urrogate Love: Father-Daughter Relationships In Silas Marner And The Mayor Of Casterbridge
...f Casterbridge Henchard sells his wife and daughter in a drunken frenzy. Henchard believes that the “woman [his wife] is no good to”(The Mayor, p.14) him and the cause of his financial ruin. Henchard believes that if he “were a free man…[he’d] be worth a thousand pound”(The Mayor, p.13) so he offers her up to a “buyer” in hopes to reverse his “ruin”. For Henchard his wife is nothing more than livestock and sees no reason “why men who have got wives and don’t want ‘em shouldn’t get rid of ‘em…as old horses”(The Mayor, p.13). Henchard has exchanged his wife and Elizabeth-Jane for “five guineas”(The Mayor, p.15) where as Silas exchanges his guineas for Eppie. The appalling nature of Henchard’s business transaction is further intensified by the fact that his daughter is given away for free as if she was a bonus to complete “the bargain”(The Mayor, p.15). Henchard regrets giving up such a valuable ward as Elizabeth-Jane almost immediately, “ ‘tis [his] maid”(The Mayor, p.13) and Susan has “no business to take the maid”(The Mayor, p.13) but it’s too late and he seems to have forgotten that he was the one who said “she shall have the child”(The Mayor, p.13). When we next see Henchard he is a “thriving man of business” (The Mayor, p.65) who has fulfilled his theory that his wife was to blame for his “disgrace” and poverty. Henchard has exchanged his dusty, shabby garments and family for “jeweled studs and a gold chain” (The Mayor, p.40) and the affluent position of Mayor. The Mayor does accept Susan and Elizabeth-Jane back into his life when they unexpectedly turn up in Casterbridge. Henchard expresses “shame for [his] past transaction” (The Mayor, p.68) and sends a letter along with five guineas to Susan that “may tacitly have said to her that he bought her back again”(The Mayor, p.79). Henchard has a plan to allow them to “return openly to [his] house”(The Mayor, p.84) but he concerned about his reputation and wants to “leave [his] shady, disgraceful life [of the past] unopened”(The Mayor, p.84). Although he is willing to lower “his dignity in public opinion by marrying so comparatively humble a woman”(The Mayor, p.94) as Susan he is reluctant to reveal who he is to Elizabeth, for selfish reasons “she cannot be told…[he] could not bear it” (The Mayor, p.83). This is not unlike the reasons why Godfrey in Silas Marner is reluctant to claim Eppie as his own. Henchard knows that he “ought to”(The Mayor, p.132) confess “the transaction of his early married life”(The Mayor, p.76) just as Godfrey “oughtn’t to have”(Marner, p.135) kept for so “long [the] concealment…of his earlier marriage”(Marner, p.132). Godfrey believed that he “would be much happier without owing the child”(Marner, p.100) and “must break every tie…that degraded him”(Marner, p.21) as he “would sooner die than acknowledge…his wife”(Marner, p.90) and child. Godfrey is afraid of compromising his chances with Nancy and losing his inheritance, social respect, status and position. Acknowledging Eppie as his child would be the “tie…that degrade[s] him”(Marner, p.21). After Susan’s death and the loss of Farfrae, Henchard finds himself alone again. “Henchard’s wife was dissevered from him by death; his friend and helper Farfrae by estrangement; Elizabeth-Jane by ignorance. It seemed to him that only one could be recalled…the girl”(The Mayor, p.137-138) Henchard “was the kind of man [who needed] some human object for pouring out his heat upon…[it was] almost a necessity”(The Mayor, p.140). It is out of this “necessity” that Henchard decides to claim Elizabeth as his daughter and convinces her to take his name, “her legal name”(The Mayor, p.101). However, it is not long afterwards that the Mayor discovers that Elizabeth has “no kinship with him”(The Mayor, p.142) and is in fact the daughter of Susan’s second husband, Newson. Henchard begins then to treat Elizabeth with “coldness” and a “growing dislike”(The Mayor, p.147) because she “didn’t belong to him”(The Mayor, p.152), and yet once again he refuses to tell her the truth about her parentage. Henchard becomes embarrassed of Elizabeth and is “convinced of the scathing damage [she could do] to his local repute and position”(The Mayor, p.127) and doesn’t “want [his] house to be troubled with her” ”(The Mayor, p.127) so he has no objection to her leaving him. Henchard is in fact “relieved to get her off his hands”(The Mayor, p.160). At the very last minute Henchard, true to his nature, changes his mind and begs her not to “go away from [him]…[but] to go on living as [his] daughter”(The Mayor, p.163) however his plea has come to late and Elizabeth leaves him to live with Lucetta. Henchard now finding “himself a childless man”(The Mayor, p.165) attempts to reconcile with Lucetta. Elizabeth’s leaving “had left an emotional void… he unconsciously craved to fill”(The Mayor, p.165), in “an almost mechanical transfer [of his] sentim...