The Melancholy Hussar: The way Thomas Hardy might have thought about the story.

Posted on October 27, 2021 Updated on August 28, 2026

(539 words)

As a fatalist, Thomas Hardy presents human beings as largely unable to escape the forces of destiny. In his fictional world, chance, circumstance, and forces beyond individual control frequently determine the course of human lives. Consequently, personal desire and individual effort offer only limited power to alter one’s circumstances; indeed, attempts to resist or overcome fate often become the very means through which individuals are defeated.

In this story, fate brings Matthäus, a German Hussar, and Phyllis together, although each arrives at their meeting through circumstances beyond their control. Matthäus is brought into Phyllis’s world through the movements of the army, while Phyllis’s isolation is a consequence of her father’s reclusive way of life. Both characters are, moreover, emotionally deprived before their meeting: Matthäus is homesick and separated from his homeland, while Phyllis has been deprived of meaningful friendship and companionship. Their apparently accidental encounter can therefore be interpreted as the culmination of a series of circumstances that Hardy has subtly constructed as preparations for their meeting.

The single decisive action they undertake together—their attempt to escape—ultimately turns against them with devastating consequences. Here again, Hardy presents fate as determining the course of events. Phyllis is fated to overhear Humphrey Gould, and her upbringing and sense of propriety compel her to behave in accordance with what she believes to be proper conduct. As a result, she misinterprets Humphrey’s presence and believes that he has returned to be with her. Matthäus, meanwhile, is subject to an equally cruel accident of circumstance: in attempting to escape, he rows towards Jersey and thereby misses France. Their actions are therefore not simply expressions of personal choice; they are continually constrained and redirected by circumstances that neither character fully understands.

Ultimately, their hopes are destroyed and both characters are psychologically broken by the consequences of events. Matthäus willingly submits to execution, while Phyllis, gradually becoming conscious of her tragic mistake and of the role her absence played in Matthäus’s capture, is left to live out the remainder of her life in solitude and mourning. Her suffering is particularly poignant because her actions were motivated not by malice, but by the social expectations and moral assumptions that have shaped her behaviour.

Hardy concludes the story with a final and deeply ironic image: in death, Matthäus and Phyllis are at last united in the grave. The physical proximity denied to them in life is achieved only after their hopes, love, and individual futures have been destroyed. The ending therefore reinforces Hardy’s fatalistic vision, in which the characters can achieve fulfilment only when it is too late for that fulfilment to have any meaning in their lives.

This interpretation suggests that Hardy’s central concern is not simply the power of fate, but the tragic interaction between fate, chance, social convention, and individual desire. The characters make choices, but their choices are repeatedly shaped—and ultimately overwhelmed—by circumstances beyond their control. At the same time, however, the story invites a more nuanced question: to what extent are Matthäus and Phyllis genuinely victims of fate, and to what extent do their own personalities, assumptions, and decisions contribute to their tragedy? How we answer that question may significantly affect the way we understand Hardy’s characters and the story as a whole.