H05041 MADMEN AND DEMONS 5/23/05 - HARDY FORUM ARCHIVES ____________________________________________________________________________
From: pauline.guerin@ntlworld.com
Subject: RE: Madmen, Love, Doctors and the like
Date: May 23, 2005 7:55:53 AM PDT
HI Barbara
Yes this sounds perfect for the kind of thing I am looking for, so thank you very much for this suggestion, I'll look it up as well.
This treatment of madness or potential insanity actually reminds me of the treatment of Lady Audley in Lady Audley's Secret. It is almost feminising the male by imprisoning or confining him, rather than executing him. It is this difference/similarity that I am exploring.
Many thanks
Pauline
Would Boldwood in Far from the Madding Crowd be the type of character you're looking for? He's imprisoned rather than executed for the murder of Troy because of doubts about his sanity.
Barbara
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From: jacky@wilkibob.me.uk
Subject: RE: Madmen, Love, Doctors and the like
Date: May 23, 2005 7:49:24 AM PDT
Hi, Pauline
Yes, Boldwood in 'Far From the Madding Crowd goes mad towards the end of the book because of his unrequited love for Bathsheba Everdene.
All the best,
Jacky
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From: jacky@wilkibob.me.uk
Subject: RE: A Plea
Date: May 23, 2005 7:47:13 AM PDT
I found the reference you mentioned
and have added it as a footnote in my diss.
Thanks again
Jacky
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From: Rosemarie.morgan@yale.edu
Subject: Re: Madmen, Love, Doctors and the like
Date: May 23, 2005 7:56:51 AM PDT
Hello Pauline -
Jacky and I have just been discussing FFMC--so Boldwood might be the first to come to mind for many of us. He is possibly what wd be called obsessive -compulsive nowadays. The trigger to his homicide appears at first sight to be madness caused by deep love, but there are many earlier signs of his mental instability -- notably the issue of the clothes he buys and has labelled Bathsheba Boldwood and, at an everyday level, his hermetic life caused ,we are told, by being jilted when young.
I think Rosemary Sumner's book, Thomas Hardy, Psychological Novelist (Macmillan) will be most useful here
Hope this helps,
Rosemarie
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pauline.guerin@ntlworld.com
Subject: RE: Madmen, Love, Doctors and the like
Date: May 23, 2005 7:55:53 AM PDT
HI Barbara
Yes this sounds perfect for the kind of thing I am looking for, so thank you very much for this suggestion, I'll look it up as well.
This treatment of madness or potential insanity actually reminds me of the treatment of Lady Audley in Lady Audley's Secret. It is almost feminising the male by imprisoning or confining him, rather than executing him. It is this difference/similarity that I am exploring.
Many thanks
Pauline
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dave.jaackson@btinternet.com
Subject: Re: Madmen, Love, Doctors and the like
Date: May 23, 2005 7:31:19 AM PDT
Hi Pauline
Would Boldwood in Far from the Madding Crowd be the type of character you're looking for? He's imprisoned rather than executed for the murder of Troy because of doubts about his sanity.
Barbara
P.S. Hope I'm doing this right - it's the first time I've used this forum!
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From: NHardyboy@aol.com
Subject: Re: Madmen, Love, Doctors and the like
Date: May 23, 2005 8:36:35 AM PDT
As Rosemarie observes, Boldwood's fixation upon Bathsheba is more obsessional than anything else; I'm not sure that his bizarre behavior is dictated by the fact Bathsheba won't or can't love him, but because he wishes to possess her. When Boldwood finally goes "over the edge," he is reacting not so much to unrequited love as to recognition that the newly-returned Troy is an unsurmountable obstacle in his long quest to possess Bathsheba. He snaps and kills Troy, and, interestingly, Boldwood is stopped just short of taking the gun to himself. It's only through the efforts of Gabriel that Boldwood is declared _legally_ mad. . .whether or not he _really_ goes mad is something altogether different.
It's my opinion that Hardy's characters don't "go mad" in the Tom o' Bedlam or Mad Margaret sense, tearing their clothes and barking at the moon; when they pushed to the point where a character would classically go insane, they tend to retreat into themselves and will themselves into oblivion--witness Henchard, Giles Winterbourne, and Jude. An interesting book on this subject is Frank Giordiano's _I'd Have My Life Unbe: TH's Self-Destructive Characters_ (U of Alabama P, 1984), which is well worth a look.
Best,
Paul Niemeyer
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From: jacky@wilkibob.me.uk
Subject: RE: Madmen, Love, Doctors and the like
Date: May 23, 2005 8:31:56 AM PDT
Thank you, Rosemary, I'll try that book.
Jacky
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From: jacky@wilkibob.me.uk
Subject: RE: Madmen, Love, Doctors and the like
Date: May 23, 2005 9:06:08 AM PDT
Thanks, Paul, that is of great value to my diss, too. Trust me to oversimplify! As soon as I had written my comment I realised I would be shot down, and rightly so.
Jacky
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From: gavinailes@hotmail.com
Subject: RE: Hardy and Goethe
Date: May 23, 2005 11:31:18 AM PDT
One last comment on this subject. I like the comparison but I wonder about Troy's feelings for Fanny Robin. Are these the emotions of a demon? I agree with Rosemarie; there are few black and white characters.
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From: dcorney@westnet.com.au
Subject: Mephistopheles
Date: May 23, 2005 3:05:50 PM PDT
Jacky,
If you are looking for other matters Mephistophelean consider Hardy's short stories, "The Fiddler of the Reels" and "The Romantic Adventures of a Milkmaid".
Regards,
David Cornelius
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From: petermlivesey@ntlworld.com
Subject: Re: Mephistopheles and Madness
Date: May 24, 2005 3:17:36 AM PDT
Apart from his hue, is Diggory Venn really Mephistophelean? Not in his character, surely. Damon (Demon?) Wildeve is another matter, however.
Is it really accurate to ascribe Boldwood's madness to unrequited love? At that point Bathsheba has consented to accept his suit and, whatever her own reservations, Boldwood says, "I am happy now...God bless you." Is it not more the collapse of his plans following the unexpected reappearance of Troy, perhaps, that tips Boldwood into insanity?
Peter Livesey
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From: pauline.guerin@ntlworld.com
Subject: RE: Madmen, Love, Doctors and the like
Date: May 24, 2005 5:20:06 AM PDT
Would I be right then in suggesting that Boldwood's madness is more a kind of monomania perhaps? Monomania is also one of my themes in the quest for male madness, so he is yet more interesting to me.
Pauline
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From: Rosemarie.morgan@yale.edu
Subject: RE: Madmen, Love, Doctors and the like
Date: May 24, 2005 7:45:37 AM PDT
Pauline, read Ch XVII--(in the MS edition) "Boldwood in Meditation." You'll find plenty to work on. It's not just that he's described as a "hotbed of tropic intensity" but far more (and the narrator appears to be having difficulty in creating a psychological profile here, without doing damage to the likeability of the character) -- in particular that if Bathsheba had known Boldwood's "moods" she would have been "fearful" of what she had done in sending the Valentine. The "Valentine" segment is all very revealing -- decidedly monomaniacal.
Best,
Rosemarie
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From: pauline.guerin@ntlworld.com
Subject: RE: Madmen, Love, Doctors and the like
Date: May 24, 2005 8:14:23 AM PDT
Thankyou most kindly Rosemarie, I shall certainly do that... it's exactly what I'm aiming at by the looks of things..
Thanks again
Pauline
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