“The Mayor of Casterbridge” by Thomas Hardy: Did Michael Henchard sell his wife because he was drunk or because he had multiple personality?

As husband, wife, and daughter walked along the country road, they were not very affectionate, but they were tired and hungry, he was between jobs, and they were low on money.

When they finally came to a town fair and got something to eat, each time Michael Henchard had rum added to his food, his demeanor changed: first he became serene, then jovial, then argumentative, and “at the fourth, the qualities signified by the shape of his face, the occasional clench of his mouth, and the fiery spark of his dark eye began to tell in his conduct; he was overbearing—even brilliantly quarrelsome” (1, p. 9).

Then, he offered to sell his wife and daughter.

Neither the crowd nor his wife could shrug off his behavior, because he seemed coherent and sincere. His wife had seen him act like this on a number of prior occasions, and she knew he did this only when he drank, but she was fed up.

The next morning, when Henchard awoke, his wife and daughter were gone. He found her wedding ring. And he found the money he’d been paid for them in his pocket. All this circumstantial evidence convinced him that his “dim memories…were not dreams” (1, p. 14).

He set out to find them, thinking, “she knows I am not in my senses when I do that!” (1, p. 15).

Comment

It appears that when Henchard drank, he switched to an alternate personality, who was angry with Henchard, and considered the woman to be Henchard’s wife, not his wife, anyway.

1. Thomas Hardy. The Mayor of Casterbridge [1886]. New York, W. W. Norton, 2001.