Summary: Chapter VII
Susan and Elizabeth-Jane arrive at the Three Mariners
Inn and take a room. Fearing that the accommodations are too expensive, Elizabeth-Jane
persuades the landlady to allow her to work in exchange for a more
affordable rate. The landlady asks her to bring the Scotch gentleman
his supper. After completing her chores, Elizabeth-Jane takes a
tray of food to Susan. She finds Susan eavesdropping on a conversation
in the adjacent room, which is occupied by the Scotchman. The mayor,
Susan reports, is conversing with the young Scotchman. The women
hear Henchard ask the young man if he is Joshua Jopp, who replied
to his advertisement for a corn-factor’s manager. The Scotchman
announces that his name is Donald Farfrae and that, while he too
is in the corn trade, he would not have replied to the advertisement
because he is on his way to America. He then demonstrates to Henchard
the method for restoring grown wheat described in his note. When
Henchard offers to pay him for this information, Farfrae refuses.
Henchard offers him the position of manager of the corn branch of
his business, but Farfrae declines, intent on traveling to America.
Farfrae invites Henchard to have a drink with him, but Henchard
confesses his vow to avoid alcohol because of a shameful incident
in his past.
Summary: Chapter VIII
After Henchard leaves, Farfrae rings for service, and
Elizabeth-Jane goes to take away his dinner tray. Once downstairs,
she pauses to listen to the musical entertainment. Soon, Farfrae
joins the guests and wins them over by singing a song about his
homeland. When they learn that Farfrae is just passing through Casterbridge,
they express their sorrow over losing such a skilled singer. Watching from
the background, Elizabeth-Jane thinks to herself that she and Farfrae
are very similar. She decides that they both view life as essentially
tragic. As Farfrae prepares to retire to bed, the landlady asks Elizabeth-Jane
to go to his room and turn down his bed. Having completed this task,
she passes Farfrae on the stairs, and he smiles at her. Meanwhile,
Henchard reflects on his fondness for his new acquaintance, thinking
that he would have offered Farfrae “a third share in the business
to have stayed.”
Summary: Chapter IX
The next morning, Elizabeth-Jane opens her windows to
find Henchard talking to Farfrae. Farfrae tells Henchard that he
is about to leave, and they decide to walk together to the edge
of town. Susan decides to send Elizabeth-Jane to Henchard with a
message. Upon arriving at Henchard’s house, Elizabeth-Jane is surprised
to find Farfrae in Henchard’s office. The narrator explains that
when the two men reached the edge of town, Henchard persuaded Farfrae
to stay on and work for him, telling the young man that he could
name his own terms.
Summary: Chapter X
While Elizabeth-Jane waits to speak with Henchard, she
overhears a conversation in which Joshua Jopp arrives to accept
the position of manager. Henchard tells Jopp that the post has already
been filled, and Jopp goes away disappointed. When Elizabeth-Jane
finally meets Henchard, she delivers the simple message that his
relative, Susan, a sailor’s widow, is in town. Upon hearing this
news, Henchard ushers her into his dining room and asks her some
questions about her mother. He then writes a note to Susan telling
her to meet him later that night, encloses five guineas, and gives
it to Elizabeth-Jane for delivery. She brings the note back to Susan,
who decides to meet Henchard alone.
Analysis: Chapters VII–X
The placement of rural, agricultural Casterbridge on the
border between manufacturing and agricultural life makes it the
ideal setting for a showdown between Michael Henchard and Donald Farfrae.
Even though their relationship is, at this point in the novel, marked
by strong mutual affection, Hardy plants the seeds of their eventual
competition in these early chapters. When, in Chapter VII, Farfrae
claims that he has “some inventions useful to the trade, and there
is no scope for developing them here,” he suggests that Cas-terbrige
is not only a town straddling the divide between city and country
life but also between orthodoxy and modernity or tradition and progress.
Casterbridge under Henchard’s reign is too remote and
too removed from the scientific, social, and technological advancements that
were sweeping through England during Industrial Revolution in the
mid-nineteenth century to offer Farfrae the “scope” he seeks. Indeed,
before Farfrae arrives, no one in Casterbridge had ever heard of—let
alone developed and perfected—a method of restoring “grown wheat.”
Farfrae brings with him new methods of organizing and running an
agricultural business. His dazzling abilities—there is the suggestion
of something miraculous in his knowledge of how to transform damaged
grain into palatable bread—work their magic on Henchard and, later,
the entire town. But the degree to which Henchard is seized by admiration
has more to do with the nature of his own character than the quality
of Farfrae’s impressive and obscure knowledge. What may initially
attract Henchard to Farfrae’s methods is the promise of transforming
something clearly damaged into salvageable goods, a process that
Henchard hopes to apply to his own life in order to atone for his
sins.
