The theme of alienation in the major novels of Thomas Hardy

[摘要] The predicament of human isolation and alienation is apervasive theme that has not been sufficiently studied in ThomasHardy's fiction. This study investigates the theme of alienationfocussing on Hardy's major novels.Although the term 'alienation' is one of the most outstandingfeatures of this age, it is not very clear what it preciselymeans. The writer has to draw extensively on Hegel, Marx, Frommand other thinkers to understand the complex ramifications of theterm. The numerous connections in which the term has been used arerestricted to include only a few meanings and applications amongwhich the most important refers to a disparity between one'ssociety and one's spiritual interests or welfare.The theme of alienation, then, is investigated inrepresentative texts from the wide trajectory of Victorianliterature. It is clear that the central intellectualcharacteristic of the Victorian age is, as Arnold diagnosed it,"the sense of want of correspondence between the forms of modernEurope and its spirit". The increasing difficulty of reconcilinghistorical and spiritual perspectives has become a major theme forHardy and other late Victorians.Next, each of Hardy's major novels is given a chapter inwhich the theme of alienation is traced. In Far from the MaddingCrowd, Boldwood's neurotic and self-destructive nature makes himobsessed with Bathsheba, and as a result, murders Troy and suffersthe isolation of life imprisonment; Fanny Robin's tragic andlonely death, only assisted by a dog, is a flagrant indictment ofsociety.In The Return of the Native, Clym is the earliest prototypein Hardy's fiction of alienated modern man. He returns to EgdonHeath only to live in isolation unable to communicate with thevery people whom he thought of as a cure for his alienation.Eustacia has consistently been leading a life of alienation inEgdon Heath which leads to her suicide.In The Mayor of Casterbridge, Henchard's alienation may bemore ascribed to his own character, recalling Boldwood, than toincongruity with society. Yet Hardy emphasises the tendency ofsociety towards modernity which Henchard cannot cope with.In The Woodlanders, not only does wild nature fail to be aregenerative and productive force bet also human nature fails tobe communicative and assuring. The people of Little Hintock failto communicate with iry other. The relationship between Marty andGiles is an "obstructed relationship"; Giles dies a sacrificialdeath, and Marty ends as a wreck in a rare scene hardly crediblein a newly emerging world. Fitzpiers and Mrs Charmond, on theother hand, are isolated in the sterile enclosure of their ownfantasies. Grace, anticipating Tess and Sue, is torn in a conflictbetween two worlds, neither of which can happily accommodate her.In Tess of the D'Urbervilles, Tess, after her childhoodexperiences at Marlott and later at Trantridge, soon discovers howoppressive society is,particularly when she is rejected by Angel,whom she loves and through whom she aspires to fulfil herself.Angel suffers from self-division in his character, and theconflict between received attitudes and advanced ideas leaves himan embodiment of an alienated man hardly able to reconcile thevalues of two worlds.Jude the Obscure is Hardy's most complete expression ofalienation. Jude's alienation is explicitly social and implicitly cosmic, and his failure to identify himself in society constitutesa major theme of the novel. The novel foreshadows the modernthemes of failure, frustration, futility, disharmony, isolation,rootlessness, and absurdity as inescapable conditions of life.In conclusion, the theme of alienation in the major novels ofThomas Hardy is a pervasive one. Nevertheless, not all hischaracters are alienated; however their happy condition, like thatof the rustics in Gray's Elegy, is seen to stem from theirintellectual limitations.

[发布机构] University:University of Glasgow;Department:School of Critical Studies

[关键词] PR English literature