Red and Black
Michael Henchard's face is often described as a combination of red and black. Weird as that sounds, we're probably not supposed to imagine that he looks like Darth Maul from Star Wars. Although Hen...
The Bridge
Bridges often have symbolic weight when they appear in literature. There are two bridges in The Mayor of Casterbridge, one brick and one stone. Both bridges attract people who feel like "failures"...
The Five Guineas
This is the amount of money Henchard received from the sailor in exchange for his wife, Susan. A guinea is a unit of British currency (now no longer used) equal to one British pound plus one shilli...
The Casterbridge Ring
The "Ring" is an old Roman amphitheater (like a smaller version of the Colosseum in Rome) just outside Casterbridge. The narrator tells us something about the history of the place: during Roman tim...