More Than a \u27Mere Painted Scene\u27: The Role of Theatricality and the Carnivalesque in \u27The Mayor of Casterbridge\u27

This essay examines the role of Thomas Hardy\u27s scenes of community theatre, drawing examples from Far from the Madding Crowd, The Return of the Native, and The Mayor of Casterbridge. Only in such scenes from The Mayor of Casterbridge does Hardy employ Mikhail Bakhtin\u27s carnivalesque, reversing the roles of the spectator and the creator of spectacle, the supporting cast and the lead actor, in order to magnify the fall of protagonist Michael Henchard