanehita and agami.

¹¹ L. T. H. by F. E. H. Vol ii. P. 218. From “A letter to Mr. Alfred Noyes, Dec. 19th, 1920”.

¹² Hardy in one of his letters defines, God, as ‘the cause of things’. Fifty meanings attach to the word ‘God’ now-a-days, the only reasonable meaning being the Cause of Things, whatever that cause may be” (Letter to Dr. L. Litwinski, March 7.1917). I. T. H. by F. E. H. Vol ii. P. 176.

¹³ The Greek way to Western Civilisation by Edith Hamilton. Pages 130 and 131.

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