In Mayor Henchard tells Elizabeth Jane that he is her father but shortly afterwards he finds out that this is not the case. He then treats her badly, pushing her away. It is because of this that she moves in with Lucetta. He had ‘showed a positive dislike for the presence of this girl not his own, whenever he encountered her.’ Here is an example of the strong narrative portraying Henchard as a bitter stubborn man, pushing the reader to believe that Henchard's loneliness is caused by his character. ‘ “Bide where you be,” he echoed sharply. “good g---, are only fit to carry wash to a pig trough, that ye use such words as those?” ’ Henchard is really angry that he has been betrayed and so takes it out on Elizabeth Jane. He is a stubborn traditionalist so all he can think about is his reputation. Hardy is trying to show how being selfish is a negative way to live one’s life, which leads to loneliness.
Curley from “Of Mice and Men” is similar to Henchard, as he treats some one badly, leading to his loneliness, and unhappiness. In Curley's case it is his wife he treats badly. We do not actually hear directly of Curley being nasty to his wife but we learn this throughout the book from scenes where she confides in people and complains about him. You get the impression that they have no real relationship, that he does not trust her, that she flirts around the other men and “got the eye” even after two weeks of marriage. He boasts to impress her telling her whom he’s going to beat up. “Spends all his time sayin’ what he’s gonna do to guys he don’t like, and he don’t like nobody.” This pushes her away because she has to listen to this constantly and hates it. Curley just wants her for status, sex- (“Curley says he’s keepin’ that hand soft for his wife”) and to irritate the workers. The way he treats her, I believe contributes to the cause of her death. If he didn’t treat her in that way she wouldn’t have to confide in someone else –“And then her words tumbled out in a passion of communication, as though she hurried before her listener could be taken away”. “Think I don’t like to talk to somebody ever’ once in a while?” This shows Curley doesn’t really talk to her much. So she confides in Lennie and he ends up accidentally killing her. Henchard and Curley are both bitter and stubborn people and therefore end up lonely. So character is fate in this case. However, fate does play a part in Curley’s case as he has been brought up in a society where women are considered inferior and with contempt. He therefore doesn’t feel guilt for his bad treatment of her.
The undertakings of Henchard in the firmity tent when he sold his wife were the cause of all his loneliness. His obstinate, impulsive and self-righteous character emphasized by the alcohol caused this reckless act. “Conscious of his alcoholic load”, “Mark me-ill not go after her!” Even when he had realised the mistake he had made “he had not quite anticipated this ending”. His stubborn character prevented him from going after her, he cared more about making a fool of himself to others, by going after her, than actually getting her back. So, once again Henchard’s character is the cause of his loneliness.
Like Henchard, Crooks is lonely due to his aggressive distrustful nature. “I ain’t wanted in the bunkhouse, and you ain’t wanted in my room.” However due to the attitude towards blacks at the time, he is segregated from the other workers, and because of this, builds up barriers to shut out all forms of friendship and contact. Owing to his racial origin, Crooks has always felt ostracised. So Crooks’ loneliness is due to the cruel society he lived in. But when Lennie tries to be his friend Crooks finds it hard to warm to him. He realises Lennie's gullible character and takes advantage of his weak nature. “Crooks’ face lighted with pleasure in his torture.” This was only a defensive mechanism to hide his own insecurities. He had been so used to taking abuse from others he instantly tried to grab a bit of power and be on the other side of the equation for once in his life. So it could be argued that Crooks allowed fate to have a negative effect on his character, making the relief from loneliness only momentary.
It could be argued that fate was to blame for Hen chard’s fete being ruined-“The slight moisture resolved itself into a monotonous smiting of earth by heavens in torrents to which no end could be prognosticated.” which in turn caused him loneliness. Conversely Henchard's stubborn traditionalist ways had prevented him from modernising his fete and putting it under cover. His arrogant character meant that he was overly confident of his fete being far better than Farfrae's. But it ended up completely the opposite; no one went to Henchard's fete instead “all the town crowded to the walk” (Farfrae's fete). “A man must be a head strong stun poll to think folk would go up to that bleak place today.” Henchard ends up as a lonely figure partly due to fete but the main cause again is his obstinate, impulsive, self-righteous and traditionalistic character.
In “Of Mice and Men” most of the characters are shown to be lonely due to elements beyond their control. For example, Curley's wife gives the first impression of a “no good tart” who spends all her time trying to get people into trouble or “canned”, therefore making herself lonely due to her character. However Steinbeck is keen to show that this is not the case and that elements beyond her control (the male dominated society she lived in for example) where more to blame for her loneliness. He shows this by how she is thought of by the men. “Jesus what a piece of jailbait” “bitch” etc. He especially presses this point in the scene when she is found dead - “You god-damn tramp…Ever’body knowed you’d mess things up. You wasn’t no good. You ain’t no good now, you lousy tart.”. Another thing, which Steinbeck does to emphasize her extremely low status, is that he doesn’t actually tell us her name, she is always just referred to as “Curley's wife”- a possession of Curley. So although Curley’s wife has a malicious discontented, mean and attention seeking personality “….the meanness and the planning’s and the discontent and the ache for attention…” this was fuelled by the way she is treated- (similarly to Crooks) and the situation she is in which is obviously due to elements beyond her control.
In conclusion, both novels tackle the issue of whether of not ‘character is fate’, but in different ways. In ‘ The Mayor of Casterbridge ’ Thomas hardy the author of the book pushes the reader to believe that Henchards stubborn impulsive character is to blame for his loneliness. He does this by portraying everything that goes wrong for hardy as due to his character, constantly preventing us from feeling sorry for him. However the author of ‘of mice and men’ John Steinbeck takes the opposite approach, he makes the reader feel sorry for his characters, portraying their loneliness being almost totally due to fate as opposed to their character. The circumstances of the two novels differ greatly due to the different time periods and society. Steinbeck is writing about migrant workers in America in the 30’s. At this time society in America was very brutal and prejudice towards the poor, women and blacks making it hard for them to pull themselves out of poverty. So in the book it is due to elements beyond the migrant workers control that they were born into a poor family. As a result of being poor they had to travel around going from job to job, this caused them to be lonely as it was hard to keep friends if you were moving around a lot. Whereas in The Mayor of Casterbridge Henchard manages to go from being a hay trusser to being the mayor because of the different society. I think that there is no right or wrong answer to whether or not character is fate but how a person will end up is due to both their character and their fate.