Fate and Chance in The Mayor of Casterbridge Thomas Hardy's disillusionment with religion was a major theme in both his novels and his poetry. There was a conflict in his mind as to whether fate or chance ruled us. He explores this dilemma in the poems “I Look Into My Glass” and “Going and Staying.” Each poem takes a different stance on the topic. It is up to the novel The Mayor of Casterbridge to illuminate what position he will ultimately adopt. The poem "I Look Into My Glass" is similar to "Going and Staying" in many ways. Both poems deal with the effects of time. “I Look Into My Glass” is narrated by a person (I imagine a man, although in reality it could be one or the other) who is very old and looks at his worn figure in a mirror. The narrator is grieving, not because he is old, but because his heart is still strong and full of feelings. He wishes his heart had withered like his skin so that he would not have to feel the loss of all his loved ones, the “hearts grown cold to me” that he mentions in the poem (ILIMG, line 6). The narrator blames a personification of time for this, saying "Time, to make me cry, / Part steals, part leaves home" (ILIMG, lines 9, 10). His strength and vitality were stolen while his heart remained young. The emphasis in this poem is on the emotional aspect rather than the physical because the narrator values ​​his emotions over his physical state. This does not mean that the narrator is indifferent to his condition. Just as he wants his heart to be as fragile as his body, so he also wants his body to match his heart. When he says that time "shakes this fragile structure in the evening / With the throbs of midday" he means that his heart still beats with desire... in the middle of the paper... your destiny. Henchard dies alone and friendless not because he was part of God's plan, but because he fails to see that he is operating according to his own free will. Hardy's loss of faith in his own life is evident throughout his writings, especially in the poems "I Look in My Glass" and "Going and Staying" and the novel The Mayor of Casterbridge. Here he explores his ideas about chance and destiny and ultimately comes to the belief that every man controls himself. One can assume that this was a scary thought for Hardy since much of his work deals with his disillusionment with religion. Whether Hardy wanted to enlighten the multitudes with his writings, or whether he simply wanted them to see his suffering and pity him, is a question only he can answer. Works Cited: Hardy, Thomas. The Mayor of Casterbridge. Ed. Phillip Mallett. New York: W. W. Norton, 2001.