Thomas hardy story (1840) (1928)

He start his literary career by writing poetry but it could gain a little success he then turned to novels and by 1874 he was able to support himself by writing hardy’s firs novel the poor man and the lady finished by 1867 failed to find a publisher and hardy destroyed the manuscript so only parts of the novel remain he was encouraged to try again by his mentor and friend Victorian poet and novelist George Meredith. Desperate remedies 1871 and under the greenwood tree were published anonymously. In 1873 a pair of blue eyes a story drawing on hardy’s courtship of his first wife was published under his own name.

Hardy said that he first introduced wessex in far from the madding crowd 1874. He wrote the return of the native in 1878 the mayor of caster bridge in 1886 the woodlanders in 1887 and tess of the urbervilles in 1891 the last of which attracted criticism for its sympathetic portrayal of a fallen woman and was initially refused publication. Its subtitle A pure woman faithfully presented was intended to raise the eyebrows of the Victorian middle classes.

Jude the obscure published in 1895 met with even stronger negative outcries from the Victorian public for its frank treatment of sex and was often referred to as Jude the obscene. Heavily criticized for its apparent attack on the institution of marriage the book caused further stain on hardy’s already difficult marriage because Emma hardy was concerned that Jude the obscure would be read as being autobiographical some booksellers sold the novel in brown paper bags and the bishop of Wakefield is reputed to have burnt a copy. Despite this criticism hardy had become a celebrity in English literature by the 1900s with several highly successful novels under his belt yet he felt disgust at the pubic reception of two of his greatest works and gave up writing novels altogether. Several critics have commented however that there was very little left for hardy to write about having creatively exhausted the invreasingly fatalistic tone of his novels.

Although he wrote a great deal of poetry mostly unpublished until after 1898 hardy is best remembered for the series of novels and short stories he wrote between 1871 and 1895. His novels are set in the imaginary world of wessex a large area of south and southwest England using the name of the anglo saxon kingdom that covered the area. Hardy was part of two worlds on the one hand he had a deep emotional bond with the rural way of life which he had known as a child but on the other he was aware of the changes which were under way and the current social problem from the innovational in agriculture he captured the epoch just before the railways and the industrial revolution changed the English countryside to the unfairness and hypocrisy of Victorian behaviors.

Considered a victorical realist writer hardy examines the social constraints the are part of the Victorian status quo. These rules hinder the lives of all involved and ultimately lead to a life of unhappiness. The reader is forced to consider the option of disposing of the conventions set up for love. Characters are constantly encountering crossroads which are symbolic of a point of opportunity and transition far from the madding crowd tells a tale of lives that are constructed by chance. Hardy’s characters are in the grips of too much overwhelming fate.

He paint a vivid picture of rural life in the nineteenth century with all its joys and suffering a fatalistic world full of superstition and injustice. His heroes and heroines are often alienated from society and rarely become readmitted into it. He tends to emphasize the impersonal and generally negative powers of fate over the mainly working class people he represented in his novels.