Nonetheless, he has to bear the cost, and this is the one action that neither Elizabeth-Jane nor he can forgive. Her rejection, when she eventually marries Farfrae, plunges Henchard into despair and prompts him to withdraw from society, much like Oedipus does when he realizes he is the cause of Thebes' suffering in Oedipus the King (Sophocles, c. 429 B.C.). Henchard, mirroring another tragic figure, conveys both his tragic pride and his psychological isolation: "I—Cain—go alone as I deserve—an outcast and a vagabond. But my punishment is not more than I can bear." Hardy deliberately references another tragic character, Shakespeare's Lear, when Henchard seeks shelter in a hovel on a heath—a significant setting in King Lear—to die in misery due to the pain he has caused. As Perry Meisel observes, as Henchard approaches the inevitable hovel, he acknowledges his "final recognition that he is trapped within the prison of his ego." The extremes of his character, which made him unaware of the impact of his actions on others, have turned Henchard into a dreadful man. Yet, these extremes often arose from a deep love and commitment, particularly towards Farfrae and Elizabeth-Jane, unmatched by any other character in the novel.