In a Dark Time … The Eye Begins to See

There was at least one more major point I had planned to make on The Return of the Native, but when I realized how much work it would take to go back and support the idea with quotations, I decided to use the first two chapters from The Mayor of Casterbridge to make the same [...]

Hardy seems to offer two different theories for Michael Henchard’s tragic life in The Mayor of Casterbridge. On one hand, he suggests that Michael is a modern-day Job, or Cain, forced to suffer for his sins, a view that Michael himself seems to adopt. A more radical theory, one I’ll take up later, [...]

I’m sure many of Hardy’s Victorian readers read The Mayor of Casterbridge as a morality tale: those who sin are invariably punished for their sin. While it would be hard to disprove such an interpretation, especially since Hardy alludes to it himself, Hardy offers a much more interesting possible interpretation when he cites Novalis: Character is [...]

Wash away my sins, Lord, Cleanse me in the rain Let your holy thunder Take away my pain. Let me cry some tears, Lord. Heal my sorry eyes Dark and dry as deserts Baking in the lies. Call me in your dreams Hold me in your arms I’ve fallen in a sin-filled world And idolized its charms. Waiting for the rain to come down… … Griffin House ……“Waiting [...]