Flashbacks
The Mayor of Casterbridge
by Thomas Hardy

The Mayor of Casterbridge: Flashbacks 1 key example

Chapter 4
Explanation and Analysis—A Mother's Memories:

Flashbacks appear several times throughout The Mayor Of Casterbridge, but especially towards the beginning, as Susan Henchard reflects on her previous negative experiences with Michael Henchard. Hardy uses them to provide important framing for the events of the novel's "present." For example, in Chapter 4, Susan debates whether or not to tell her daughter Elizabeth-Jane about the horrible circumstances Henchard's "sale" of them placed them in, and she agonizes over the omission:

Henchard’s wife acted for the best, but she had involved herself in difficulties. A hundred times she had been upon the point of telling her daughter Elizabeth-Jane the true story of her life, the tragical crisis of which had been the transaction at Weydon Fair, when she was not much older than the girl now beside her. But she had refrained.