the mayor of casterbridge and the return of the native an analytical comparison

A detailed Summary of the mayor of casterbridge and the return of the native an analytical comparison

The Return of the Native and The Mayor of Casterbridge both consist of plot twists, coincidences, and a series of minor and major climaxes. However, the time involved in the novels is very different. The Return of the Native may at first seem long because it contains many plot twists, but is it in fact very compact. The whole story takes place in only about a year. In contrast, The Mayor of Casterbridge takes place over a span of twenty years. In the movie, no great portion of time seems to be skipped over; not that it can be based on the fact that the entire duration is only a year. In the novel, Hardy deals with intervals of time in very interesting ways. At one point, he uses nine chapters to detail the events of only of a few days. This is in chapters three through eleven, a time that begins as Susan Henchard sets out to find Michael Henchard and ends as she meets him in the amphitheater. During this small period, Hardy gives much detail as to how Susan and Elizabeth-Jane travel to Casterbridge, where they find the mayor and observe him. He also tells of Henchard's wooing of Farfrae and of his meeting first with Elizabeth-Jane and then with Susan. Hardy could easily have said all of this in one or two chapters, but

The characters in each story all live in the same place. In The Mayor of Casterbridge, they all live in Casterbridge, and in The Return of the Native, they all live in Egdon Heath. The story never seems to venture outside Egdon Heath at all in the movie, while it does seem to do so a little in the book. They are alike, however, in the fact that the issues of the outside world do not intrude in the happenings of the story. The main characters in each tale, being from the same small towns, are tightly wound together in a tangle of many relationships. We must notice also, that in each story, our concentration upon the major characters is broken by the appearance of the poorer country folk, as if for comic relief, to recap the happenings of an event that had just occurred, much like a Greek chorus.

We also see another striking similarity between the two stories. At the end of The Mayor of Casterbridge, Henchard dies before Elizabeth-Jane can find him and express her love and forgiveness. In The Return of the Native, Eustacia kills herself before Clym can reach her and exhibit his love and forgiveness. These endings only make the plot more tragic as the reader is left to say, "What if Elizabeth-Jane could have reached Henchard a little bit sooner," and, "What if Clym had not waited so long before going back to Eustacia."

he chose to drag it out like this. In much the same way, he could go through periods of many months in a single paragraph. He even bounds over a single period of twenty or so years and only lets the reader in on what happened as characters reflect on the past. Therefore, the feeling of time is very different in the movie than in the book.

Henchard's journey through the novel can basically be seen with a few separate tragedies that make up his steady undoing until his death. The first episode in The

Some common words found in the essay are:
Return Native, Mayor Casterbridge, Egdon Heath, Casterbridge Henchard, Clym Yeobright, Clym Wildeve, Lucetta Farfrae, Susan Hardy, Native Eustacia, Eustacia Vye, return native, mayor casterbridge, love forgiveness, casterbridge henchard, episode mayor, inciting incident, mayor casterbridge henchard, episode mayor casterbridge, plot twists, egdon heath,

Approximate Word count = 1241
Approximate Pages = 5 (250 words per page double spaced)

Category: English