A History Of Alienation In The Wake Of "Progress"

As one of the "Novels of Character and Environment", Thomas Hardy's The Mayor of Casterbridge is a most controversial novel reviled and revered. Despite the fact that a variety of books and essays have been devoted to it, most of the critics neglect the theme of alienation running through the novel. A British critic Raymond Williams is among the earliest to pay attention to alienation in Hardy's works. But in a very tentative and rough manner, his analysis of alienation runs a risk of simplicity and overgeneralization by covering all Hardy's major novels. Enlightened by Raymond Williams, I in this paper try to make a close study of alienation in The Mayor of Casterbridge.The concept of alienation finds a place in all social sciences, economics, psychology, philosophy, theology and literature. From Rousseau to Feuerbach, from Marx to Fromm, the notion of alienation has carried rich implications. Based on the theories put forward by the predecessors, alienation in this paper is defined as estrangement, isolation and loneliness and dehumanization.As a keen and perspicacious novelist of realism, Hardy debunks the myth of "progress" prevailing in the Victorian age. In The Mayor of Casterbridge, he presents to us a panorama of alienation. From the perspective of alienation of nature, alienation of society and alienation as seen in Henchard's predicaments, Hardy explains the various conflicts brought about by the modern civilization in the course of industrialization, elaborating that the British society in the Victorian age is an alienated world in all its aspects. In this novel, Hardy records a history in the wake of "progress", more truly and vividly than any historian does.As to the alienation brought about by the industrial civilization, Hardy puts forward his proposal to heal the alienated world, that is, evolutionary meliorism. According to his evolutionary meliorism, what Hardy tries to point out is that thealienated world is by no means incurable, but it can be perfected through man's endeavours. For all a tincture of idealism and reformism, Hardy sees a pinpoint light penetrating darkness and a ray of hope beyond despair. The greatness of The Mayor of Casterbridge lies in the fact that it provides us with an access to "the knowable community" by depicting the rural life in the Victorian age. Nowadays, China is witnessing a transition from an agricultural civilization to an industrial civilization. Therefore, it is of great social significance to reread this novel. In The Mayor of Casterbridge, as in many of Hardy's other works, we have found an inexhaustible source of courage and strength.