An Analysis Of The Male Characters' Fate In The Mayor Of Casterbridge From The Perspective Of Evolution Theory

The British and American naturalistic literature that began in the late 19 th century excluded subjective factors such as romantic imagination,exaggeration,and lyricism.On the other hand,it inherited the realistic views of Balzac,Flaubert and others in the first half of the 19 th century.At the same time,it also despises the typical summary of realism on real life,pursues absolute objectivity,regards reality and objectivity as the primary conditions for creation,describes the reality in great detail,and advocates reflecting the reality according to the original appearance of life.At the same time,one of the main ideological sources of naturalistic literature is the evolution theory proposed by the British naturalist Darwin.This doctrine reveals the laws of the evolution of biological species,and it also brings about a major change in people's concept of nature and the concept of human beings.Since then,mankind has taken a new look at nature,viewed life in a new way,and evolutionism has risen to a philosophy and epistemology.Influenced by the theory of evolution,naturalist writers believe that man is an animal whose evolutionary process is determined by heredity,environmental influence,and the times.Man's free will and all his actions are often the result of external environment and power.As Britain's greatest writer in the late 19 th and early 20 th centuries,Thomas Hardy inherited the 19 th century tradition of realism and sought innovation in terms of ideological content,subject matter,and writing skills.In the aspect of character shaping,Hardy insists on starting from the objective environment and subjective factors,revealing the social and psychological factors of the character's tragedy.By describing the fate of the two male protagonists Henchard and Farfrae,the novel The Mayor of Casterbridge reflects the 19 th century British patriarchal rural society that collapsed rapidly under the influence of capitalist industrial civilization process.Through the fate of these two men,who are diametrically opposed to each other,Hardy elaborated on the changes in the mode of social production and has become bound to make progress in human society as the historical process progresses.The novel has been analyzed and discussed by writers since its publication.Literary critics analyze the novel from many perspectives,such as the comparative analysis of figures,the theme of religious thought,the perspective of fate,the tragedy of ethics and the perspective of Cultural Revolution.However,few people analyze the fate of the two typical characters in The Mayor of Casterbridge using Darwin's evolution theory to promote the change of social production mode.Thus,grounded on the “evolution theory”,this thesis is inclined to an in-depth analysis on the evolution theory,adopting the comparative analysis of figures,and interprets the fate of the two main male characters in the novel,so as to further explore the impact of evolution theory on society at that time.This thesis consists of the introduction,the body part and a conclusion.Its mainThe introduction part gives a brief introduction of the author Thomas Hardy and his work The Mayor of Casterbridge and the research status about the work.The body part is composed of three chapters:Chapter One reviews and summarizes the main points of Darwin's theory of evolution and expounds the influence of the theory on the social development of Victorian England.According to Darwin's theory of evolution,he believes that species are variable,that organisms are evolutionary,and that natural selection is the motivation for biological evolution.Darwin believes that creatures must “fight for survival”.Variants exist in individuals within the same population,and individuals with favorable variations that adapt to the environment will survive.In this way,this chapter is obvious to lay a solid foundation for the next two chapters.Chapter Two investigates the fate of Henchard.This chapter is divided into three parts: the first part introduces the protagonist of the novel from the life experience;the second part elaborates the subjective factors that influence the fate of Henchard from the perspective of the ideology;and the third part discusses the principles of Henchard from the perspective of the way of doing business.In a sense,this chapter is a comprehensive reading of Henchard's fate.A detailed analysis of Henchard's evolution from a hay-trusser who lives on almost nothing,after the scandal of selling his wife,gradually became the mayor of Casterbridge,and then failed in his business,with his wife died and daughter separated,and finally died lonely.This clarifies that the root cause of his tragedy is not only his conservative and backward thinking,but he cannot keep up with the trend of development of the times.Chapter Three mainly concentrates on the fate of Farfrae.This chapter is divided into three parts: the first part introduces the protagonist of the novel from the life experience;the second part elaborates the subjective factors that influence the fate of Henchard from the perspective of the ideology;and the third part discusses the principles of Farfrae from the perspective of the way of doing business.In a sense,this chapter is a comprehensive reading of Farfrae's fate.A detailed analysis of Farfrae's evolution from a man first arrived at the Casterbridge with nothing,by virtue of his flexible mind he won the mayor's appreciation quickly,with his advanced thoughts,flexible personality,he gradually get rich and replace the mayor's position.This clarifies that the secret of his success lies in his progressive personality,advanced ideas,as well as good at accepting new things.The final part of this thesis draws a conclusion of the preceding critique,and points out the main purpose of this thesis.Henchard's tragedy is caused by his conservative and backward thinking and his opinionated character;Farfrae's success is mainly due to his progressive personality,advanced ideas,as well as good at accepting new things.From these two figures,we can see the change of social production mode;we can witness the progress of social history.It is clear that the alternation of old productive forces and new ones is an inevitable result of historical development and progress.However,the jungle principle of “survival of the fittest” has its drawbacks.On the one hand,it promotes the development of the times and the progress of history;on the other hand,some individuals who do not meet the needs of social development are not being eliminated voluntarily but passively.This makes the principle of the jungle cruelly remove some social groups,while the competitiveness of human society should be reflected in the correct elimination.In a word,through the analysis of the different destinies of two main male characters in the background of evolutionism,the author hopes to help the reader to analyze the novel more objectively and comprehensively from a theoretical perspective of evolutionism and to gain a higher understanding of the depth of the novel.Thus,we can have a more complete understanding of the entire community at the time.