"Myth is a dramatic vision of life, and we never cease making myths, accepting myths, believing myths" (Dorothy Van Ghent). All writers incorporate myth in their stories. Since writers dramatize life in their stories, selling myth is their job. But myth is not a set system. It varies from culture to culture, society to society, and person to person; what a writer realizes is that in order to create a believable, inviting space they must construct a plausible mythos in which the event can occur. In a way, this is the magic of literature -- the creation of a believable world from imagination.
What is Hardy's system of myth? In what ways does he create a "dramatic vision of life"?
20 comments:
Hardys system of myth is through moral values. right and wrong. real or fake. he bases his myth on nature and the idea that everything goes back to nature. He uses rich detail when depicting a scene involving nature in contrast to the short dark detail he uses with modern culture and techonology. Another way hardy uses nature as his myth is through consequences of not endulging it or following it. As Tess begins to flirt with Alec its apparent that she begins to ignore nature. She attends attends a victorian dance where she knows she doesnt belong, yet she still participates. As a consequense she is raped. when Tess doesnt choose to be with Angel she ends up miserable and resorts to killing ( which in itself in "natural"). when you look at it the only time Tess is happy is when she is among nature. when she is with Angel and when she is working at the dairy farm. There were no machines there and thus no consequences. Hardy uses nature as his message and as a myth.
dramatized vision of life
Hardy uses myth in his writing by comparing everything to the beauty of nature. Especially Tess and his women characters in his novels. He views them as pagan and natural beauties. Hardy creates a "dramatic vision of life" with his messed up love triangles. He always makes love so dramatic with everyone making the wrong choice and everyone dieing when they get close to their significant other. This makes is essays dramatic but probably also realistic I guess.
Hardy's system of myth is fate. He believes that all people are fated and because of this, good and bad things happen to get a predetermined result. He allows Tess to get raped because of fate and causes Gabriel Oak's sheep to die. All of these events were the result of fate, or the events that lead to the "destiny" of each character. Hardy uses myths/beliefs about nature, religion, and family to provide for the problems and complexity of his novels. In Madding Crowd, Hardy created Cain Ball to be a character that was cursed because his parents chose the wrong name for him. He has a bad rap because he was named after Cain who killed Abel in the Bible. People look down on his family because of this mistake and he is viewed as a clumsy juvenile. In Tess, Tess was raped and had an illegitimate child. This was the reason she had to pay later in the novel. She had to pay off her sins by losing Angel and dieing in the end. These myths of fate create a "dramatic vision of life" because it stretches the imagination and creates a world that is based on fate and the unknown. Nature isn't a way of life now, therefore, it is perceived as dramatic. The problems that are created by Hardy become unbelievable in a sense because the events are at a point where they become surreal to the reader.
Hardy flourishes when writing about what he knows best: charming, rustic rural life, since he himself grew up in this setting. Ergo most of his novels relate back to nature and folklore, however this doesn't necessarily make them based upon myth. A Hardy myth consists of naive characters stumbling through the perils of first (and sometimes last) loves, usually tangled with an affair or two that test the waters of fidelity. What makes them mythological is that they're imaginative, yet attainable. Any one of us could experience a sitation similar to Tess's tale, or sell our wives and children in a drunken stupor like that seen in The Mayor of Casterbridge. Hardy dramatizes simple situations in such a way that he retains eloquence throughout his writing no matter how frayed and tattered his characters are in the end.
I believe that Hardy is using Fait as a myth, because it you think about Tess was going to get raped by Alec however most people are not driven by that much fait, mean and I suppose to be listen to You're going to go far kid when writting this post, maybe but it would be weird if your life is lived by a schedule that was pre determined. So that might be the myth, however somepeople think this way like Owen Meaning.
I think Hardy also uses marriage as a myth. In both of the stories that I have read, mulitple marriages have failed. He uses the love triangle with the main character, the woman, who chooses the wrong man at first.
Tess marries Alec, and that obviously doesn't work out when Angel comes back and Tess kills Alec.
In Far From the Madding Crowd, Bathsheba marries Troy who ends up being being the wrong man for her and leaves.
This most likely relects Hardy and his marrital history. His first marriage he claims was regretful like Tess and Bathsheba and he too found a second partner/lover.
I hink that everyone that has posted before me have all found myths that Hardy has created n his books. Maby Hardy has created a lot more then just one Myth in each of his books? The Myth that first came to my mind though was a lot like kittykat's though I see Hardy presenting a strong myth of victorian values but mixing with others to create new modern values, or trying to create a new modern value. Like in far we see that Bathsheba has taken the role of the male character unlike tess. He creates a "dramatic vision of life" by haveing no change or impact in the end to impact a new modern value.
Hardys vison of myth is by havig everything based on the past. When a certain things occurs in the past even if it is a myth of truth everything is based off it in the future. So when tess finds out that she is a d urberville which she is then sent to alec and then has the baby then goes to the farm wot met angel and so on. it is believable because it seems real that she would want to leave such things behind her. It is a dramatic vision because it is not bleieved that one event will decide the rest of your life especially not little things.
The vision of life is choices and many diffrent choices lead you to where you are.
Hardy allows his characters to have obvious faults and to fail. Everyone can realate to this fealing of failure so his characters become more human. also Hardy uses the same towns and places throughout most of his novels and this also makes the stories seem more real.
Hardy's system of myth is a rustic rural life filled with characters that have all of the qualities to succeed, but for one reason or another fail. He creates a dramatic vision of life in that it's kept simple and believable, the events that occur are very likely scenarios. The drama lies within the characters setting themselves up for failure. Placed in a simple setting, one of which should be calm as it's slow paced and set away from the uproar of a hectic urban society, you'd expect the scene to be calm; until characters with their own interests are thrown into the mix. The shared relationships and love triangles, both of which are very realistic only add to the drama of life. Such relationships, like Bathsheba and Troy, Bathsheba and Boldwood, and Bathsheba and Gabriel create all of the drama needed to be both believable and move the plot along.
Hardy's mythos is Wessex, fictional county of England in which there are many farming communities where he creates rustic rural life. Within his mythos Hardy's creates the change in thought from the victorian period to the modern period by creating strong women. The strong women face some tough choices which create a "dramatic vision of life". This occurs through the love triangles he creates in each of his books. In Far Bathsheba has to choose between Gabriel, Boldwood, and Seargent Troy. Unlike the victorian ideals Bathsheba decides she isn't ready to be married when Oak, a man who is better off than her at the time, asks her and Boldwood's proposal is rejected on the basis that he doesn't like him. Bathsheba falls for Troy and marries him. These choices to be made between the love triangles create a "dramatic vision of life.
Hardy's system of myth is shown through his characters. He creates a dramatic vision of life by giving his characters such hardships and troublesome time periods. Hardy's system of myth is basically his ideas exaggerated. For example he plays on what his beliefs are on religon and other things. Another example is nature, he makes nature dramatic in his works. Hardy also dramatises fate. Fate is very evident in many of his works, for example Tess in Tess of the Urbervilles, and Henchard in Mayor of Casterbridge. I believe that Hardy has many systems of myth.
Hardy creates a system of myth through portraying his charcters as innocent and naive, as they make there way through hardships and entangled love triangles that locks the charcters into their fate. The mythical sense of Hardy's books are the fact that everything seems mythilogical. Mr. Getty I am running out of time in your class so i am going to finish this blog later because i have a good start so stay tuned for the next part.
the books are muthologocall in the sense thatthibhs seem almost perfect the women ate always portrayed as these gogeousbamazing women with all kinds of power over men. Thhey be all the power any women would want but then hardy trapts his characters with fate and then dooms them. And that is how is books portray a myth becuase none of it seems real.
Hardy's system of Myth is in the form of rights or wrongs in society. In Tess of the D'Ubervilles, Tess usually does the wrong thing like going of with Alec and it leads to her fate of being raped. In Tess's society the "right" thing to do would be for Tess to marry Alec because then she would move up in social status. But Tess has her own idea of how she should live her life and when she chooses not to marry Alec she is looked down upon in society. Hardy basis his characters morals on the views of society.
I agree with Danielle, I think Hardy uses marriage as a myth. In Tess, Far and from the discussions I have heard in class about other books, all have a failure of marriage or relationships. He has a love triangle in each book of the main characters. The book I read was Far, there was four people part of the love “triangle”. Bathsheba who first meets Gabriel and denies him, then meets Boldwood and plans on marrying him until she meets Troy who she does marry. That marriage does not last. In the end she ends up with Gabriel the one she have stayed with. This most likely refers to Hardy’s and is marital problems.
To go along with what others have said, Hardy does portray relationships and marriage - and to an extent love - as disastrous. The perfect one is a myth; this cynicism probably coming from his own marriage with a woman he didn't get along with. In Tess, her marriage to Angel fell apart from the start and they didn't even live as husband and wife - and then she became the wife of Alex. Hardy must think marriage is a myth if he believes people can just say their married whenever. Also in Madding Crowd and Mr.Troy/Bathsheba's marriage. He had been in love with Fanny and even got her pregnant and then faked his own death to get away from Bathsheba, but then came back for her later. He can choose when he wants to be a husband. Hardy obviously doesn't have a very high opinion of marriage.
Hardy’s system of myth is created through his use of fate. He glorifies coincidence, and in his novels, things just seem to fall into place. For example, in the Mayor of Casterbridge, the plot is progressed through chance. The sailor just happens to die when Susan is ready to reclaim her old life, and Farfrae comes through town just in time to hear of Michael’s crop troubles. This use of happenstance is unrealistic and creates "dramatic vision of life."
I will say that i've seen Hardy use fate in most of his books as a myth. Basically giving the protagonist of the story an unbelievably amazing life, but then trapping them in a twist with fate, ending there amazing life and throwing them into a downward spiral.
Hardy uses myth in his writing in the form of faith and religion. His hard feelings towards the church help him to use religion as a mythic technique in his writing showcasing the hypocrisy of the church and its strong follows. For example in Tess, the ideas of the church seem to be whats important to Tess but she doesn't really follow them, for example when she baptises her own baby.
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