How Michael Henchard's Character In the Mayor of Casterbridge Led to his Misery and Demise

Why Michael Henchard’s Character Led to His Misery and Demise

The Mayor of Casterbridge by Thomas Hardy is a novel about the rising and plummeting of a complex man named Michael Henchard. Michael Henchard does not just have one characteristic or just one personality for that matter. His personality can be described as thoughtful and strong-minded but also as ruthless, stubborn and cold. Henchard's impulsiveness, aggressive attitude, childishness and selfish nature made failure and misery inevitable in his life. The essence of his character is the root of his demise and misery.

Michael Henchard’s pride and stubbornness leads to the start of his demise. When we first meet Henchard he is a dejected hay-trusser of twenty-one years, who is married to his wife Susan, with a young daughter, Elizabeth Jane. We see Henchard sell his wife and daughter in a drunken rage in a furmity tent at a county fair. It starts out first as a joke, but then is turned foul.

"Why shouldn't they put 'em up and sell 'em by auction to men who are in need of such articles? Hey? Why, begad, I'd sell mine this minute if anybody would buy her!" Henchard said.

The main reasons for Henchard continuing on with his joke to sell his wife and daughter to a sailor were his pride as well as the effect of the alcohol. Drinking alcohol leads to a couple decisions that Henchard comes to regret. In fact he often regrets things after he does them, and suffers the consequences. An example of this would be the fact that he sold his wife and daughter to a complete stranger for only five guineas. That sin stays nestled on his conscience and haunts him not only right after, but throughout his life. Henchard was young and naive and felt that his wife and daughter wer...

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...titude. “Henchard’s Will: ‘That Elizabeth Jane Farfrae be not told of my death, or made to grieve on a account of me. And that I be not buried in consecrated ground. And that no sexton be asked to toll the bell. SL And that nobody’s wish to see my dead body.’”

Michael Henchard’s constant exercise of jealousy, pride, immature actions and overwhelming emotions bring him to his tragic end. Although Henchard might have you think he is a victim, the reader can see that his personality leads to the conclusion of his downfall and that Henchard’s inability to learn from his first mistakes takes him down a path no one wants to face. He might have been able to survive his mistakes had he not been so self-destructive. But because of the combination of his personality traits and the complexity of his character’s mind, he is eventually led to the nothingness that engulfs him.