n Time's Laughingstocks, the volume of poems that Hardy published with the house of Macmillan in 1909, there are several poems whose titles imply that Hardy has combined the form of the ballad with the substance of traditional tragedy: "A Sunday Morning Tragedy," "The Flirt's Tragedy," and "A Trampwoman's Tragedy" (dated April, 1902, but clearly set some eighty years earlier), the latter followed by the poet's own explanatory notes on "Windwhistle" (Stanza IV), "Marshal's Elm" (Stanza VI), and "Blue Jimmy." The glosses, whose factual nature counterpoints the sensational and supernatural events in the latter stages of the poem, lend a certain verisimiltude to the text. The reader is prepared to credit the narrative of one of Coleridge's living dead, but if schooled in Aristotelian theory still wonders if the poem measures up to the conventional theories of tragedy.
Having to dismiss the Aristotelian requirement of nobility and high social status for a tragic hero to discover whether Hardy's protagonist is a tragic heroine, the reader of "The Trampwoman's Tragedy" must focus on the nature of her tragic flaw or hamartia. Only through an examination of the trampwoman's tragic flaw can the reader determine whether the ballad meets Aristotle's condition of "causality of character" or whether its catastrophe is imposed purely by circumstance. [See Aristotle's discussion in the Poetics.]
In attempting to formulate a theory of character-generated suffering, in The Poetics (330 B. C.) Aristotle by the term Hamartia implies two kinds of "tragic flaw": the inherent personality or character flaw that inevitably leads an otherwise noble person into disaster (Oedipus's impetuosity, temper, and curiosity; Macbeth's ambition; in The Mayor of Casterbridge (1886), Michael Henchard's "introspective inflexibility"), or a fatal error in judgment resulting from that character flaw (Oedipus's pursuit of Laius's killer and the secret of his own birth; Macbeth's slaying Duncan and ordering the elimination of Banquo and Macduff's clan; Michael Henchard's determination to drive Farfrae out of business just prior to harvest). In the cases of the romantic heroines of Hardy's early novels (The Hand of Ethelberta, A Laodicean, and even The Trumpet-Major) and of the protagonist of "The Trampwoman's Tragedy" the common hamartia seems to be a rather fatuous one--the tendency to tease their lovers: Ethelberta Petherwin quarrels heatedly and repeatedly with quondam lover Christopher Julian (the real cause of grievance being her servant-class origins); heiress Paula Power refuses to let her fiancé, George Somerset, even kiss her and to acknowledge their engagement publicly (a reluctance in which some critics have found evidence of latent Lesbianism) ; and the respectably middle class Anne Garland is willfully cruel to both of miller Loveday sons, as the following passage makes clear.
"'I like to give pain to people who have given pain to me,' she said smartly, without removing her eyes from the green liquid in her hand. 'I ask your pardon for that.'
However, this exchange is at least motivated--Hardy justifies Anne's cruelty because the obtuse Bob has almost married another, despite his close relationship in early adolescence with Anne, and she is retaliating with the only means at her disposal. But where is the justification for the Trampwoman's teasing her fancy man in "wanton idleness" (V), intimating that the child she carries is not his but Jeering John's? She acknowledges her "lover's dark distress," but like Anne Garland enjoys inflicting the pain his anguished look betokens.
Suddenly, of course, the trampwoman achieves an Aristotelian anagnorisis. She perceives her error, but her epiphany comes too late, for her beloved lies dead. However, instead of merely seeing herself as partly to blame, as "an accessory before the fact," so to speak, she takes upon herself the entire burden of guilt, although she is not the one charged with the crime. Her teasing (an error in judgment which is probably the result of her desire to exercise power over the males in her social group in compensation for her outcaste status as an indigent, tramp, and alcoholic) destroys her social group and is probably the emotional catalyst for the premature birth of her infant (although a medical examiner might consider her excessive consumption of alcohol during pregnancy a more direct cause). By coincidence which seems a piece of the pattern of poetic justice, Mother Lee dies, leaving the surviving alpha female of the pack to fend for herself. The trampwoman's complete acceptance of a guilt not entirely hers is characteristic still of her egotism. Her fancy man made a moral choice and was compelled to face the consequences of that choice, but as far as she is concerned Jeering Johnny's murder is simply her fault. Her anagnorisis, then, is not the supra-rational revelation or self-insight achieved by Shakespeare's Lear, although her error in judgment, like Lear's, is at least partially responsible for the poem's catastrophe, which is not merely personal suffering but social disintegration. On the other hand, since the Aristotelian tragic hero's fate (self-sacrifice) makes possible a restoration of the social order, we must conclude that Hardy's trampwoman falls short as a tragic protagonist. She provides causality of character, but fails to achieve fully tragic self-awareness and her suffering does not have positive social ramifications.
Despite these difficulties, the poem justly deserves its reputation as a well-told ballad tale, swiftly establishing the setting, the characters, the conflict, and the narrative voice. The repetition of part of the first line of each stanza in a second, short line creates the impression of both a chorus and a lament, leading the first-time reader to believe that a tragic event must be the inevitable conclusion since the repeated line implies a sense of fatality and an overwhelming sense of guilt. The problem with Hardy's handling of the persona, as I have suggested above, is that he has her act capriciously and without logical motivation when she teases her fancy man regarding the child's paternity and her feelings for Jeering Johnny. Hardy knows the ballad requires she act thus, but fails somewhat in his characterisation of the trampwoman.
Related Materials
- "The Oxen"
- Image, Allusion, Voice, Dialect, and Irony in Thomas Hardy's "The Oxen" and the Poem's Original Publication Context
- Articles that appeared next to Hardy's "The Oxen" in The Times [of London] on 24 December 1915
Last modified 1 August 2001