Farmers In Thomas Hardy's Novels

Thomas Hardy is a well-renowned English novelist and poet. While he regards himself primarily as a poet, his fame chiefly rests upon his novels, especially upon the Wessex novels. In this thesis, the author focuses on Hardy's three Wessex novels, namely Far from the Madding Crowd, Tess of the d'Urbervilles and Jude the Obscure to analyze farmers'images.As an isolated rural world, Wessex not only has beautiful natural landscape, but is also very important in setting the social and historical background for these novels. The above three novels are delicately arranged and carefully plotted in which the land of Wessex had undergone several phases of changes and development, presenting vastly different images. By specifically analyzing the rough life experiences and fates of the farmer protagonists in each novel chronologically, this thesis argues that each novel is representative of Wessex at a certain phase of industrialization. With the deepening of the industrialization and its ensuing impact on the rural society, Wessex changed from its original state of being undespoiled to being damaged and finally to being destroyed. Ranging from Gabriel, Bathsheba, Tess and Angel to Jude and Sue, the images of the main farmer characters are largely different. Their final fates vary from happy endings to tragic and heartbreaking deaths. In each novel, the novelist's moods and attitudes on life changed in accordance with the fates of the farmer protagonists. This thesis probes into this aspect of Hardy in an attempt to reveal his affection for Wessex as well as his frustration at and indignation about the destructiveness of industrialization.