Thomas Hardy's 'Impossible Monsters': The Language of Desire in A Group of Noble Dames (1891)

This article explores the semiotics of desire in Thomas Hardy’s short story cycle A Group of Noble Dames (1891). In its first section, it briefly contextualises the collection in terms of design and critical reception. The following section, focused on a selection of three emblematic stories, reads Hardy’s characters as embodiments of the ‘impossible monsters’ he mentioned in the first entry of his Literary Notes. This section, drawing on James Phelan’s rhetorical theory of characters and Charles Fourier’s The Passions of the Human Soul (1851), investigates the effects of certain mechanisms of desire (gaze, idealisation, fetishisation, reification, jealousy, vindication-torture) on the characters’ mimetic and thematic attributes. Furthermore, it points out how the characters’ pathemic conditions and actions are often driven by bovaristic obsessions and mediated desires that originate in sociocultural microcosms pervaded by rigid social conventions and conformism. In some cases, these mediated passions are triggered by artistic and literary objects such as statues, paintings, and works of literature that function as simulacra of amorous desire. A final section summarises the main points discussed in the article and provides insights for further reflection.