Chance as an Excuse in The Mayor of Casterbridge Anonymous College

The question of fate is one that has been posed by human beings throughout the ages. Are our lives determined by that which is “bound” to happen, or is it simply by random chance? Thomas Hardy addresses this question in his poem “Hap,” which expresses the belief that life’s sorrow is simply due to chance, and that a vengeful God would be preferable to this state of existence. This idea that our lives are ruled by random chance is also woven throughout Thomas Hardy’s novel, The Mayor of Casterbridge, which follows a man named Michael Henchard through his successes and failures in the small town of Casterbridge, beginning with the drunken sale of his wife and child. Hardy’s characters make reference at many points throughout the novel to chance as the cause of their misfortune, and in doing so, they fail to recognize that such misfortunes are due almost entirely to the choices and failures of characters themselves.

The poem “Hap”explores two possibilities—the first being that there is a cruel and “vengeful God” (line 1) at the root of the speaker’s suffering, and the second being that everything in life is left to chance. The latter is the one that Hardy’s poem ultimately recognizes as “true”; however, in either case, the...