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Passage Illustrated: Fatherly Henchard asks Elizabeth to take his Name

When he had gone on to give details which a whole series of slight and unregarded incidents in her past life strangely corroborated; when, in short, she believed his story to be true, she became greatly agitated, and turning round to the table flung her face upon it weeping.

“Don’t cry — don’t cry!” said Henchard, with vehement pathos, “I can’t bear it, I won’t bear it. I am your father; why should you cry? Am I so dreadful, so hateful to ’ee? Don’t take against me, Elizabeth-Jane!” he cried, grasping her wet hand. “Don’t take against me — though I was a drinking man once, and used your mother roughly — I’ll be kinder to you than he was! I’ll do anything, if you will only look upon me as your father!”

She tried to stand up and comfort him trustfully; but she could not; she was troubled at his presence, like the brethren at the avowal of Joseph.

“I don’t want you to come to me all of a sudden,” said Henchard in jerks, and moving like a great tree in a wind. “No, Elizabeth, I don’t. I’ll go away and not see you till to-morrow, or when you like, and then I’ll show ’ee papers to prove my words. There, I am gone, and won’t disturb you any more . . . . ’Twas I that chose your name, my daughter; your mother wanted it Susan. There, don’t forget ’twas I gave you your name!” He went out at the door and shut her softly in, and she heard him go away into the garden. But he had not done. Before she had moved, or in any way recovered from the effect of his disclosure, he reappeared. [Chapter XIX, in serial 217; in volume, pp. 146-147]

Commentary

Of course, Susan's post mortem note to Henchard shocks both the reader and the widower, for this Elizabeth-Jane is not his Elizabeth-Jane at all. Three weeks after Susan's funeral (as shown by Henchard's and Elizabeth-Jane's wearing deep mourning of a formal and expensive style), by the fire Henchard confesses that he is her father, although he does not go so far as to elucidate the claim by narrating the wife-sale at Weydon-Priors. Barnes here removes the fireside nature of the setting to dwell on the upper-middle class furnishings suggestive of respectability. When Elizabeth-Jane begins to cry, Henchard, thinking to console her, asks if she will now take his name. She agrees to do so, but feels that she is somehow dishonouring the memory of Richard Newson, the only father she had ever known until recently. Only after this intimate exchange does Henchard go upstairs and discover Susan's note that reveals the death of the first Elizabeth-Jane three months after the wife-sale; this is, of course, sheer Sensation Novel inadvertance, for the letter was only to be opened on the girl's wedding-day; however, the seal is cracked, and Henchard is curious. When Elizabeth-Jane the next morning greets him as "Father," he takes no joy in the salutation as he sees the lineaments of the genial sailor in her features.

Bibliography

Allingham, Philip V. "A Consideration of Robert Barnes' Illustrations for Thomas Hardy's The Mayor of Casterbridge as Serialised in the London Graphic: 2 January-15 May, 1886." Victorian Periodicals Review 28, 1 (Spring 1995): pp. 27-39

Foster, Vanda. A Visual History of Costume: The Nineteenth Century.London: B. T. Batsford, 1984.

Hardy, Florence Emily. The Early Life of Thomas Hardy, 1840-1891. 2 vols. London: Macmillan, 1928.

Hardy, Thomas. The Mayor of Casterbridge. The Graphic 33 (20 February 1886): Chapters XVIII—XIX, pp. 217-219.

Hardy, Thomas. The Mayor of Casterbridge: A Story of a Man of Character. London: Osgood McIlvaine, 1895.

Jackson, Arlene. "The Mayor of Casterbridge: Realism and Metaphor."Illustration and the Novels of Thomas Hardy. Totowa, NJ: Rowman and Littlefield, 1981. Pp. 96-104.

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