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Dramatic Irony
Chapter 4
Explanation and Analysis—A Mother's Memories:
Flashbacks appear several times throughout The Mayor Of Casterbridge, but especially towards the beginning, as Susan Henchard reflects on her previous negative experiences with Michael Henchard. Hardy uses them to provide important framing for the events of the novel's "present." For example, in Chapter 4, Susan debates whether or not to tell her daughter Elizabeth-Jane about the horrible circumstances Henchard's "sale" of them placed them in, and she agonizes over the omission:
Henchard’s wife acted for the best, but she had involved herself in difficulties. A hundred times she had been upon the point of telling her daughter Elizabeth-Jane the true story of her life, the tragical crisis of which had been the transaction at Weydon Fair, when she was not much older than the girl now beside her. But she had refrained.
Susan's reflections preoccupy her substantially. Her memories of the "sale" are not casual, as she has returned to them "a hundred times" and has been sorely tempted to divulge everything to her daughter. In returning to this trauma through memory, she protects her daughter from it but is herself forced to confront and re-confront the "tragical crisis" of their earlier life. Hardy emphasizes the amount of time that has passed, and the impact of this memory with the narrator's comment on Susan's age. Although Susan is almost twice as old as she was when she was "sold," "not much older than the girl now beside her," the memory still disturbs her enough to conceal it.
In addition to reminding the reader about the order of past events in a complex and circuitous book, these flashbacks help keep the drama and suffering of Elizabeth-Jane and Susan's "sale" vibrantly alive. Regularly returning to the events of the past helps with the continuity of The Mayor of Casterbridge. In this instance, as in others, the flashbacks' power to bring these events into the "present" of the narrative makes Henchard's ascension to Mayor of Casterbridge seem even more unfair and difficult to stomach.
Related Themes:
