Thomas Hardy’s The Mayor of Casterbridge brings to light the harsh reality of Victorian society’s treatment of women. This aspect of the novel may be illustrated by discussing the main female characters of the novel, namely Susan Henchard, Lucetta Templeman, and Elizabeth-Jane Newson.
Henchard’s auctioning off his wife to the highest bidder at Weydon Fair verifies that in early nineteenth-century England women of her class in rural districts were regarded as little more than stock to be disposed of at their owners’ whims: “it has been done elsewhere” affirms that such sales were not uncommon. Susan’s speech carries a stamp of her anguish against the treatment she received from Henchard. Eighteen years later, when Susan returns to Henchard, destitute after Richard Newson being reported lost, Henchard attempts to make amends. The remarriage of Michael and Susan is the product of what Hardy terms “business-like determination” and “strict mechanical rightness” in Henchard’s conscientious thinking.
After her return Susan shows remarkable integrity and character development. She is now endowed with a personal will, feelings and aspirations. Her self-assertion is very remarkable, “Had he (Newson) not died I should never have come —never! Of that you may be sure.” There is no denying to the fact that Susan’s primary concern was the safe future of her daughter, and moreover, we must admit that she was honest in her confession about the secret of Elizabeth-Jane’s fatherhood, although she deliberately reveals it late to Henchard because she wanted no harm to the sentiments and feelings of either of them.
Henchard is shown as impulsive and inconsistent, but this impulsiveness and inconsistency clashes with Lucetta who is presented as a very ambitious woman. As she comes to know that Henchard is going to remarry Susan, she wants her past love-letters back. She considers these letters as a safeguard to make any future happiness possible to her own self. But, again, when she learns that Susan is dead, she comes to Casterbridge in order to marry Henchard. But Lucetta, too, like Susan, has undergone a change now. She has inherited a large property from her recently deceased aunt. She is now her own mistress. This economic independence gives her a courage to alter her choice from Henchard, whom she now considers as ‘hot tempered and stern’ and she also thinks that it would be madness to bind herself to him.
What destroy Lucetta are the attitudes of society. For much of her existence in the novel she is the subject of ridicule. When word is circulated throughout her native Jersey about her intimacy with Henchard, it is she and not Henchard who suffers humiliation. This intimacy, when revealed in Casterbridge, leads to her social downfall, a miscarriage, and subsequently her death.
Susan could not feel completely secured about her daughter’s position in the hands of Henchard. So she wanted Elizabeth-Jane to marry Donald Farfrae. Susan was partially correct in foreseeing this, because after discovering the secret of Elizabth’s fatherhood, Henchard turned indifferent and harsh toward Elizabeth-Jane.
Although Elizabeth-Jane is not subjected to the public ridicule and mistreatment to the same extent as Susan and Lucetta; but Henchard again appears to be the main instigator of her worries. From the very beginning of Henchard’s remarriage, he expects Elizabeth to behave like the daughter of a Mayor. He finds her style of handwriting not up to the mark. He assumes that since Elizabeth Jane is a female, she should write ladies’-hand. Eventually, we find that Henchard’s attitude toward Elizabeth changes her. She finds solace in Lucetta Templeman, because she thinks that if she stays with Lucetta, she can enjoy the kind of freedom she craves for. She accepts Lucetta’s invitation and goes to her house. She affirms her individuality when she says: “I would do anything to be independent”.
It is true that in some respect Hardy has portrayed these women characters as typical examples of women of his time, but it is interesting to see how within these conventions, he allowed his characters to display their personality against some of the norms of institutional attachments.
