The Mayor of Casterbridge

Casterbridge is a rural town, dependent on crops to survive. Wheat, corn, and hay are the main produce of the region. They not only provide food to the people of Casterbridge but also wealth. The community’s involvement in the production of crops is evidenced during the nighttime harvest. As is tradition, the light of the moon allows the townspeople to come together and reap the crops in the fields. Far more than usual, everyone in the town is involved. Everyone understands the importance of a good harvest for the prosperity of Casterbridge as a whole, so the entire community goes out and works. This level of social engagement illustrates why the crops symbolize the community of Casterbridge.

Once they are harvested, the crops become a commodity. Wheat and hay can be bought and sold, both in the market of Casterbridge and in the nearby market towns. The use of crops as a commodity means that there is money to be made. Even a poor man can—with the right investments in crops—become very wealthy. Both Henchard and Farfrae arrive in Casterbridge with nothing to their name. Henchard is a poor farm laborer, while Farfrae is on his way to America in search of opportunity. They both stop in Casterbridge and, after engaging in the crop commodity trade, they are both able to become wealthy and they are both able to become mayor of the town. The commodification of crops represents the arrival of social mobility in small rural English towns. People are not condemned to the social class in which they are born, as they can use crops to improve their material wealth and their social standing. The crops of Casterbridge represent an opportunity for improvement for poor people in a country that is rapidly being changed by capitalism and the industrial revolution. The crop markets are a symbol of this future and a symbol of the changing prospects of working-class people. That Henchard can make such a massive fortune by dealing in crops and then lose a massive fortune in the same manner represents the fluidity brought to Victorian society by the trading of commodities such as crops. The crops themselves represent the community, but the trading of crops represents the mobility newly afforded to the people within this community.

Social mobility is not the only innovation offered by the crops. The way the crops are harvested also hints toward the coming age of industrialization. Henchard is a man of the past, someone who loses a good deal of money by trusting supernatural weather forecasters over modern technology. Farfrae is the opposite. He has a wholly modern attitude toward business, as evidenced by his desire to bring the latest inventions to the town. On his advice, the local farmers purchase a seed-sowing machine which has the potential to revolutionize how crops are grown and harvested in Casterbridge. Farfrae makes a huge amount of money by investing in crops and investing in the future. The traditions of the community may have helped Casterbridge to prosper, but the innovation and the success of outsiders such as Farfrae suggest the arrival of a new era. Crops become a battlefield on which the past (represented by men like Henchard) can fight against the future (represented by men like Farfrae). Thus, crops symbolize the changing of the times in Casterbridge as a whole.