At the beginning of The Mayor of Casterbridge, Thomas Hardy provides a lucid examination of some of his protagonist's personal foibles and the sad ironies that these failures they give in. Michael Henchard's use of alcohol to escape the reality of his unhappy marriage led to the sale of his wife because Henchard's emotions were heightened by his drunkenness. When Mr. Henchard entered the fair tent during the opening pages of Chapter 1, he was calm and level-headed, if silent. As the night wore on and he drank increasing amounts of furmity, he became progressively more agitated, loud and argumentative towards his wife Susan. While Henchard viewed alcohol as a release from his restrictive marriage, his emotions ran high, which, against his better judgment, led him to sell his wife to the sailor, much as horses are sold at auction. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get Original Essay Henchard felt as if his family was limiting him and preventing him from being a successful man, which led to excessive alcohol consumption. Michael Henchard is presented to the reader as a man of few words, quietly morose due to the disappointment of his life and the relative poverty in which he is forced to live to support his wife and daughter. To free himself from his repressed emotions Henchard turns to alcohol, as demonstrated when he discusses the mistake of his marriage with the denizens of the furmity tent: “'I married at eighteen, fool that I was; and this is the consequence of o't' He pointed to himself and his family with a hand gesture intended to bring out the misery of the exhibition. (9) This quote shows how, as Michael Henchard falls more and more under the influence of alcohol, he also becomes more outspoken and able to share his emotions, even with complete strangers. Alcohol seems to be the only way out of Henchard's dark and depressed existence, and without it he would be trapped in his self-inflicted silence. After excessive alcohol use, Michael Henchard's anger, so intense and extreme that it overwhelmed him, caused him to lose control of his actions. In the fair tent the reader observes how a transformation occurs in Henchard: “At the end of his first basin the man had returned to serenity. In the second he was jovial; to the third argument". (8) Although the rum initially makes Henchard funny, as he continues to drink he becomes angry at his wife and the situation he believes she and her daughter, Elizabeth-Jane, have put him in. an auctioneer who sells horses, Henchard's drunken rage allows him to do the same to his wife. Although the sale was considered by most of the tent to be a joke, when Henchard finally receives an offer for his wife from the sailor, he is too drunk and overcome by the effects of alcohol's rage to refuse the offer, while he believed he to be able to be free from its restrictions forever without remorse. Despite being dissatisfied with his marriage, Henchard would not have sold Susan without being heavily under the influence of alcohol. The effects of alcohol on Michael Henchard, mixed with his emotions, caused a reaction so extreme that he managed to sell his wife to a stranger. However, if Michael and Susan Henchard had not entered the tent that night, it is safe to assume that Henchard would never have sold it. Without alcohol as a third party in their relationship, the Henchards and their daughter quietly lived an unhappy life, as the novel's opening demonstrates: “What was truly singular, however, was the couple's progress, and it would attract.