The Mayor of Casterbridge

In every high school student’s career, he or she will most likely ask him or herself a few questions, but they will never get a straight answer. What are these questions you may ask? Well they are the questions of, “Why do I have to read, insert book title here?”, and “What makes this book so special from every other book ever written?” The stock teacher answer is usually, “Because I said so.” This is not a legitimate answer, and it usually just frustrates the student. So what is the real answer? Why are some books, specifically The Mayor of Casterbridge, taught and included in the literary canon? To address the question of The Mayor of Casterbridge inclusion in the common literary canon, we must first discuss what literary canon is and…

Changes Essay “Old ways won’t open new doors.” (Unknown) “A Crush,” by Cynthia Rylant, shows the main character, Ernie, experiencing a different variety of events that discovered the need for change. He wasn’t going to open the same old door everyday and decided he needed to open a shiny new door that would lead him to change. The death of Ernie’s mother started the need for change. The text states, “This house was called a group home, because in it lived a group of people who, like…

In the selection, “ The Mayor of Casterbridge” many themes are presented. These themes intensify the meaning of the book by teaching the reader lessons about real-life situations. These themes include: fate vs. freewill, the institution of marriage, love, dissatisfaction friendship, the indelibility of the past, self destruction and forgiveness of the past. While the book is centered around the mayor, Mr. Henchard, many of the other characters in the book portray some of the themes as well. Two…

The Mayor of Casterbridge (1886) Relationships can easily and, if one must add, with fair amount of evidence, be proven to be part or even the center of social-interaction since it is through them that people learn to communicate and treat each other. There exist some relationships that with strong connections and goals linking them interact harmoniously and almost in synchrony together, one of them being families. Parents, siblings, relatives, all coexist perfectly due to the strong ties they…

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…

burden of of his mistakes such as, selling his family and mismanaging his business. The indelibility of the past is a really good theme in this novel. The novel is haunted by the past. Henchard’s decision to sell both his wife and his child at Weydon- Priors still affected him eighteen years later. Every farmer that tilled a field turned up the remains of long-dead Roman soldiers. The ring, which was an ancient Roman amphitheater that took over Casterbridge and provided a forum for the secret…

Eppie is more attached to her father; she decides to stay with her stepfather even after her marriage. Whereas, Bela only gives emotional support to her father and stays wherever she pleases to. In both the novels we can observe the selflessness of the Stepfather. The stepfather puts the needs of his stepdaughter before his own needs. His love for the stepdaughter is unconditional. The stepdaughter also understands this and treats him as a father. From 1861, the age of the industrial…

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