Keywords:
Chess, Tower, Huxley, Knight, Rook, Hardy
Abstract:
While Thomas Hardy’s debt to Thomas Henry Huxley has long been recognised by critics and by Hardy himself, focused studies of the role of strategic play in the narrative development of Hardy’s fiction are few in number. Alluding to Huxley’s metaphor of chess as symbolic of the rules of life, the article considers how scenes of contest in Hardy’s early fiction elicit important questions concerning duality, rivalry, and gendered concepts of power and rule. Considering the long historic association between chess and battle, the article explores the latent presence of military terminology in Hardy’s novella ‘An Indiscretion in the Life of an Heiress’ (1868) and A Pair of Blue Eyes (1873), where characters must contend with the ‘laws of Nature’ and ‘contrasting positions which could not be reconciled’ to survive. The article establishes textual connections between the two works and suggests that Huxley’s ideas were formative to the concept of Hardy’s early fiction.
About the author
Rebecca Welshman (University of Liverpool)
Rebecca is an Honorary Research Fellow of the University of Liverpool. She is interested in the literary archaeology of place – the study of texts in the context of geography, history and environment. Her PhD (University of Exeter, 2010–13) titled ‘Imagining Archaeology’ focused on nature and landscape in the works of Thomas Hardy and Richard Jefferies. She has published in historical, cultural, and literary studies, including a chapter in Thomas Hardy in Context (CUP, 2013). Her latest essay, which highlights military associations in the works of Shakespeare, appeared in Reading the River in Shakespeare’s Britain (Edinburgh University Press, 2024).
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