Table Of ContentGENEALOGY AND FICTION IN HARDY
Genealogy and Fiction 
in Hardy 
Family Lineage and Narrative Lines 
Tess O'Toole 
Assistant Professor of English 
McGill University
First published in Great Britain 1997 by 
MACMILLAN PRESS LTD 
Houndmills. Basingstoke. Hampshire RG21 6XS and London 
Companies and representatives throughout the world 
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library. 
ISBN 978-1-349-39996-3  ISBN 978-0-230-37218-4 (eBook) 
DOI 10.1057/9780230372184 
First published in the United States of America 1997 by 
ST. MARTIN'S PRESS, INC., 
Scholarly and Reference Division. 
175 Fifth Avenue. New York. N.Y. 10010 
ISBN 978-0-312-17462-0 
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data 
O'Toole, Tess, 1962-
Genealogy and fiction in Hardy: family lineage and narrative 
lines 1 by Tess O'Toole. 
p.  cm. 
Includes bibliographical references (p. ) and index. 
ISBN 978-0-312-17462-0 (cloth)
I. Hardy, Thomas, I 840-1 928-Knowledge-Genealogy .  2. Domestic 
fiction, English-History and criticism.  3. Genealogy in 
literature.  4. Family in literature.  5. Narration (Rhetoric) 
6. Fiction-Technique.  I. Title. 
PR4757.G42087 1997 
823'.8-<1c21  97-1763 
CIP 
© Teresa M. O'Toole 1997 
All rights reserved. No reproduction, copy or transmission of this publication may be made 
without written permission. 
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Any person who does any unauthorised act in relation to this publication may be liable to 
criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages. 
The author has asserted her right to be identified as the author of this work in accordance 
with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. 
This book is printed on paper suitable for recycling and made from fully managed and 
sustained forest sources. 
10  9  8  7  6  5  4  -'  2  1 
06  05  04  03  02  01  00  99  98  97
To my mother, Patricia Murphy O'Toole, 
and in memory of my father, Thomas Joseph O'Toole, 
who together taught me to value family and to love literature
Contents 
Note on  Editions and Abbreviations  viii 
Acknowledgments  ix 
Introduction  1 
1  Fictitious Families  17 
'Buried genealogical facts': The Mayor of Casterbridge  19 
The genealogical trace .  24 
Illegitimacy and fiction  32 
Family frauds  40 
2  Narrative Coercion  45 
The machine in the narrative: The Well-Beloved  48 
Naming and narrative  55 
The impossibility of priority: A Pair of Bille Eyes  58 
The exhaustion of narrative options: Jude the Obscllre  65 
Tess of the d'Urbervilles: The discomfort of existing 
in narrative  73 
3  Gender and Genre: Women and the Family Script  93 
Plotting gender  93 
Models of triangulation  96 
Sisters and mothers  107 
Reinventions: The Hand of Ethelberta  115 
4  Narrative Jamming in the Family Saga  125 
Engendering narratives  125 
Narrative jamming  130 
Ghostly genealogies  134 
The 'genealogical passion'  139 
Narrative subversions  144 
The problem of the ending  149 
Epilogue  155 
~~  1~ 
References  189 
Index  193 
vii
Note on Editions  and 
Abbreviations 
I have used the Penguin paperback edition of the novels when 
available. Citations to The Hand of Ethelberta and The Well-Beloved 
refer to the paperback Macmillan editions (1975 and 1986, respect 
ively). I have used the Oxford paperback edition of A  Laodicean 
(1991).  Desperate Remedies is cited from the 1984 AMS reprint of 
the 1912 Macmillan edition. 
The following  editions of short story anthologies  are cited. 
Abbreviations used in my text are indicated parenthetically: 
Life's Little Ironies. Oxford, 1996. (LU) 
Life's Little Ironies and A  Changed Man. St. Martin's, 1977. (CM) 
Wessex Tales and A Group of Noble Dames. Macmillan, 1977. (WT, 
GND) 
The abbreviation CL refers to The Collected Letters of Thomas Hardy, 
edited by Richard Little Purdy and Michael Millgate (Clarendon, 
1978). 
The number given in parentheses after the title of a poem indi 
cates its place in The Complete Poems of Thomas Hardy, edited by 
James Gibson (Macmillan, 1976). 
VUl
Acknowledgments 
My greatest debt is to Elaine Scarry, who advised the disserta 
tion that preceded this book and who has continued to offer 
unstinting support. Her patience and generosity are as remark 
able as her insight. I am also deeply grateful to Barbara Johnson 
and Philip Fisher for their incisive comments and advice. 
Special thanks are due to Deirdre d' Albertis for patiently review 
ing many parts of the manuscript, for offering astute commen 
tary and suggestions, and for providing fellowship from the earliest 
to the latest stages of this project. 
My colleagues at McGill have provided a supportive community 
within which I am privileged to work. I particularly wish to thank 
Kerry McSweeney for his good counsel, and Maggie Kilgour and 
Brian Trehearne for good meals and good movies. Thanks also 
to the graduate students in my 1996 seminar whose energy and 
insights helped reinvigorate my own reflections on Hardy. 
Finally, I thank my husband, Martin Stevenson, for his support 
and his patience, for allowing me to turn his sun room into my 
writing room, and for choosing Hardy country in which to propose. 
A shorter version of Chapter 4 first appeared in Narrative 1 
(1993). 
ix