Context Flashcards
1
Q
The past
A
- Hardy showed an interest in nurturing the past as he worked as an architect that often restored churches in his early life, later becoming involved in efforts to prevent ancient buildings from destruction and modernisation
- As an era obsessed with progress, the Victorian era was also obsessed with the past as a reference point
- Hardy’s fictional Wessex serves as a nostalgic return to his childhood, as the novel takes place in the era and environment in which he grew up
2
Q
Gender
A
- Hardy’s wife was a suffragette who disapproved of his attitudes toward women, saying that he ‘understands only the women he invents’. Hardy also disapproved of Emma’s allegiance to the suffrage movement
- Throughout Hardy’s life there were many changes in the treatment of women, as he was born into the strict social conventions of the Victorian era and died in the 1920s in which there was a boom in promiscuity in women in the form of flappers
- Despite Hardy’s apathy towards women’s rights movements, many feminists of the era identified feminist themes in his work and offered him the role of Vice President of the Women’s Progressive Society, to which he declined
3
Q
Character and fate
A
- Hardy was part of the ‘naturalism’ literary movement, which embraced determinism (the belief that one’s actions are caused by an external, uncontrollable force)
4
Q
Nature
A
- The release of Charles Darwin’s ‘On the Origin of Species’ caused Hardy to develop a view of nature as apathetic and unfeeling
- Darwin’s theories are apparent in MoC as DF ‘adapts to survive’ by working with nature, while MH works against it and dies - survival of the fittest
5
Q
Love
A
- Hardy cheated on his wife, Emma Hardy, but grieved heavily after her death despite marrying his secretary
- During the Victorian era, attitudes towards courtship were immensely strict, emphasising chastity and decorum - many rules for courtship are broken within the text, such as unmarried women being alone with a man (eg. LT and DF at first meeting, EJ and DF in loft)
6
Q
Character
A
- The title of the novel was received with confusion as readers didn’t view MH as a ‘man of character’
7
Q
Class
A
- Some readers complained about the lack of gentry in the novel
- Hardy later published ‘The Poor Man and the Lady’ which was considered class-conscious for its time
8
Q
Conflict
A
- Hardy describes EJ as being viewed in his modern day as ‘one of Minerva’s own’ in reference to the Greek goddess of wisdom - this is significant as Minerva was notoriously not a patron of violence, but of strategic war - links to differences between how EJ and MH handle romantic competition, MH becomes jealous and violent towards DF while EJ plays the long game and wins
