|
|
Space and its connection to characters in Thomas Hardy's novels
Šejvlová, Kristýna ; Beran, Zdeněk (advisor) ; Horová, Miroslava (referee)
When preparing the first edition of his collected works, Thomas Hardy included his major novels in a group called "Novels of Character and Environment", which clearly indicates that he saw a fundamental link between people and the place they occupy. This thesis explores the connection between space, in this broader sense, and characters, and why the setting is of great importance to the story itself. For this purpose, I have chosen three novels by Thomas Hardy: Far from the Madding Crowd, The Return of the Native and Tess of the d'Urbervilles which I analyzed along with the places Hardy chose to determine the fates of his characters. This special determinism seems to lock characters in their fates, making it impossible for them to escape their social classes, the prejudices they stick to and the setting they are born (or borne) into, and how due to this concept of determinism some characters are destined to fail from the very beginning. This thesis consists of five parts. The Introduction and chapter about Hardy's fictional space Wessex, define what role space plays in the process of reading, and how Hardy exploits its features in modelling his own specific space. I have decided to list the novels in the chronological order in which they were published, since it mirrors Hardy's development both of...
|
guest ::
