Newson, the man who bought Henchard’s wife and child, is a sailor. Before he can, though, Henchard makes an oath to not drink for twenty years.

A stranger on the road, if he moves on now he has the chance to reinvent himself no one would know the disgraceful thing he has done. The man who took his family was a stranger no one knows where he has come from or gone to. His attempts to undo his actions prove fruitless. Morning sobriety reveals to Henchard the horror of what he has done. Though the practice has been made illegal, it still endures in some rural settings, and when a man appears with money ready to take up the offer, Henchard’s pride forbids him to back down and the man walks out with Susan and Elizabeth-Jane. Not to be dismissed as hyperbolic, Henchard even claims that he will gladly sell his wife and child if a good enough offer was made.

But Henchard starts drinking and, once inebriated, begins boasting to the patrons of how loathsome it is to be burdened with his wife and child. Henchard’s status as an unemployed farm labourer, when he feels he is worthy of much more, and his belief that his wife and child are impediments to his ambition, are the sources of his spiteful discontent.Ĭoming across a country fair, the young family take the opportunity to rest. Beneath the quiet exterior, he is an angry and frustrated man. They walk in silence, exposed to the sun, an arduous enough journey for a young man let alone a young mother carrying a baby. Michael Henchard, a young hay-trusser, walks down a lonely country road in 1820’s England with his wife, Susan, and infant daughter, Elizabeth-Jane.

The mayor of casterbridge review