Legal Approaches To Thomas Hardy's Tragic Novels

The author of this thesis tries to use the way of "comparative study of literature and law" to probe into the tragic novels by Thomas Hardy, the great writer in the history of English literature. The main parts of the thesis are the legal approaches to the three representative novels by Thomas Hardy:The Mayor of Casterbridge, Tess of the d'Urbervilles and Jude the Obscure.In the introduction, the author believes that law and literature are the important parts of the superstructure of human society and the two important subjects of the modern humanities and social sciences. However, the modern humanities and social sciences, as an academic activity from the U.S. Law School, its academic background and research vision is no doubt more inclined to law and it gives more development and deepening to Legal Research when it is into confusion and disputes. And "comparative study of literature and law" is the critical perspective, and it aims under law to judge the nature and the significance of people and the events of the novel, also to examine the fairness of the law.In the first part of the thesis, "Michael Henchard's Tragedy, the Tragedy of Ignorance of the Law", legal questions involved and initiating legal consideration are mainly from the incident:get drunk and sell the wife. The tragedy of this incident and its subsequent events fully illustrated the protagonists, Michael Henchard and his wife's ignorance of law. And, in the novel which be with Greek tragedy theme and style, the author Thomas Hardy didn't intend to condemn the unjust laws, nor comment on the then non-legal or legal acts of the hero's inquiry. The fundamental aim of this tragedy work was to condemn the evil fate and God's injustice。 In the second part of the thesis, "Tess'Tragedy, the Tragedy of Unjust Law" the author believes that, in this outstanding novel, by the description of Tess, a chaste woman who got mental and physical persecution suffered, Thomas Hardy made a profound complaints and criticism to the laws of capitalist society, especially laws related to marriage, property inheritance system and the criminal justice system.In the third part of the thesis, "Jude's Tragedy, the Tragedy of the Legal Struggle", by exploring the two different types of marriage apart under the social rule and the nature rule, the author tries to understand the protagonist's struggle for career and love, to understand the tragedy. The author believes that, it would be better to understand Thomas Hardy's pessimistic thinking through the conflict between the ideal marriage and the cruel reality.The author of this thesis tries to support a new perspective to explain Thomas Hardy's tragedy work so as to make people understand that Thomas Hardy chooses protagonists' death to be the endings of the three tragic novels; it is not only the character of the tragedy, the tragedy of fate, but also the law of the tragedy.