The Mayor Of Casterbridge--a Tragic Hero

Tragedy, originated from ancient Greece, plays a very important part in world literature because it has a powerful and specific emotional effect on the audience. However, after the flourishing periods of tragedy in the 5th century B.C. and Elizabethan England, the tradition of tragedy gradually diminished and altered because of the reformation of society, politics and the change of people抯 ideology. Tragic heroes of the old sense are hardly seen in literary works. It was not until the late nineteenth century that some playwrights and novelists attempted to inspire tragedy of the original vision. Thomas Hardy is one of them.Hardy, in his Wessex novels, expressed his somewhat pessimistic view of man抯 nature and destiny in a rural setting, and created some famous tragic heroes and heroines. Among them, the most distinguished hero is Michael Henchard in The Mayor of Casterbridge.The first two chapters of this thesis generally discuss the history of tragedy, especially Greek tragedies and Shakespearean tragedies, and their influences on Hardy and his major works.