'The Mayor of Casterbridge' by Thomas Hardy.

 

Its a web of secrets that enfold each other based on a single great crime.  Henchard  has sold his wife in a fit of drunken irony that she grew tired of as a repeat performance.  The sailor Newson bought her and off he took her never to be seen for another twenty years.  I don’t need to go into it, you will know the story or have read a synopsis.  In any case the many twists and turns  viewed on that level make it decidedly soapy but that is only the narrative carapace that covers some deep questions about fate, character as destiny, the possibility of moral renewal, forgiveness and of course corn futures.

Henchard has renewed himself with a vow to quit the drink for 21 years and having attempted to find his wife and child and reclaim them from the sailorman he goes on his way as a hay trusser with his wimble, his spike and his hay knife all in a woven basket.  The wimble is a good metaphor for the narrative for it is a brace like device for twisting the binding of the truss using strands of hay as though they were a yarn. The secret shame he has been able to tell no one is like the grit in the oyster that a malign pearl has grown over.  It haunts him as a cathexis that draws energy making him gloomy, impatient and hard.  Good qualities in a man of business for when we see him again after twenty years he is a man of substance, wealth and high position as a mayor of a prosperous town in a district of fertile land.  Yet there is in him that reserve which accompanies the possession of a dark secret.  Nobody knows and nobody must know because the loss of respectability would lead to his material downfall.  Who would trust such a man?

This brings on the other strand twisted in by the wimble - ownership of my wife, my daughter, my business my tangible property, chattels at my disposal.  When his wife turns uptogether with a daughter Elizabeth Janeafter she has supposed Newson has perished at sea.  Henchard accepts them but a secret plan is adopted to fool the town.  Eventually after a period of bogus courtship they get married and settle in.  Susan the double married does not know that there is another woman in Henchard’s life who nursed him when he fell ill while doing business on the island of Jersey.  That was in the recent past and through being overmuch with him and indiscreet she was compromised and somewhat declasse among the respectable.  Susan has her own secret about the birth of Elizabeth Jane who is Newson’s child, that Henchard thinks to be his own.   When he discovers that she is not that piece of property is alienated and they part.  The other element of ownership is when  he discovers that Farfrae the Scots foreman already outshining him in business is interested in Elizabeth Jane.  He must go.

Secrets that he cannot own to and attempting to own that which cannot be possessed are the twin poles which bring Henchard to ruin.  It is this unravelling by a reverse wimbling that is interesting rather than the excessive coincidences and correspondences.  There is also the business of the rustic chorus the skimmington ride and the bautifully realized natural descriptions.