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Abstract
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Abstract چکیده Hardy’s four major novels have always been the subject of scrutiny for voracious readers of literature. One of the approaches in Reader-Response criticism tries to survey masterpieces of literature from the perspective of concretization. According to proponents of concretization the reader of a literary text is constantly on a journey of discovery and when he/she encounters new textual worlds tries to construct meaning out of them. So meaning is a combination of the empirical facts of the outside world and one’s personal perceptions of that world. There is always a transaction between the reader and the text that contributes to the creation of the meaning. The researcher in the process of reading The Mayor of Casterbridge tries to pinpoint where personal experiences of reader and text converge. The researcher attempts to experience the inmost feelings of the characters specially the protagonist by putting himself on his shoes. And by this way the researcher can profoundly experience the reactions and inner feelings of the protagonist toward catastrophic events of his life. Putting the basis of my research on these assumptions, I try to focus my attention on Henchard himself and the impact of environmental issues propelling him toward his downfall. Besides that this study tries to show how the character of Henchard causes him to get entangled in a predicament that for releasing from which he has to pay by his life. Kierkegaardian concepts of Repetition and Despair would be used to clarify the psychological aspects of Hardy’s masterpiece.
According to Kierkegaard when we desire the return of something loved and lost, we desire repetition (qtd. in Hannay 298). Both this desire and its hoped-for fulfillment are comprehensible in terms of our ordinary psychology. Perhaps the person we loved is only temporarily removed, and there are clear reasons to believe that he or she may be returned. If we, however, desire the return of someone for all intents and pur
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