What Features of Henchard’s character cause him trouble in the first half of the book?

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What Features of Henchard's character cause him trouble in the first half of the book?

Michel Henchard is very dominating all through the book and this may be clearly seen in the first half. At the beginning, we can see that Henchard hates women, for example, when he sells his wife to the sailor when he is drunk. He depicts himself as 'something of a woman hater' (page 78), he feels no need for a partner and when he gets back with Susan he treats her and Elizabeth-Jane badly. He also treats Lucetta badly in the way that he leaves her and goes back to Susan without telling Lucetta. Later on he says 'these cursed women - there's not an inch of straight grain in them' (page 151), but while he is cursing them he is always complaining about being lonely. This causes him to get Farfrae to stay in Casterbridge by offering him a job.
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Henchard is a very impulsive person and is very superstitious, for example, he goes to see a fortune teller who tells him that there is going to be a bad harvest and that he should hold onto the grain and sell it at an inflated price, without asking any questions. The town of Casterbridge then blames him for selling bad grain when the harvest was good. Henchard then has to sell his grain at a lower price.

After he has sold his wife he goes to Casterbridge and becomes very successful, but in his business he has ...

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