REVIEW                                             ADELA SÁNCHEZ SANTANA (A2)

“UNDER THE GREENWOOD TREE”

It is a novel written by Thomas Hardy, a realist writer in the 19^th century. The story is a picturesque portrait of a rural society in all its moods and in every season.

The plot is set in Mellstock, the main village. Half a  mile from this, were the church and vicarage. There was too other few sprawled houses, which before it had been the most populated  neighborhood  of the parish.

It is concerned about the activities of a group of church musicians, the Mellstock parish choir. Every Sunday, fiddlers and choir singers, made the rounds in Mellstock village. Also at Christmas Eve, wedding or relevant celebrations.

One of them, Dick Dewy fell in love with a new school mistress, Fancy Day, when the little band played at school house. Moreover, Fancy, an accomplished organ player, was proposed by the vicar, Mr. Maybold to replace the traditional musical accompaniment to Sunday services.

Dick and Fancy were engaged secretly after overcome the Fancy’s father objection to the potential marriage. Meanwhile, Fancy was offered two more marriage proposals from the vicar Mr. Maybold who wanted for her a life of relative affluence and Mr. Shiner one of the most rich farmer in the village.

In my opinion, the strongest aspect of this novel is when the author make a humorous portrait of the many characters like Ruben, William, Fancy’s parents and other neighbours from Mellstock as a rural town life in the middle of the 19^th century.

The reader is absorbed by the vicissitudes of many characters, which are described by the author with all kind of details about their costumes and way of living in the country.

I recommend it you because it is amusing, although the author inserts, frequently, some notes of melancholy in  his characters which is a bit sad.