Henchard Heroism Analysis

As the black smoke of ‘Satanic Mills’ started to cloud post-Industrial Revolution sky, the whole England was seized in a crossfire between two different economic modes of production. On one hand, there was volcanic eruption of several industries empowered with astronomical capital and splendid scientific tools. English agriculture, on the other hand, was on steady decline. With the repealing of Corn Law and the introduction of Free Trade Policy, imported food stuffs, especially American wheat, conquered English market and drove English farmers to the periphery. Hundreds of thousands of workers deserted countryside to look for work in towns and toiled hard to accustom themselves with their new professions. Now, as Marx tells us, the change …show more content…
Hobbes and Locke champion commercial enterprise over traditional aristocratic pursuits as the chief activity for the modern citizen. They regard commercial activity as a means of taming man’s vainglorious pursuits and aggressive impulse. Farfrae, in their definition, appears as a modern economic hero who enters in a marketplace without any elevated moral pursuits. He never deviates from his temperature and fully rationalized system of ‘small profits frequently repeated’.
Henchard engineers his plan for an economic triumph on the basis of witchcraft and superstition. These qualities primarily enthrone Henchard in the high seat of Casterbridge; but on the face of post- industrial scientific exploits, all primordial bulwark falls like dry leaves. After rejecting Farfrae, Henchard resorts to superstitious folklore, personal vitality and rash courage. Rather than depend on the advice of a modern businessman, Henchard in the end relies on the auguries of local weather prophet in making his fateful financial decision and ruins his slightest chance of any economic revival. (. (Henchard’s Character and Henchard-Farfrae