Analysis
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| Interior of Cormilligan Cottage, located near Tynron, Scotland. |
One thing that makes “The Three Strangers” interesting is Hardy’s use of foreshadowing. There is a lot of foreshadowing in the story, although the reader might not recognize it immediately. For example, the first stranger is described by Hardy as having a gaunt appearance; while this might seem like a minor detail, it makes perfect sense after it is revealed that the first stranger is actually the poor and starving sheep-stealer. The first stranger is also notably evasive about divulging personal details when talking with the shepherd’s wife, and his excuse for not having a pipe and tobacco box is convenient, to say the least. It is understandable that the reader would believe at first that the third stranger is indeed the escaped prisoner, but upon looking back at the story, it is quite believable that the prisoner is actually the first stranger. Hardy’s employment of these examples of foreshadowing is intended to maximize the surprise that comes at the end of the story. In addition to the entertainment value, the story reminds readers of the importance of paying attention to detail and not jumping to conclusions (a lesson that is not only applicable to literature but also to life in general). Hardy scatters numerous clues to the prisoner’s true identity throughout the story, but most readers miss those clues on the initial read-through.
Another interesting aspect of the story is Hardy’s well-crafted characterizations. For example, Hardy manages to develop the character of the constable throughout the latter part of the story. The constable is portrayed as being an arrogant and somewhat bumbling man, more concerned with power and prestige than actually serving justice. At the point of the story where the hangman tells him to pursue the escaped prisoner and then begins giving orders to the rest of the party, the constable chooses to repeat some of the hangman’s sentences and finish others. This shows that he is trying to establish himself as being equally a member of authority as the hangman; this notion is furthered when the constable uses the phrase “we in authority.” Later on, after the party has caught the third stranger, the constable begins to accuse him by using the phrase “in the name of the Father,” but stops himself in the middle of the last word and changes it to “crown.” He likely does this because he believes that royalty is a more fearsome and respected entity than religion, and he wishes to be perceived in this way by the third stranger.
Hardy also does a thorough job of characterizing the shepherd’s wife. He describes her as being “frugal” and then goes on to justify that description by detailing her efforts to engage the party guests in “mingling short dances with short periods of talk and singing” so that they would not become too thirsty and consume large quantities of mead. In fact, she tells the musicians not to play for more than fifteen minutes at a time so that the guests would be forced to take breaks from dancing. However, the shepherd’s wife’s inclination towards good hospitality seems to overrule her frugal nature. After the musicians continue to play following her attempt to get them to stop playing, she abandons her attempt and sits down rather than appear rude to her guests. Later on, when the first stranger offers his mug of mead to the second stranger, the shepherd’s wife is overcome by a “curious blueness” that seems to suggest her displeasure towards the first stranger for offering “what did not belong to him to dispense.” Yet, per her unwillingness to seem like a bad hostess, she does not try to stop this exchange but rather flatly comments on the mead. In this sense she is not happy with the situation and wishes to convey that, but cannot seem to do so in an explicit manner.
Plot and Suspense
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| “The Execution of William Corder” |
The tension and irony of “The Three Strangers” comes from Hardy’s skillful manipulation of our expectations. It’s easy to jump to conclusions about the characters’ identities based on their actions and appearance, but by the end of the story will likely prove these assumptions wrong. The story becomes a game of who’s who as we struggle to pin down which stranger is good and which is bad. However, even after the identities are revealed at the story’s conclusion that question is still open to interpretation.
The circumstances of the first stranger’s arrival are ominous and strange, but no cause for alarm for the guests. His cautious, taciturn demeanor and reluctance to explain why he was out on such an inhospitable night, however, makes it seem like he is hiding something. If the first stranger comes off as harmless but suspicious, the second seems outright sinister. We immediately distrust him for his taste for free alcohol (at the expense of the Fennels) and the ambiguity about his job. We might even be tempted to assume that his “trade” is something unlawful. Hardy further persuades us to doubting the second stranger’s intentions when Fennel’s wife says, “And a stranger unbeknown to any of us! For my part, I don’t like the look o’ the man at all.” Hardy is playing on the lack of information he provides and lets our imaginations run wild about who he might be. When the carpenter announces that you can tell a man’s trades by his hands, our suspicions will flair up even more when the second stranger confesses, “the oddity of my trade is that, instead of setting a mark upon me, it sets a mark upon my customers,” which so soundly supports our doubts that we hardly notice that the first stranger’s hands “instinctively sought the shade.”
Despite that the second stranger reveals his trade shortly afterwards in song, the guests and reader are suspicious that some nefarious plot is afoot:
“Oh, my trade it is the rarest one,
Simple shepherds all,
My trade is a sight to see;
For my customers I tie, and take them up on high,
And waft ’em to a far countree.”
It seems that rather than being candid, he is using the song to shock the guests for his own amusement. We know that Mrs. Fennel “was doubting whether this stranger was merely singing an old song from recollection, or composing one there and then for the occasion.” The plot becomes even more confusing when the first stranger begins singing along; it seems as though they’re acting in collusion.
Of course, the guests do eventually realize “that the stranger was answering his question rhythmically,” but are nonetheless shocked by a man with such a macabre vocation in their presence. Their surprised gossip also suggests that they have more sympathy for the sheep-thief, “our own country [man]” “whose family were a-starving . . . and took a sheep in open daylight” than the “stranger of the terrible trade” who “is come from up the country to do it because there’s not enough to do in his own county town.” Timothy Sommers, the thief, is painted as a loving father, one of their own, who nobly stole food to save his family from hunger, while the sadistic hangman is just looking for more people to execute.
When the final stranger makes his appearance, first time readers may be just as convinced that he is the real sheep-thief as the guests from his reaction: “he stood before them the picture of abject terror-his knees trembling, his hand shaking so violently that the door-latch, by which he supported himself, rattled audibly; his white lips were parted, and his eyes fixed on the merry officer of justice in the middle of the room. A moment more, and he had turned, closed the door, and fled.” For the party guests, his identity is clear, and, giving into mob mentality, they rush after the fleeing man at the slightest prod from the hangman. This, of course, allows the final meeting between Sommers and the hangman in the vacated cottage to take place (notice that while Sommers goes back to the cottage to escape, the hangman goes back out of sloth).
The anonymous confrontation between the hangman and his intended victim is representative of a major theme in Hardy’s works: chance. At the opening of the story, Hardy deliberately sets the cottage at the “crossing of two foot-paths at right angles,” a physical crossroads that anticipates the crossing paths of these two men. When they meet in the cottage after everyone has run off, the hangman addresses Sommers as an equal, calling the rest of the guests “simpleminded souls.” While he believes he has taken advantage of simpletons to capture his fugitive, in reality this is a victory for the country folk. When it is revealed that the third stranger was Sommers’s brother, we realize that the hangman hasn’t gotten his way: he’s been duped, just as he tried to dupe the Fennels and their company into apprehending his victim for him. As the last line tells us, the story of Timothy Sommers escaping the hangman will live on in Higher Crowstairs as the time a lucky clock-maker cheated death and a petty town official.
References
Baxter, Walter. “Inside Cormilligan Cottage.” Photograph. Wikimedia Commons. Wikimedia Foundation, 31 Jan. 2010. Web. 24 July 2011.
Yomangani. The Execution of William Corder. Drawing. Wikimedia Commons. Wikimedia Foundation, 13 Nov. 2006. Web. 24 July 2011.