The Daedalian, Yearbook of the College of Industrial Arts, 1920 Page: 316
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Thomas Hardy as an Exponent of the
Experimental Novel
By RUTH DEVAI.LL
(Th7 e scond State prize-winning essay; submitted byl the collegee oi Ilndustrial tI s in the Annual Contest,' o 1920
in the Te'xas Iter, l -(C llcgiate Press 1.soc iation. -THLE EIb ron.)
The theory of the experimental novel was originated by the great French novelist, Emile
Zola, who was so completely obsessed with the idea of naturalism in fiction that he put to
scorn all attempts at novel writing which did not conform to the principals laid down in his
work, "Le Roman Experimental." In this work, Zola excuses his own novels from the criticism
they have received as being too full of the ugly, sordid things of life. Now the distinguishing
characteristic of the experimental novel is that it professes to report the results of inquiry into
the meaning of spiritual and psychical phenomena exactly as Darwin's "Origin of the Specie.s"
reports the meaning of certain physical phenomena observed in plants and animals. The experi-
mental novelist endeavors to apply, therefore, the method of induction in his effort to discover
the laws which determine human life and character. The scientific method involves the gathering
of as much material as possible, then the truthful presentation of all the evidence derived from
his material. The truth of the conclusion depends in part upon how extensive the research has
been, whether any case has been neglected or omitted, and in part upon whether all the phenomena
have been faithfully reported. It is upon this principle that Zola justifies his use of ugly facts;
if you are going to dodge the bad, to close your eyes to the unattractive, the repulsive aspects
of your experiment, of what worth will your conclusion be? Since no fiction is good unless
true, how can fiction that is only partially true be as good as that which is entirely true? There
have been realistic novelists in all periods of the history of fiction-there have been novels which
report the facts of life with essential truth and fidelity, but until Zola, and our English Hardy
came, there was little if any delving into the very bottom of things, and bringing to light motives
and characteristics which, while common, are rarely mentioned. Fielding was indeed a great
realist, but an examination of his treatment of "Tom Jones" will reveal a certain shunning of
the unpleasant. Had Fielding been a philosophical naturalist, he would never have had allowed
the end of "Tom Jones" to be so delightfully and completely satisfactory; he would have deprived
Tom of his Sophia as surely as Jude Fawley was deprived of his Sue, for every unfortunate
adventure he experienced pointed to certain failure with the precision of a weather cock. In
contradistinction to the attitude of the ordinary realist, the philosophical naturalist asks this
question: Do matters commonly arrive at such an issue under the conditions of actual life?
The philosophical naturalist orders his events in conformity to the inexorable logic of life
and nature. Writers like Fielding and Thackeray allow the element of personality to enter
into the shaping of their characters. The efforts of Tom Jones and of Henry Esmond are
rewarded by earthly happiness and material pleasure; the efforts of Jess Durbeyfield and of
Jude Fawley to gain their desires are as futile as those of a flame against a stream of water,
and that is because Hardy has allowed himself to observe no instances in life where personality
had much, if anything, to do with the destiny of mankind-we no sooner overcome fate in
one way than we are vanquished by her in some other unforeseen way; human effort is of no
avail against the destiny that shapes our ends. This is what Hardy believes to be the law of
human life, and he has arrived at this conclusion by careful investigation into the motives of
actual people in actual life, seen always through his fatalistic spectacles.
The scientist spends much time in selecting, arranging, and classifying his phenomena
before he is able at last to formulate a general law. He then finds it necessary to exert the
same painstaking care and skill in selecting types, conditions, and environment which will best
exemplify the general law. Now Hardy has lived for years in Wessex, and has formulated his
law of life by observation of the joys and sorrows of Wessex people, and analyzing the causes
for them. It behooves him, then, to select characters that will best typify the law he intends
to represent in his novels. His success in selection can best be shown by examples. When he
wishes us to know a type of man who lives all his life trying to realize a great ideal, and is
as far from its realization when he dies as he was when he began, he shows us Jude Fawley
-at first a boy with every good impulse, later a young man with hopes for realizing his ideals.
Hardy gives this character certain weaknesses, which he eventually subjects to great strain.
3 The yielding to the temptations of wine and women, together with a train of incredibly cruel,
though inevitable circumstances, serves to disintegrate a soul, the soul of Jude, the obscure.
Jude Fawley is the one man for this place. A stronger man or a less simple man could have
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College of Industrial Arts (Denton, Tex.). The Daedalian, Yearbook of the College of Industrial Arts, 1920, yearbook, 1920; Denton, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth129003/m1/318/?q=%221920~%22: accessed July 16, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting Texas Woman's University Libraries.