The Mayor Of Casterbridge Irony And Meaning English Literature Essay

The mayor of Casterbridge, which is written by Thomas hardy, describes a character by the name of Michael Henchard who becomes successful as a mayor. He later becomes bankrupt and is also affected by his lover’s tragic death. The mayor of casterbridge is a story that shows how fate cannot be conquered by people, although most people believe to be in control of their own destinies.Irony is the expectation between what is uttered or said to what is meant. There are many types of irony and they include; verbal, situational, comic, socratic, historical, dramatic, tragic and fate irony.

Situational irony is often used in assertion of the truth. Here language is used to state the opposite of a truth or drastically understates a factual connection. In order to generate amusement and reactions of astonishment from readers, situational irony frequently appears throughout the novel. The development of the relationship between Donald farfrae and Michael henchard is an example of situational irony. Michael pleads with farfrae not to leave and also wants to hire him in the beginning. However, later in the story, the lives of Michael and farfrae become totally different as their relationship worsens. The real status of Elizabeth Jane is another situational irony. Elizabeth is believed to be the real daughter of Henchard for the majority of the story.

The truth is discovered in Susan’s letter after her death that Elizabeth is not Henchard’s daughter and she begins to receive ill treatment for Henchard. The letter reveals that Henchard’s daughter died and that Elizabeth is the daughter of the sailor Newson. The letter sparks interest and drama among readers.

All the letters that appeal in this story carry crucial secrets that characters are unaware of.Henchard being a risk taker, lets his personal disliking of farfrae get in the way of his reasoning. He takes a lot of risks and aggressively gambles losing a lot of credit and a lot of his fortunes. Consider also the fact that henchard discovers about her parentage at a very inappropriate time. The other example is the betrayal by Mrs. Good Nough because she lets out all the details she has of Henchard’s past only because her two friends, Elizabeth and Susan remind her of Henchard’s past.

The irony that the same man supposed to have the mantle of the town is the same one who gets drunk and auctions his family infront of everyone is prevalent, and the reader cannot ignore the frequent re emergence of such scenarios. Despite his obsession for the limelight, he does not know how to handle it since he is always making blunders, lowering his credibility in public to such a point where his nemesis is elected the mayor of the town. Only when he is bankrupt does he seek to fully pay his loans, menaing that henchard gets more and more poor and disappears from public life. His life follows an ironical patter since he makes rash decisions and then tries to undo them. He is, for the entire length of the novel, intend to make it righ for the women he wronged. This shows a man willing to recongise his faults, but his wife ends up with the same person who took his political seat.

Historical irony is where irony is seen through modern eyes, there often appear sharp contrasts between the way historical figures see their world’s future and what actually transpires. Here Henchard is completely opposite to farfare nearly in every way. They are physical opposites and have different capabilities. Whereas Henchard is strong, somewhat clumsy in his undertakings and has a high height,Farfrae is lithe, short and undertakes his activities in a well organized manner. Whereas Henchard is not educated well, Farfrae is intelligent,highly educated and very informed about the scientific and business aspects of the corn and grain industry. Henchard is brutal and aggressivewhileasFarfrae is social and gentle when handling matters. Henchardoriginates from the poverty class and a laborer whileasFarfraecomes from a merchant family and well educated. In short, Farfrae is everything Henchard would love to be, and loves to pretend that he is. The historical irony begins where,Henchard admires farfrae but eventually grows jealous of farfare and starts to resent him too. For henchard and farfrae, the irone is the fact that the two of them hate each other at the beginning of the story but are bosom friends, at least on the larger part, by the end. They have been forced to work together for convinunvce and it turns out to be a reaaly workable relationship. This element of irony stresses the authors aim, to depict the real essence in the event and not necessarily in the people. Th event here is the collaboaration between the unlikeliest of persons. Sarah’s action of going with a drunk nondescript sailor because of her husbands mistake makes the weirdes aspect of situational irony. That the individual woman has to offer since her husband placed a wager on her. The reality of the text and the particular situation notwithstanding, the character of the author is best exemplified at this point, where deviating from his serial irony in the text would require that he adopts a realistic approach, which he does not. Even the return of the family after 21 years does not really solve the irony. In a sense, it increases the intrigue since the return of Sarah and Elizabeth happens exactly twenty one years, on the very year that Henchrad had set for himself to leave the sabbatical for drinking. For henchard, the twenty first year is the height of his wrst dreams, his nmesis is taking the mayor mantle for the city and the authot seems to have everything fall in the 21 year mark since henchard wass 21 when he sold Sarah, takes a leave from alcohol for 21 years and for him, 21 years seem to be the height of problems.

In conclusion, hardy’s mastery of irony is simply legendary and seemless. He does not seem to have anything in particular against painting unrealistic scenarios, since the depictions of irony sometimes take the form of unrealistic but interesting events. The core building materai in the book is situational irony, created in suh a way that it is the connector of all the jigsaw puzzle. Neaaly every character in the novel is set up in such a way that by the end of the story, they will have felt the ironical situations evolving around them. Henchard suffers the greates, and even at the end of the story and the intresting ironies, it is impossble to tell whether his problems are entirely his fault or nature could somehow be working against him. The irony that the same man supposed to have the mantle of the town is the same one who gets drunk and auctions his family infront of everyone is prevalent, and the reader cannot ignore the frequent re emergence of such scenarios. Despite his obsession for the limelight, he does not know how to handle it since he is always making blunders, lowering his credibility in public to such a point where his nemesis is elected the mayor of the town. Only when he is bankrupt does he seek to fully pay his loans, menaing that henchard gets more and more poor and disappears from public life. His life follows an ironical patter since he makes rash decisions and then tries to undo them. He is, for the entire length of the novel, intend to make it righ for the women he wronged. This shows a man willing to recongise his faults, but his wife ends up with the same person who took his political seat.