What settings and places (significant buildings) are there in the novel, The Mayor of Casterbridge?

Question

List the areas of significance and describe it's importance. Thanks!

Answer 1

SETTING
Most of the action of The Mayor of Casterbridge takes place inside Casterbridge, the largest town in Hardy's Wessex. Hardy focuses carefully on the architecture and the historic nature of the town. As is typical in a Hardy novel, the landscape almost takes on a life of its own. Casterbridge itself seems to be a character in the novel. It has moods and emotions and a magnetic appeal that affects the other characters. Notice, for example, Hardy's first description of the town as Susan and Elizabeth-Jane enter in Chapter IV:

The lamplights now glimmered through the engirdling trees, conveying a sense of great snugness and comfort inside, and rendering at the same time the unlighted country without country without strangely solitary and vacant in aspect, considering its nearness to life.

Casterbridge is part Roman, part Wessex, and part Dorchester. It is a place of ancient artifacts, rustic customs (including skimmity-rides), and early nineteenth-century architecture and life-styles. Casterbridge is a traditional place preparing uncomfortably for industrialization and modernization.

Hardy, who was an architect, provides a very detailed look at the bridges, roads, buildings, inns, marketplace, and surrounding areas of the town. As you read The Mayor of Casterbridge, pay careful attention to the way Hardy describes the different landmarks. For example, he points out cracking paint or worn paths to symbolize deterioration, and he interplays images of light and darkness to add to the gothic (haunting) character of many of the locations. Each landmark seems to have a symbolic function. Bridges are for contemplation of one's turns of fortune. Inns are for gatherings of social classes. Houses are for looking out onto the town (High-Place Hall), for enclosing one in high status (Henchard's house, later occupied by Farfrae and Lucetta), or for locking one away from the world (Jopp's cottage).

The accompanying map of Casterbridge (see illustration) will give you a better idea of the town's layout, and you might want to refer to it as you read. The map shows the wall of trees on the west and south and the closeness of the surrounding farmland.

Here is some information related to the map that will help you place the action of the novel: Susan and Elizabeth-Jane enter Casterbridge from the southwest, on the Port-Bredy road. That's why their first impression of the town involves the trees. Port-Bredy is also the town in which Farfrae and Lucetta are married. Damer's Barn is where Henchard saves Lucetta and Elizabeth-Jane from the charging bull in Chapter XXIX. The Maumbury Rings south of the town is where the Roman amphitheatre is located. Grey's Bridge to the east is the stone bridge on which Henchard contemplates his fate. Mixen Lane in the east is where the lower classes live and where Peter's Finger is located. Both Henchard's (and later Farfrae's) house and High-Place Hall are on Corn Street. Significantly, Lucetta and Elizabeth-Jane's home is in the direct center of town, while Henchard's is a few blocks away.

In only the first two and last two chapters of the novel does the action occur outside Casterbridge. These chapters concern the auction that begins Henchard's troubles and the death that ends them. In the first two and last two chapters, Henchard is a restless wanderer. In these prologue and epilogue sections of the book, Hardy shows the bleakness of the Wessex landscape and its magnetic power as well. Once people enter Wessex, they are seldom able to leave or stay away for good.

Answer 2

Mayor Of Casterbridge Setting

Answer 3

Casterbridge is,at first, a town untouched by modernism. Because they use wagons. The chief hotel in Casterbridge namely the King's Arms.

Answer 4

The mayor's house- it is where most of the story unfolds. It is were the mayor's wife and daughter find him and where his wife lives out the rest of her days. They discover that he is no longer a drunk and has turned his life around.

The lady that the mayor falls in love with(can't remember her name, sorry) house- it is where the mayor's true character starts to shine as a selfish person.

Finally, the old house where the mayor spends the rest of his days mourning the choices that he had made in life.

hope this helps

Answer 5

hi