Concetti Chiave
- Susan is portrayed as an honest but naive woman who accepts her sale at a drunken auction as legally binding.
- She lives with Newson, believing herself to be his wife, and raises a daughter named Elizabeth-Jane after her first child dies.
- Returning to England as "Widow Newson," Susan seeks assistance from her first husband, Henchard, without revealing her past.
- Henchard assumes Elizabeth-Jane to be his daughter and remarries Susan, unaware of the truth about her parentage.
- Susan writes a deathbed confession about Elizabeth-Jane's true parentage, to be revealed on her daughter's wedding day.