The Narrator in the Novels of Thomas Hardy : His Functions and Limitations

In Jude the Obscure Thomas Hardy presents as a chronicler the character of his narrator who mediates between the reader and his fictional world. Such a narrative disguise Hardy retains through his novels from first to last. The narrator as a chronicler was just adequate to the author's intention of reproducing the Wessex world, his native country which had been lost in his childhood or long before. For this narrator could develop his characteristics and functions in all the Wessex novels, excepting Tess of the D'urbervilles and Jude. But in these works, there appears the author's attitude of criticism against Wessex and is dealt with the complicated inner world of the characters who are conscious of their modern ego, which the narrator as a chronicler can not express sufficiently without bringing his limitations to light. We shall clarify, in the paper, some qualities of this narrator, especially through Hardy's earlier novels than Tess and Jude and investigate how the limitations of the narrator's functions appear in these two works