Character Sketch of Falder in Galsworthy’s “Justice” or Falder as a Tragic Hero

Though Falder is not a hero in the Aristotelian or Shakespearian sense, the entire dramatic action of Justice emanates from him, right from the first Act. Everything happens around him; he claims all our attention, sympathy and pity. He does everything and suffers not for himself, but for Ruth Honeywill. But even then we find him an unheroic hero whose tragedy is never grand and sublime, whose suffering and fall do not inspire awe. If we admire him, it is because he is victim of a social injustice which we all resent. He does not stir our deeper emotions beyond pity which is aroused by the spectacle of waste.

Falder is a young clerk of twenty-three. He is pale, good looking, but a bit timid and nervous. He is soft-spoken and nice, but rather weak and pensive. He gives us the impression of a scared youngman who is constantly haunted by something he has done in a desperate bid to save a married woman. But in spite of all this he has a heart of gold that bleeds to see others suffer. When he sees Ruth languishing in her hell, waiting only to be throttled to death by her cruel husband, he tries to assuage her agonies and gives her his sincere love which is warm enough to make the unhappy woman dream of a new, happy home with Fader. He considers his love for Ruth very precious and he does not have much qualm to forge the cheque with a view of building a happy home for Ruth. Originally Published in https://www.eng-literature.com/2020/08/character-falder-galsworthy-justice-tragic-hero.html