A Review of A Pair of Blue Eyes
“A pair of Blue Eyes” by Thomas Hardy is a classic romantic novel about a peculiar love triangle between two teens and a man in his late twenties. It was published in 1873_this explains why the man wasn’t sitting behind bars.
The book starts with a young girl, Elfride Swancourt, whose Dad has fallen ill. He asks her to host his guest due to his condition. She stresses about this till she realizes that the visitor is a handsome boy just about her age. The boy, Stephen, is an apprentice sent by an Architect to take drawings of an old church in the town to aid with the renovation. Elfride’s Father was a rector in the church and was responsible for hosting Stephen. The teens become very infatuated with each other and make plans to marry. Elfride’s Father encourages this new development but objects as soon as he finds out Stephen is poor. No daughter of his was going a marry a poor fellow. “But he is a Rectorrr!! In the Church!,” the audience screams. Yes, and?
Her Papa’s refusal only intensified their feelings for each other and they two planned to elope. Both agree to go to London to get married, but Elfride gets cold feet on their way to the church. Stephen not wanting to press her, makes a vow to make enough money to marry her openly. Warning bells went off in my head when I got to this part of the book because that never works. While this is happening, Elfride’s Father goes off to marry a wealthy widow to give his daughter a shot at marrying a wealthy man.
Stephen travels to India to make money as an Architect while Elfride publishes a book in his absence. The book gets harsh criticism from a popular critic in his late twenties, Henry Knight, who happens to be her Stepmother’s cousin and Stephen’s best mate. Stephen had talked to Elfride about Knight many times before his departure but She does not realise he was the critic.
Elfride’s stepmom invites Knight over to their house to stay a while. During his stay, Elfride finds out Knight was Stephen’s friend. Still wounded by his review of her book, she tries to understand his reasons for such a harsh review and the mind of this peculiar man. But somehow, she falls in love with him. Knight remains aloof to her love but soon discovers he has developed feelings for her after he leaves her house for his. “Stephen fell in love with Elfride by gazing upon her, but Knight fell in love by ceasing to do so.” Deep. Henry Knight tries to fight his new-found feelings for Elfride, fails, and returns to her house. The two, aware of what they feel for each other, spend the days in each other’s presence, but Elfride is constantly tormented with guilt as the days to Stephen’s arrival draw closer. She had no courage to tell Knight she was betrothed to another nor did she tell Stephen that she had fallen in love with someone else.
On the evening of Stephen’s arrival, he waits at a church in which he had told Elfride to meet him via a letter, but she never comes. Days later, He slowly learns that Elfride has fallen in love with his friend and that his friend hadn’t been aware of Elfride’s past relationship with him. Not wanting to cause a scene, Stephen leaves town heartbroken.
She conceals her knowledge of Stephen from Knight because she fears that Knight might leave her if he knew the truth. Unfortunately, Knight finds out bits and pieces of her past. He confronts her and urges her to tell him, but she refuses. A widow who resents Elfride tells Knight everything in a letter without mentioning Stephen’s name. She twists the story, making Elfride look like a whore. Knight tries to get Elfride’s side of the story but she still wouldn’t tell him. He leaves her and goes off to another country to brood.
After a couple of months, Knight returns to London and learns that the truth isn’t that deep from Stephen. He admits to himself that he had been hasty in his decision to leave and rushes back to meet her to apologize. Stephen learns that Knight left Elfride and also rushes to meet her because he feels he still has a shot with Elfride. Talk about no self-respect. When they both get to her HomeTown, they learn that she had married and died from a miscarriage in their absence. Her corpse had ridden with them on the same train they boarded. The end. It was hilarious how the two guys argued about who could win Elfride’s heart and she was right there with them, but in a casket.
I found it difficult to finish the book and It’s no mystery, seeing that the book was published in the 1800s. But, I loved the way the writer showed the variations in the ways people fall in love; Stephen fell in love with Elfride way too fast for me and Knight did at snail-pace. There’s nothing wrong with both even though many will advise you not to fall in love so quickly (the faster you run the harder you fall). But, it is normal to fall in love immediately or over time. Some people can’t help how fast they fall. They can only keep their feelings in check, and pray to God for discernment to protect their hearts and health because people are crazy nowadays. I love how the book portrayed the two variations of how love can develop. The way Knight fell in love aroused emotions I felt while watching teen couples fall in love in Nickelodeon as a kid.
I thought Elfride to be cowardly and a little airheaded because of the reasons that led her to conceal the truth. She didn’t want Knight to leave her. I wish people had the mindset of “Oh! if I tell him, he might stay or he might leave, but that’s okay because he is going to find out sooner or later, and if he does it might be worse.” In the book, she would make mistakes and hope the consequences would disappear if she ignored them long enough. She didn’t have the simple decency to tell Stephen that she didn’t love him anymore and waited for him to find out in the most humiliating way. She also had more than enough time to tell Knight what happened with her and his best friend but she kept lying, gaslighting him or crying each time he tried to ask her about it. Yet again, It might be easy for me to think this way about her because I’m not walking in her shoes, and in her time as well_women weren’t necessarily treated well in that era.
Another thing I found interesting was the way she thought of the boys. She thought Stephen to be somewhat beneath her not in the matter of wealth but for trivial things; she was better at playing chess and riding a horse than he was. She was, however, subtle with this feeling. Her acquaintance with Knight only intensified how she felt about the things Stephen lacked. Knight was better than her in most things by far. He was very intelligent and she adored him for it. Soon, her feelings turned into an obsession. “It’s better to be the right person’s slave than the wrong person’s queen.”
In conclusion, I give the book a solid 3 out of 5 points. I found the book intriguing, but I don’t know if I learned anything, maybe I did. If you like classical romance, this book right here is a must-read. If you don’t like spoilers, I’m sorry but why are you reading a review if you don’t like spoilers? My next review is a self-help book. Yikes!
Rating: 3.5 out of 5 stars
Note: The green sentences are sentences from the book while those in red are my random thoughts.
