• CROSBY, Dan Kenneth.


- House and home in the novels of Thomas Hardy.


Résumé de Thèse par l'étudiant



In this thesis I examine the elements of house and home as they are portrayed in Hardy's novels from Desperate Remedies to Jude the Obscure. It is my opinion that Hardy's portrait of house and home changed as he developed as a novelist; therefore, my main argument is divided into three sections that cover different stages in Hardy's career: the early novels, the novels of the middle years, and the later novels. This thesis also explores the psychological impact of the first house, and consequently its loss, on character's lives. The ideal first house plays an important role in our conception of house and home; with the guidance of Gaston Bachelard's ideas, expressed in The Poetics of Space, on this first universe, I have examined how the first house and its loss effects a number of Hardy's characters, and even Hardy himself. Hardy's own houses have not been ignored. Two chapters discuss the role that the family cottage at Higher Bockhampton, Hardy's first house, and Max Gate, his last house, play in this changing pattern of a house and home. Higher Bockhampton was transformed into fiction as an ideal family dwelling; Max Gate, which Hardy built himself, in turn reflects many elements of Hardy's changing expression of house and home.