Lucetta contrasted with Elizabeth-Jane from "The mayor of Casterbridge"

Q: How does Elizabeth-Jane contrast Lucetta in Thomas Hardy’s ‘The Mayor Of Casterbridge’?

   ‘The Mayor of Casterbridge’, is a novel written by the famous English novelist Thomas Hardy (1840-1928), and is set in somewhere around 1830, when England was on the dawn of the Industrial Revolution. Hardy describes this novel as ‘A Story of Character’ as it revolves around Michael Henchard, its male protagonist and at times its antagonist, however to successfully keep the book interesting and add the feminine touch Hardy gives the readers certain side-stories of some of the other characters in ‘The Mayor Of Casterbridge’, he achieves this through his portrayal of Elizabeth-Jane, Susan and Lucetta. Susan dies early on, and Lucetta compensates for Susan’s presence by adding a dramatic touch to the story.

     We tend to sympathize with Lucetta Templeman, as she has nothing going for her. She cures Henchard from him ill state of mind, which turned into a love affair. Lucetta sent Henchard love letters in her youth, thinking they would get married, but fate was against her. She was in a bad position initially, as neither was she financially secure, her aunt was sick and she could not marry and be with her lover, Henchard, because Susan, his former wife came back into his life. As a contrast to this, Elizabeth Jane’s life was becoming better. She moved from her low class life, to her Mayor stepfather, Henchard’s mansion, where she started dressing better and became more respectable. She also fell in love with Farfrae, but due to the increasing enmity between Henchard and Farfrae grew, hence Elizabeth Jane could not extensively pursue her love for Farfrae any further. Fate, yet again, playing its role against the mortal forces. Although, Elizabeth Jane was gaining respect and stature, being the stepdaughter of the Mayor, she was grounded and did not forget her old surroundings.

“Sober and discreet, she was yet so hearty, that her homespun simplicity afforded none of those piquant problems which are afforded by the simplicity that is carefully constructed by art. When she walked abroad she seemed to be occupied with an inner chamber of ideas, and to have slight need for visible objects.”

  Just as Farfrae acts as the foil for Henchard, Elizabeth-Jane is the foil for Lucetta. Elizabeth-Jane is all naturalness and no grandiosity; Lucetta is all grandiosity and no naturalness. Lucetta is almost always artificial and superficial – she worries more about appearances than what is going on beneath the surface. She even defines herself in terms of her clothes; when trying to choose what dress to wear, she says 'You are that person' (pointing to one of the dresses), 'or you are that totally different person' (pointing to the other) 'for the whole of the coming spring: and one of the two, you don't know which, may turn out to be very objectionable.’ To no ones fancy except herself, it was finally decided by Miss Templeman that she would be the cherry-coloured person at all hazards. 

According to Lucetta, you can change your personality and become a "totally different person" the same way you can change your dress. And she certainly is unpredictable, she is deeply in love with Henchard when she first meets him in Jersey, but when she comes to Casterbridge, she wants to marry him only to save her reputation. When she meets Farfrae, she falls head-over-heels in love with him and forgets about her promise to Henchard. Also the only reason she takes Elizabeth-Jane into her house was so that she could give an excuse to Henchard to come and woo her, but after learning that Henchard does not like Elizabeth-Jane anymore, she feels the need to throw Elizabeth-Jane out. Hence we can see how changeable Lucetta really is.  These antics of hers show just how self-centered and self-absorbed she really is. On the other hand Elizabeth-Jane is so grateful for Lucetta taking her into her house, that she willingly agrees to become Lucetta’s housekeeper also! “ I shall soon want somebody to live in my house, partly as housekeeper, partly as companion”. Elizabeth-Jane goes on to tell Lucetta that she is not an “accomplished person” and wonders why Lucetta is even taking her under her dwellings.

Lucetta, is portrayed as a flighty, coquette individual showing her caring side in a few instances,  feeling bad for the farmer who is leaving his lover, when Farfrae eventually gives him a job. Lucetta is very fickle minded and temperamental, as she wanted to come back to Casterbridge to marry Henchard, but instead she fell for Farfrae and ended up getting married to him. Her fickle mind and indefinite nature is also shown when she sends Henchard a letter in order to collect her letters, but never ended up arriving, on the Wednesday they planned. Eventually, Lucetta is the one with the wealthy, popular Farfrae, who is also elected Mayor and is a possible candidate to be knighted. Fate is on her side, but she is haunted by her past with Henchard that can practically ruin her marriage and her entire life of luxury and comfort with the love of her life. She tends to avoid situations because she runs away from Henchard when the drivers say that Lucetta and Elizabeth Jane both love Farfrae and she did not come to collect her letters from Henchard. Although, eventually, Henchard reads out the letters to Farfrae, not telling her it is from his very own wife, Lucetta. Lucetta can also be arrogant and rude, depicted when she does not accept Joshua Jopp’s application to work for Frafrae. Lucetta is also very manipulative, because when she is attracted to Farfrae, she uses Elizabeth Jane by keeping her at home, in order to avoid confronting Henchard. Lucetta is also arrogant and not socially alert, because she tells her own story to Elizabeth Jane, saying it from a third person’s point of view, whereas it did not take Elizabeth Jane long to figure that the woman in the story was Lucetta, herself. Lucetta has fate going her way, because at the end, due to his love for Lucetta, Henchard destroys the letters, even though he had an opportunity to expose her, many a time.

   Elizabeth Jane is a complete contrast to Lucetta. She is down to earth, rational and sympathetic. Elizabeth Jane came into wealth due to her stepfather, Henchard, but never took it to her head. She remained sensitive and acquired recognition subtly and slowly by dressing better and due to her caring nature, as portrayed in various incidents, even after she was poor and decided to leave Henchard in order to educate herself and please him. She faced a lot of losses in her life, her mother, Susan, her father, Newson were dead, and her step father, who confessed he was her real father, after which, she accepted the fact and even adopted his last name, but he abandoned her and was cold and distant towards her. Despite him criticizing her in public and being cold, she decided to mend ways by educating herself to please him. He still, did not accept her completely. Elizabeth Jane was very particular about being respectable, but turned out to be a hypocrite because she served in the Three Mariners when her mother and her did not have enough money to spend a night there. Elizabeth Jane was very empathetic and knew how to take things in her stride, because she even lost her lover Farfrae, after all the odds they had been through to be together, Henchard had finally offered Farfrae, Elizabeth Jane’s courtship, but Farfrae fell for Lucetta. Elizabeth Jane, although not well educated, but street smart and vigilant. When Lucetta was reciting her own story to Elizabeth Jane from a third person’s point of view, Elizabeth Jane figured it was Lucetta. Elizabeth Jane also knew Joshua Jopp was not the right man to manage Henchard’s business and even warned him about it. She also had a very caring and empathetic nature. Despite the way Henchard had treated Elizabeth Jane, she knew her duty as a daughter and when he took to drinking again, she wanted to save him the embarrassment and hence decided to warn Farfrae, showing her alert nature. Fate was not in favor of Elizabeth Jane, but somehow, her persistent nature to keep enduring the downs that she had with the loss of everything and everybody she had, and trying to please Henchard despite several failed attempts in the past, shows her struggle and determination to make things right, which Lucetta did not have. Lucetta merely avoided sticky situations, and people who caused these sticky situations, whereas Elizabeth Jane tried to mend them and make things right no matter how hard a toll they would take on her.

From the “market” episode we also see Lucetta’s dandy dress style, which according to the villagers, looked similar to the new colorful seed-drill that Farfrae had introduced. We cannot help contrast the difference in style between Elizabeth-Jane and Lucetta. Upon being taken under Henchard’s wing, Elizabeth-Jane had the privilege of wearing many fashionable clothes, but she did not know what to do with this privilege and was confused whether to embrace and show of her new found wealth or to be the same humble yet civilized woman she was. Lucetta on the other on acquiring her inheritance spent lavishly on dresses imported all the way from London and paraded around town with them on.

The next day, Farfrae comes to visit. He hardly notices Elizabeth-Jane at all and he only has eyes for Lucetta. This hurts Elizabeth-Jane's feelings, but sadly she knows that she has no control of the situation. She figures Farfrae must be the second man in the story Lucetta told her about "her friend." We see how Elizabeth-Jane is an observer to many scenes; indeed much of the interpretation is through her eyes. She is a shrewd evaluator of human behavior. It is she who warns Henchard not to employ Jopp, and because of her concern that her father would get into trouble warns Farfrae of Henchard’s vindictive nature. Whereas Lucetta cares only about people around her, who boost her image and self-worth and hence is not perceptive like Elizabeth-Jane. We see this when Lucetta is more engrossed in thoughts of Farfrae becoming knighted for his troubles of welcoming a member of the royal family than actually enjoying the festivities around that are so rare to Casterbridge.

Hardy sees ej as innocent, good and simple. She is portrayed as having positive qualities and her sensitivity and perceptiveness combine to make a stable but passionless figure. On the other hand Hardy does not describe Lucetta in detail because he himself knows that Lucetta is a flat character, who is self-serving and dandy and hence can’t help to avoid writing much about her psyche anyways.