R. Knight's "Mrs. Day" in Thomas Hardy's "Under the Greenwood Tree"

Mrs. Day

R. Knight

1878

Wood engraving

14 cm high by 10 cm wide

Tenth illustration for Hardy's Under the Greenwood Tree, facing page 172 (recto).

Passage illustrated: “[The second Mrs. Day] showed herself to possess an ordinary woman's face, iron-grey hair, hardly any hips, and a great deal of cleanliness in a broad white apron-string as it appeared upon the waist of her dark stuff.” [Part the Second, "Spring," Chapter 6, "Yalbury Wood," p. 169-170]

See commentary below.

Photograph, caption, and commentary by Philip V. Allingham

[You may use this image without prior permission for any scholarly or educational purpose as long as you (1) credit the person who scanned the image and (2) link your document to this URL in a web document or cite the Victorian Web in a print one.]

Commentary

Fancy Day's stepmother, who counsels her stepdaughter against marrying Dick Dewy because she can do better (either with Parson Maybold or Farmer Shiner), is a minor but intriguing figure — although Knight's illustration does not suggest her peculiar nature — her husband describes her as "queer." In her determination to assert her social superiority to her neighbours Mrs. Day maintains a spotless house, even going so far as to change the tablecloth in the middle of the meal so that, as Sarah Bird Wright remarks, "'they' (any guests present) won't say her linens are ragged" (49). F. B. Pinion merely describes her obsessive-compulsive nature as "very house-proud" (294). She occurs in Part Two, Chapter 6; Part Three, Chapter 2; and briefly in Part Five, Chapters 1 and 2, in connection with the wedding. Knight's illustration suggests her fastidiousness as a housekeeper by the dusting cloth she holds; Knight reveals her "peculiar" (or, as we might say, "compulsive") nature by the way she grips her wrist.

Bibliography

Hardy, Thomas. Under The Greenwood Tree. A Rural Painting of the Dutch School (1870). Il. R. Knight. London: Chatto and Windus, 1878.

Hardy, Thomas. Under The Greenwood Tree, or, The Mellstock Quire — A Rural Painting of the Dutch School (1872). Ed. Anna Winchcombe. Houndmills, Basingstoke, and London: Macmillan Education, 1978. [All citations from the 1878 Chatto and Windus edition have been checked against this following readily available paperback edition.]

Kay-Robinson, Denys. The Landscape of Thomas Hardy. Exeter: Webb and Bower, 1984.

Pinion, F. B. A Hardy Companion: A Guide to the Works of Thomas Hardy and Their Background. Trowbridge, Wiltshire, and Basingstoke: Macmillan, 1968, rpt. 1984.

Wright, Sarah Bird. Thomas Hardy A to Z: The Essential Reference to His Life and Work. New York: Facts On File, 2002.

Last modified 24 June 2014