LIFE AND WORKS OF THOMAS HARDY

Thomas Hardy was born June 2, 1840, in the village of Upper Bock
Hampton, located in South-western England. His father was a stone
mason and a violinist. His mother enjoyed reading and relating all the
folk songs and legends of the region. Between his parents, Hardy gained
all the interests that would appear in his novels and his own life: his love
for architecture and music, his interest in the lifestyles of the country
folk, and his passion for all sorts of literature. At the age of eight, Hardy
began to attend Julia Martins school in Bock Hampton. However, most
of his education came from the books he found in Dorchester, the nearby
town. He learned French, German, and Latin by teaching himself
through these books. At sixteen, Hardys father apprenticed his son to a
local architect, John Hicks. Under Hicks tutelage, Hardy learned much
about architectural drawing and restoring old houses and churches.
Hardy loved the apprenticeship because it allowed him to learn the
histories of the houses and the families that lived there. Despite his
work, Hardy did not forget his academics: in the evenings, Hardy would
study with the Greek scholar Horace Moule. In 1862, Hardy was sent to
London to work with the architect Arthur Bloomfield. During his five
years in London, Hardy immersed himself in the cultural scene by
visiting the museums and theatres and studying classic literature. He
even began to write his own poetry. Although he did not stay in London,
choosing to return to Dorchester as a church restorer, he took his
newfound talent for writing to Dorchester as well. From 1867, Hardy
wrote poetry and novels, though the first part of his career was devoted
to the novel. At first he published anonymously, but when people
became interested in his works, he began to use his own name. Like
Dickens, Hardys novels were published in serial forms in magazines
that were popular in both England and America. His first popular novel
was Under the Greenwood Tree, published in 1872. The next great
novel, Far from the Madding Crowd (1874) was so popular that with the
profits, Hardy was able to give up architecture and marry Emma Gifford.
Other popular novels followed in quick succession: The Return of the
Native (1878), The Mayor of Casterbridge (1886), The Woodlanders

(1887), Tess of the D'Urbervilles (1891), and Jude the Obscure (1895).
In addition to these larger works, Hardy published three collections of
short stories and five smaller novels, all moderately successful.
However, despite the praise
Hardys fiction received, many critics also found his works to be too
shocking, especially Tess of the D'Urbervilles and Jude the Obscure. The
outcry against Jude was so great that Hardy decided to stop writing
novels and return to his first great love, poetry. Over the years, Hardy
had divided his time between his home, Max Gate, in Dorchester and his
lodgings in London. In his later years, he remained in Dorchester to
focus completely on his poetry. In 1898, he saw his dream of becoming a
poet realized with the publication of Wessex Poems. He then turned his
attentions to an epic drama in verse, The Dynasts; it was finally
completed in 1908. Before his death, he had written over 800 poems,
many of them published while he was in his eighties. By the last two
decades of Hardys life, he had achieved fame as great as Dickens' fame.
In 1910, he was awarded the Order of Merit. New readers had also
discovered his novels by the publication of the Wessex Editions, the
definitive versions of all Hardys early works. As a result, Max Gate
became a literary shrine. Hardy also found happiness in his personal life.
His first wife, Emma, died in 1912. Although their marriage had not
been happy, Hardy grieved at her sudden death. In 1914, he married
Florence Dugale, and she was extremely devoted to him. After his death,
Florence published Hardys autobiography in two parts under her own
name. After a long and highly successful life, Thomas Hardy died on
January 11, 1928, at the age of 87. His ashes were buried in Poets
Corner at Westminster Abbey.
HARDY THE ARTIST
Thomas Hardys long literary career witnessed and encompassed the
most important artistic and literary changes of the modern era. Hardy
was born in 1840 near Dorcester, England; before his death in 1928 at
the age of 87, the genre of the Victorian novel had flowered and faded,
and the erstwhile avant-garde movement known as modernism
dominated the English literary landscape. In his ornate, wordy style and
his sensitivity to issues of class, Hardy seemed a characteristic Victorian

novelist. But his writing increasingly revealed a sensibility and a moral

code that seemed to discard the strict Victorian social and sexual mores,
and that tended towards atheism and subjective morality rather than an
absolutist Christianity. His philosophy was out of place in Victorian
England, and presaged the coming social and cultural upheaval of
modernism.
Trained as an architect, Hardy was at first unsuccessful in breaking
through in the London literary world. His first poems and novels went
unpublished or unappreciated. It was only after Hardys return to his
native Bockhampton that his novels began to attract attention and
commercial success. Far from the Madding Crowd, published in 1874,
ushered in his most productive period; many other novels, including The
Return of the Native--published serially in monthly instalments in an
English magazine--in 1878, soon followed it. Controversy over the
moral stance of his later novels Tess of the d'Urbervilles (1891) and Jude
the Obscure (1896) led Hardy to abandon writing novels, and to
concentrate on poems and--to a lesser extent--short stories, for which he
also won, deserved fame. It is not at all coincidental that Hardy's success
as a novelist followed his returns home to Dorcester. Setting is of crucial
importance in Hardys novels, and his finest novels are all set in the
region of Wessex, which, while fictional, is based upon Hardys own
native corner of England. Wessex follows the geographical contours of
Dorset, England, with only a few changes made by Hardy: it is not hard
to see how the culture, language and geography of Hardys home
country shape his novels. The Return of the Native takes as one of its
central themes--and, arguably, as its central character--the tract of
windswept upland in Hardys Wessex known as Egdon Heath. The novel
is deeply rooted in the folk customs of the residents of the Heath, and
attempts to imitate their attitudes and even their patterns of speech. It is
the return to the heath of the educated Clym Yeobright that supplies the
novels title and catalysing crisis. This surely derives from the
experience of Thomas Hardy himself, who only a few years before the
publication of the novel made his own return to his native country.
UNDERSTANDING HARDY

Rarely is a Hardy theme as easily stated as The virtuous though

humble will inevitably triumph over the corrupt, greedy, and oppressive
of the middle and upper classes, a statement that would be satisfactory
for Victorian melodramas such as Black-Eyd Susan; or, All in the
Downs and The Rent Day. The triumph of Dick Dewey over his higherclass rivals Farmer Shiner and the minister for the hand of Fancy Day in
Under the Greenwood Tree, although it is one of Hardys simplest prose
narratives, cannot be stated so simply, for example, because personal as
well as class issues occupy the minds of the young lovers. Although it is
almost axiomatic that the briefer a work, the simpler its theme, and that
the longer the work the greater the number of themes it is likely to
embrace, even a relatively
short Hardy poem such as The Channel Firing is likely to
communicate a number of observations about or insights into human
nature: The dead regret their inability to advise, correct, or reprove the
living, God, knowing all, cannot help but be a little cynical about
human morality, and Nominally Christians, by the early twentieth
century, Europeans had permitted militant nationalism to overwhelm any
recognition of Christs teachings are but three possible statements of
theme that logically arise from several readings of The Channel
Firing. Conversely, in a short story considerably longer than the poem,
A Tradition of 1804, Hardy is ironically observing that, when one has
the chance to seize a significant opportunity (here, the assassination of
Napoleon), he may well lack the means (a suitable firearm). However,
before we can accurately examine any Hardy text for its themes, we
must first determine the meaning of the term theme. Since a student's
knowledge of literary terms should gradually become more sophisticated
over the secondary grades, studying a novel such as Tess of the
d'Urbervilles in the senior year a student cannot appraise the themes of
the novel with the limited definition of theme given in The Concise
Oxford Dictionary:
Subject on which one speaks, writes, or thinks; school composition,
essay, on given subject; (gram.) Stem of noun or verb, part to which
inflexions are added; (mus.) Melodic subject usu. developed with
variations; (hist.) any of 29 provinces in Byzantine Empire; ~song,

recurrent melody in musical play or film. [Middle English, from Latin

from Greek thema -matos (tithemi set, place); partly through Old
French].
Junior secondary English students often tend to think of the theme of a literary
work as a single word, such as War, Friendship, or (at best) a phrase such as
The anxieties of romantic love. In fact, in formulating the theme of a literary
work, the student should pick the central insight--for example, in The Channel
Firing, Hardy uses the dialogue among the dead and God to point out that the
world hasnt changed fundamentally because humanity, despite its technological
sophistication, has not developed morally or spiritually and still relies on violence
to solve its disputes because all too often it is blinded by anger and hatred, as
suggested by all nations striving strong to make Red war yet redder. Words such
as war or hatred, however, are mere motifs, frequently recurring elements or
ideas that may
form the basis for a statement of theme. As Laurence Perrine explains in Story and
Structure (1959),
The THEME of a piece of fiction is its controlling idea or its central
insight. It is the unifying generalization about life stated or implied by
the story. To derive the theme of a story, we must ask what its central
purpose is: what view of life it supports or what insight into life it
reveals.
To illustrate the concept, Perrine offers the following joke:
Daughter, your young man stays until a very late hour. Hasn't your
mother said anything to you about this habit of his? Yes, father.
Mother says men haven't altered a bit.
Consider how many themes (or, more properly, how many statements of
theme) we might generate if we each wrote down what we thought the
joke-teller was driving at:
As men grow older, they tend to grow more conservative.
Fathers of daughters are apprehensive about the kinds of young men
their daughters date.

Fathers tend to scold their children for doing the very things they
themselves once did.
Women see men more clearly than men see themselves, and judge them
more acutely. Although it is impossible to determine which of these
remarks most accurately reflects the intention or narrative purpose of the
joke (or, if you subscribe to hegemony of the author, of the jokester), we
recognize that all of the above share certain features:
Each is statement, a complete sentence with subject and predicate.
Each accounts for the principal elements in the joke, the censorious tone
of the father and the witty rejoinder of the daughter.
Each is less amusing and far drier than the joke itself.
Each statement is implied by the final line of the joke.
No detail within the joke contradicts any of the statements.
None of these statements relies upon details not furnished by the joke
itself.
None of these statements is some familiar adage, proverb, or gnomic
remark.
Each statement ratifies the opinions of teenaged daughters about their
fathers!
Theme, then, is neither a clichd moral nor a framework
on which to hang the other elements of the work; rather,
it arises naturally from an interaction of all the other
elements of the work: characters, setting, conflict,
atmosphere, imagery, symbolism, and even narrative

perspective. It is not a preachment such as people from

different social backgrounds and with different career
aspirations and life goals should not marry (Jude the
Obscure). Tempting, as it may be to bring in such
biographical details as Hardys unhappy marriage with
Emma, the student must not permit such extraneous
matters to colour his or her statement of theme. Even
though such a jaded relationship as that of the Henchards
at the beginning of The Mayor of Casterbridge may be
related to the Hardys marital problems, one should not
assume that the persona or narrative voice is that of the
historical Thomas Hardy himself. Therefore, it would be
unwise to say that in The Mayor of Casterbridge the
theme concerns the impossibility of finding personal
fulfilment inside a conventional marriageafter all,
Elizabeth-Jane's and Donald Farfrae's is a conventional
marriage, but (insofar as the narrator describes it) it
seems happy since the partners are intellectually and
emotionally well matched. The central theme of the novel
The Mayor of Casterbridge may be as enigmatic as
anything [is] possible at the hands of Time and Chance,
except, perhaps, fair play. However, the novels subtitle,
A Study of a Man of Character, suggests that it must be
related to Henchard's capacity for suffering, since for
Henchard--in part owing to his failure to communicate his
true feelings and to his tendency towards introspective
inflexibility (an inability to understand his own
motivations)--happiness [is] but the occasional episode
in a general drama of pain, for that is the lesson that the
youthful Elizabeth-Jane apparently learns from her stepfather. And yet the unbroken tranquillity she enjoys in
maturity, as Farfraes wife, forces her to wonder at the

persistence of the unforeseen. . . . Thus, Hardy's

essentially gloomy, nihilistic view of the human condition
colours even the conventional happy ending in a
second, better marriage that Hardy may have derived
from Dickenss David Copperfield. Certainly, neither
Henchard nor Lucetta realizes any satisfaction from an
existence (and, apparently, a pleasant existence socially
and materially) founded on a lie. Both characters fates
illustrate the pattern of a secret in the past unexpectedly
being brought to light and blighting present happiness.
Lucetta refuses to be a slave to the past, and
determines to bury the secret of her former relationship
with Henchard (and, therefore, her social obligation to
marry him) in order to satisfy her present passion.
Similarly, Henchard's lieing to Newsome about the death
of Elizabeth-Jane is directly responsible for her rejection
of him. Elizabeth-Jane and Farfrae both escape the
tragedy because, although they too are guilty of minor
duplicities, they are essentially altruistic and singlehearted. It is not enough, Hardy seems to imply in this
novel, to meet the vicissitudes of life heroically or
defiantly--one must do so with love, compassion, and
charity. Again, in Tess of the D'Urbervilles, there are a
number of themes, but a single unifying principle of (or
observation about) human existence emerges from the
relationships of the principal characters. Although
suffering and death are inevitable, Angel Clare through
his lack of empathy for Tess on their wedding night and
his apparent rejection of her (as suggested by his trip to
Brazil) brings upon Tess more suffering than she deserves
and unwittingly drives her towards the final catastrophe,

the murder of Alec D'Urberville. Only after it is too late

does Angel, realising Tesss true worth, accept
responsibility for his own actions. Tess is an odd
combination of contraries: a fatalistic who nevertheless
struggles for happiness and fulfilment in a world bent on
denying her both. This attitude is summed up in her
remarking at Stonehenge This happiness could not have
lasted. Like Tess, each of us is defined by our past, which
(together with our upbringing and social pressures) limits
our choices and conditions the kind of people we become.
And yet, Tess struggles against the past and believes she
has the power to overcome it; this belief may be a
phantasm, but holding fast to it is what makes Tess
worthy of our sympathy, for it lies at the core of her
personal heroism. In brief, then, theme must be a
statement with a complete subject and predicate, and it
must be a generalization about life or human nature that
is clearly supported by the text and that contains the
unifying and central concept of the work. While this
thematic statement should account for all the major
details of the text, it should not be contradicted by any of
these major details and should not rely upon supposed
facts. For example, if a student, having read Hardy's The
Three Strangers, were to say that From the first for the
Fennels' visitors the 'hangman's horror' hovers about the
mysterious stranger in cinder-grey, the student should
not go so far as suggesting that the other visitors
immediately realize that the second stranger is the
hangman from Casterbridge Gaol. Although there is never
just a single correct statement of theme, various critics'
statements of theme may isolate certain common

features, such as the economic hardships that have

resulted
in Timothy Summers becoming a criminal in The Three
Strangers. Finally, students should avoid making
thematic statements that tend reduce theme to some
familiar saying, such as (with respect to Summers
appearing to be a countryman rather than a middle-class
urbanite because of his fustian clothing and hobnailed
boots) You can't judge a book by its cover.
THE RETURN OF THE NATIVE
Contemporary readers tend to take for granted the notion that literature
does not convey, or even attempt to convey, absolute truth. Since the
modernist movement at the beginning of the 20th century, literature has
tended to pose questions rather than define answers. One of the
hallmarks of modern literature can be said to be unreliability: authors
and readers recognize that literature is difficult; it is not to be trusted, or
to be taken at its face value. In 1878, when The Return of the Native was
first published, ambiguity was hardly understood to be the cornerstone
of the novelistic edifice. And yet, while The Return of the Native is
formally conventional, thematically it thrives on doubt and ambiguity.
With its extensive narrative description, abundant classical and scriptural
references and stylised dialogue, the book adheres closely to the high
Victorian style. Thematically, however, the novel is original and
ingenious: not trusting perceptions, the book questions moral and ethical
truths, implying the superiority of relative to absolute truth. It is an
eminently unreliable novel, peopled with unreliable characters; even its
narrator cannot be trusted. In a neglected, wild area of the English
countryside, bonfires are being lit to mark the coming of winter. As the
country folk celebrate this ancient custom, we learn that the emotional
lives of several people are in turmoil. Thomasin Yeobright, niece of the
highly respectable Mrs. Yeobright, has been stood up on her wedding
day. Disgraced, she has returned home. Wildeve, the man she was
engaged to, (against her aunt's wishes), is a handsome lady-killer who

has failed as an engineer and now runs an inn and tavern named The
Quiet Woman. He still pledges to marry Thomasin, but secretly he is
torn between her and Eustacia Vye, a strange and beautiful young
woman who lives with her grandfather, a retired sea captain. The Vyes'
lonely cottage is situated in the middle of Egdon Heath, a great
wasteland that is the centre of the novel's action. For some weeks,
Wildeve cannot make up his mind. Thomasin, for the sake of
appearances, wants to marry him, even though she is now well aware of
his weakness. Eustacia, who has been passionately attracted to him for a
year, sees him as the only pleasure in her dull life in a part of the country
she hates. A curious character, Diggory Venn, hangs around watching
developments. He once proposed to Thomasin and was turned down, but
he still hopes that she may give him another chance. Because Thomasin
rejected him, he gave up a comfortable life on a dairy farm and has taken
up
the trade of reddlemaking. This occupation dyes his skin
red, making him a social outcast. As Christmas nears,
word comes that Mrs. Yeobright's son, Clym, is returning
from Paris for a visit. Eustacia has never met him, but the
tales of his success in the diamond business arouse her
interest. Here may be the heroic figure she's been waiting
for all her life. He becomes a glamorous fantasy for her.
To meet him, she disguises herself as a boy and performs
in a Christmas play at his mother's house. They meet and
find each other fascinating, although he does not yet
learn her true identity. Caring only for Thomasin's
happiness, Diggory asks Eustacia to give up her hold on
Wildeve. Since Clym has arrived, she is bored with
Wildeve, so she writes him a rejection letter. Stunned, he
immediately asks Thomasin once again to marry him. He
gets her consent moments before Diggory arrives at her
door, hoping to propose to her himself. Eustacia disguises
herself and appears at the wedding. When she is asked,

as a stranger, to act as an official witness, she

triumphantly shows her face to Wildeve. He thought his
marriage would hurt her, despite what she had written to
him. It is, however, just what she wants to happen- at the
moment. Soon, Clym and Eustacia begin meeting each
other on the heath. The countryside is coming into flower,
and their love begins to blossom. Worried, Mrs. Yeobright
warns her son against Eustacia as an idle creature. Clym
is already in love, however, and mother and son quarrel
bitterly. Eventually, he leaves her house for good, setting
up in a small cottage six miles away. After a passionate
night time encounter, Eustacia and Clym decide to marry
immediately. He plans to remain in the Egdon area and
become a schoolmaster, a decision that disturbs both
Mrs. Yeobright and Eustacia. The young woman is
convinced, however, that he will soon change his mind.
She dreams of nothing more than escape to the
excitement of Clym's Parisian life. On the night of their
wedding there is a terrible misunderstanding. Mrs.
Yeobright hopes to be reconciled with her son by sending
a wedding gift, his share of the inheritance from his
father. An equal amount of money is due Thomasin.
Christian Cantle, a simple-minded fellow, is supposed to
take both sums to the wedding party. On the way,
however, he stops by The Quiet Woman where he wins a
raffle. His luck makes him think that fortune is on his side.
Soon after, he loses all the Yeobrights money by playing
dicewith Wildeve, Diggory immediately appears and wins
the money back. Believing the whole sum is Thomasins;
he gives it to her without explanation. Mrs. Yeobright
decides, on the basis of Christian's version of these
events, that Wildeve must still have both Clym and

Thomasin's shares of the money. She suspects he has

given Clym's share to Eustacia. She asks her daughter-inlaw, who angrily decides that Mrs. Yeobright is implying
an improper relationship between Eustacia and Wildeve.
An argument cuts off all hope of friendship between the
two headstrong women. Almost immediately, Eustacia
and Clyms marriage begins to founder. He has been
studying too hard for his new occupation and develops
eye trouble. He is reduced to making a living by gathering
wood on the heath, just like one of the country folk.
Eustacia becomes depressed, realizing that she has made
a horrible mistake and may never escape Egdon. The
conflict with his mother preys upon Clym's mind. To cheer
herself up, Eustacia goes off alone to a night of dancing in
a nearby village. There, she and Wildeve meet
accidentally and dance with abandon. They recall their
former passion longingly. Diggory, who sees them
together, worries that the affair may be starting again.
When Wildeve begins to walk by the Yeobrights cottage
every night, Diggory harasses him from the darkness.
Wildeve decides that it is safer to visit Eustacia by
daylight. On an incredibly hot summer day, Mrs. Yeobright
decides to walk over to her sons cottage to try to make
peace. Just before she arrives, Clym comes in from the
fields and falls asleep, exhausted. Wildeve shows up to
see Eustacia, When Mrs. Yeobright knocks on the door,
Eustacia flees with Wildeve to the garden, thinking that
Clym will awaken and let his mother in. In fact, Clym is
fast asleep and the door is never opened. But Mrs.
Yeobright has seen Eustacia's face at a window and
assumes that Clym and his wife have purposely refused
to let her in. Fatigued and angered, she starts back

homeward. As Mrs. Yeobright struggles in the afternoon

heat, a little boy, Johnny Nunsuch, comes upon her; she
tells him that her son has abandoned her. That night,
Clym decides to go to his mother and ask forgiveness. On
the way, he finds her collapsed and unconscious on the
heath. He carries her to shelter and calls the villagers for
help. A snake has bitten her, but when the doctor arrives,
he says that it is exertion that is the real trouble. Mrs.
Yeobright dies. Johnny relates what the woman told him
about her son abandoning her, and Clym decides that he
is guilty of his mothers death. After weeks of delirium,
Clym finally calms down. Eustacia is miserable, sure that
her role in Mrs. Yeobright's death will be discovered, but
she says nothing. By chance, Clym learns from Diggory
that his mother had intended to visit the day she died. He
asks Johnny for more information and learns that Mrs.
Yeobright had indeed knocked on the door but was turned
away. He also learns that Eustacia was in the house with
an unidentified man. Furious, Clym accuses Eustacia of
killing his mother. He wants to know what happened and
the name of the man. Eustacia refuses to talk. After a wild
argument, she leaves Clym. He is distraught but he
cannot forgive her. Ironically, Thomasin has just had
Wildeves baby and named her Eustacia Clementine, after
her cousin and his wife. Back at her grandfathers
cottage, Eustacia contemplates suicide. Charley, the
hired boy, who idolizes her, prevents her from doing so.
Soon, Wildeve visits. He has inherited a large sum of
money and can now travel the world. He offers to help
her, hoping she will become his mistress and leave Egdon
with him. Eustacia cannot make up her mind. Partly under
Thomasins influence, Clym decides to tell Eustacia that

he wants her back. He writes a letter but waits before

sending it. Meanwhile, Eustacia signals Wildeve that she
will leave with him at midnight. Clym's letter finally
arrives, but it is not delivered to her, since she has
pretended to go to bed. As a terrible storm begins to
savage the heath, she slips out of the house to meet
Wildeve. On the way, however, she realizes that escape
with him is no solution. Losing all hope, she begins to
wander away. Meanwhile, her grandfather has gone
searching for her and goes to alert Clym. Thomasin is also
out in the storm, with her baby, urging Clym to prevent
Wildeve from eloping with Eustacia. In the raging storm,
Clym does indeed meet up with Wildeve, just as the
sound of a body falling into a pond is heard. The two men
rush over to try to save Eustacia from a swirling whirlpool.
Diggory comes upon the struggle at the pond; he dives in
and pulls out the unconscious bodies of Clym and
Wildeve. With help that arrives, he finds Eustacia, too.
Clym recovers, but the former lovers are dead. Clym now
thinks himself guilty of the deaths of two women. A year
and a half after the tragedy, Diggory has given up
reddlemaking and become a dairy farmer. At a Maypole
celebration, he pretends to be in love with an unknown
girl who has lost a glove. When Thomasin discovers that
the glove is hers, she realizes that she now loves Diggory.
They aremarried, as the villagers celebrate. Clym, who
has renewed his studies, becomes a travelling preacher.
His message is that we should all love one another. He is
respected for his ideas and also for the sorrows that he
has endured. A CRITICAL ANALYSIS OF THE NOVEL

The Return of the Native looks at first like a typical nineteenth-century

novel: long, with several plots, and set in a wide landscape. But this tale
is really very compact. The major action takes place in a year's time. All
of the characters live in the Egdon area, and the outside world does not
intrude (we do not hear, for example, about the national problems of
England). All of the major characters are bound together in a dense knot
of relationships. The structure of this book is concentrated, to reflect the
tight organization of the action. Book first, the longest book, sets the
stage and introduces the characters. Book second brings Clym and
Eustacia together and sees the marriage of Thomasin and Wildeve. Book
third shows the split between Clym and his mother and his marriage to
Eustacia. Book fourth tells of the terrible accidents that lead to Mrs.
Yeobright's death. Book Fifth sees Clym and Eustacia separate, bringing
about the tragic deaths that end the main action. Book Sixth, a kind of
epilogue, shows the marriage of Thomasin and Diggory. The action is
organized around seasonal celebrations, beginning and ending with the
autumn bonfires, as if to emphasize the dramatic changes that can take
place in such short periods of time. The story is told in straight
chronological order, without the use of flashbacks or other devices. (This
may underscore the storys sense of the straightforward, irresistible
movement of time itself.) Regularly, our concentration upon the major
characters is broken by the appearance of the country folk, as if for
comic relief, to stress the need for the reader to step back and consider
the meaning of the tale. Take, for instance, the example of Egdon Heath,
the first character introduced into the book. The heath proves
physically and psychologically important throughout the novel: their
relation to the heath defines characters, and the weather patterns of the
heath even reflect the inner dramas of the characters. Indeed, it almost
seems as if the characters are formed by the heath itself: Diggory Venn,
red from head to toe, is an actual embodiment of the muddy earth;
Eustacia Vye seems to spring directly from the heath, a part of
Rainbarrow itself, when she is first introduced; Wildeve's name might

just as well refer to the wind-whipped heath itself. But, importantly, the
heath manages to defy definition. It is, in chapter one, a place perfectly
accordant with mans nature. The narrator's descriptions of the heath
vary widely throughout the novel, ranging from the sublime to the
gothic. There is no possible objectivity about the heath. No
reliable statement can be made about it. For Clym, the
heath is beautiful; for Eustacia, it is hateful. The plot of
the novel hinges around just this kind of difference in
perception. Most of the key plot elements in the novel
depend upon misconceptions--most notably, Eustacias
failure to open the door to Mrs. Yeobright, a mistake that
leads to the older womans death--and mistaken
perceptions. Clym's eventual near- blindness reflects a
kind of deeper internal blindness that afflicts all the main
characters in the novel: they do not recognize the truth
about each other. Eustacia and Clym misunderstand each
others motives and true ambitions; Venn remains a
mystery; Wildeve deceives Thomasin, Eustacia and Clym.
The characters remain obscure for the reader, too. When
The Return of the Native was first published,
contemporary critics criticized the novel for its lack of
sympathetic characters. All of the novel's characters
prove themselves deeply flawed, or--at the very least--of
ambiguous motivation. Clym Yeobright, the novels
intelligent, urbane, generous protagonist, is also, through
his impatience and single-minded jealousy, the cause of
the novels great tragedy. Diggory Venn can either be
seen as a helpful, kind- hearted guardian or as an
underhanded schemer. Similarly, even the antagonistic
characters in the novel are not without their redeeming
qualities. Perhaps the most ambiguous aspect of the
novel is its ending. The novel seems to privilege a bleak

understanding of human nature. Given the tragedy of the

double drowning, it seems impossible that the novel
could end happily. And yet, Diggory Venn and Thomasin
are contentedly married. This is not, however, the way
the novel was first conceived; Hardy was forced to give
the novel a happy ending in order to please the Victorian
public. In an uncharacteristic footnote, Hardy remarks,
The writer may state here that the original conception of
the story did not design a marriage between Thomasin
and Venn But certain circumstances of serial publication
led to a change of intent. Readers can therefore choose
between the endings. Thus, even the true conclusion of
the novel is left in doubt, a fitting end for a novel that
thrives on uncertainty and ambiguity. Hardy frequently
interrupts his story to tell us what it means- but does he
really tell us? One cannot always be certain that this
author is explaining himself fully, even when he seems to
be doing so. It's not that he attempts to deceive the
reader; rather, he wants to make it clear that life is
unclear. He wants to emphasize the mystery of existence.
He doesn't believe that lifeoffers simple, clear-cut
answers, nor does he imagine that human beings, or his
characters, can be judged as either completely good or
completely bad. His point of view, then, could rightly be
called ambiguous. He may directly criticize Wildeve in
one passage, for example, but then his narrative
suggests that Wildeve is not responsible for everything
that happens to him and Eustacia. He may number all of
Eustacia's worst faults, but somehow most readers still
feel that Hardy is, like Clym, fascinated with her. He
shows that life is filled with disasters and tragedies, but
he says that new life will continually spring up to replace

the old. Although Hardy frequently shows a sense of

humour, many readers have felt that he puts too much
emphasis on the unhappy aspects of life. He would argue
against that charge, saying that he simply reported life as
it is, and the true report just happens to be filled with
unhappiness. Is that the thinking of an objective
observer, or a pessimist? As you read this novel, form
your own opinion of where Hardy really stands. MOST
EXPECTED QUESTIONS Q: PASSIONS IN HARDYS NOVELS
BECOME AGENTS TO BARBARIC FATE, EUSTACIA VYE HAS TO
FACE THE TRAGEDY DUE TO HER LOVE FOR CLYME,
COMMENT? Q: EUSTACIA VYE PRESENTS HARDYS CONCEPT OF
TRAGIC HEROINE. DO YOU AGREE THAT SHE LACKS REAL
SENSE OF A TRAGIC PROTAGONIST? Q: DISCUSS ROLE AND
CHARACTER OF EUSTACIA VYE? Ans:
For Hardy, romantic passion can be dangerous. Another kind of passion,
uncontrolled anger, can also have unfortunate consequences. The only
feelings, which can be trusted, are moderate, like Thomasins kindness
and desire for people to be at peace with each other. Relationships
between people are best not when they are violent and sudden, but when
they have a long history and have endured much, like the love between
Diggory and Thomasin. Love at first sight, as Eustacia and Clym find
out, is likely to be a mistake. Hot-tempered reactions are generally a
mistake, as well. Hardy understands that passion is fundamental to
human nature- and he portrays passion so well that we cannot help but
respond to it in characters like Eustacia. But he stresses that we must try
to act in the light of reason. We may fail- as Clym does- but we must try.
Moderation is the goal. Is Eustacia really a superior being, or does she
merely thinks she is? Are her passions deeper than other people's, or is
she simply greedy? Is she doomed by fate or by her own selfishness?
Few readers have ever been able to decide for certain. That is the genius
of Hardy's portrayal. If you are like most readers, you will find this
beautiful young woman fascinating one moment, exasperating the next.

Even the other characters of the novel find her unpredictable, and their
reactions to her vary widely. Is she a goddess or a witch? Hardy skilfully
avoids simple answers by showing us many sides of this complex
character. At times, he seems sympathetic to her frustrations with her
narrow life, yet he does not shrink from showing her at her worst. She is
capable of deception, and she has a killing temper. She can be disloyal,
she can wound with a perfectly aimed insult, and she can exploit other
peoples good nature.
Why, then, does the reader simply not turn away from her?
Perhaps because almost everyone can feel pity for her at moments, such
as before her death when she cries out,
How I have tried and tried to be a splendid woman, and how destiny
has been against me... I do not deserve my lot!
If she had been able to live in a great city, perhaps she would have been
splendid. If she had found a society that appreciated her rare qualities,
rather than fearing or scorning them as the people of Egdon do, she
might have achieved great things. Hardys point, of course, is that those
possibilities are not available. Like all of us, Eustacia must make do with
the situation that faces her: she must either accept or change her fate.
Her tragedy is that she refuses to accept it but fails to change it. Usually,
Hardy describes Eustacia in contrasts, to stress the divided nature of her
soul, the conflicts that torture her. Early in the novel, he writes,
As far as social ethics were concerned Eustacia approached the savage state,
though in emotion she was all the while an epicure. She had advanced
to the secret recesses of sensuousness, yet had hardly crossed the
threshold of conventionality.
He is saying that, on the positive side she is a nonconformist, an
independent spirit; but on the negative side, emotion, passion, the heart's
needs have become an obsession with her. She lives solely for romance.
To be loved to madness- such was her great desire.
One side of her nature, however, all too poignantly recognizes that love
itself is evanescent: she is terrified of time. Think of her first appearance
in the novel, eagerly searching with her telescope for Damon. She is the

very picture of a desperate woman searching for experience. She carries

with her an hourglass, even though, as Hardy takes pains to point out,
she does have a modern watch. It is as if she actually wants to see time,
her dreaded enemy, as it dribbles away. At the moment which should be
her most blissful, when she and Clym decide to marry, she gazes toward
the eclipsed moon and warns,
See how our time is slipping, slipping, slipping!
She confides to her lover the deep (and perceptive) fear that their love
will not last.
Though she lives by certain illusions, another side of Eustacia is
ruthlessly realistic. Perhaps her most attractive quality is this inability to
lie to herself about herself. Basically, she knows her own faults; she's
intelligent, perceptive, and honest. When she first meets Clym, she
explains to him that she is depressed by life. Its a simple statement, but
it may well sum up all her difficulties. Life itself is somehow too much
for her unusually sensitive and demanding nature. Life doesn't give her
what she wants. Life, as she experiences it, is a prison. Not surprisingly,
readers disagree on many aspects of this puzzling, ambiguous character.
Her actions can be seen from many different perspectives. For example,
some say that she sincerely loves Clym; yet surely she also has a selfish
motive in agreeing to marry him: in her mind, the marriage is associated
with an escape to Paris. Throughout the book, her mixed motives often
lead to troubling actions. No matter how many times you read this novel,
you will probably never be certain just how you feel about Eustacia Vye.
She is too contradictory; she is too special and rare. Hardy himself is
most eloquent when he describes her in symbolic terms, as when he
writes that she and Damon, walking together under the full moon,
appeared amid the expanse like two pearls on a table of ebony.
Equally doomed, these two passionate beings shine brightly in a dark
world only to be extinguished.
Q: DISCUSS HARDYS CONCEPT OF TRAGEDY. Q: HARDY IS
KNOWN AS A GREAT TRAGIC WRITER HIS THE RETURN OF THE
NATIVE PRESENTS AN ILLUSTRIOUS PICTURE OF TRAGEDY,

COMMENT. Q: HARDY IS KNOWN AS A PESSIMIST. DO YOU

AGREE? Q: DISCUSS HARDYS FATALISM? Ans:
Expressions like pessimism and fatalism have unreservedly been used by
critics and readers to describe Hardys philosophy of life, and there is no
doubt these labels do largely convey his outlook and his stance. He is
deemed pessimist because he considers that man is born to suffer and he
is called fatalist because he thinks that destiny is antagonistic to man and
that it governs human life, allowing very little free will to human
creatures and often inflicting undeserved sufferings upon them. Hardy,
however, is not a cynic because he does not regard man as essentially
mean and wicked. There, certainly, are villains in his novels but
he believes on the whole that there is more goodness and nobleness in
human nature than evil, and that man is capable of a heroic endurance of
misfortune. Further wise, it is possible to call Hardy a determinist
instead of fatalist, because, while fatalism implies a blind and arbitrary
working of some supernatural power, determinism implies the logic of
cause and effect. In Hardys novels the logic of cause and effect is as
much at work as an arbitrary supernatural power. Hardys conception of
life is essentially tragic. As Austin never wrote a tragedy, Hardy never
attempted a comedy. He holds an opinion:
Happiness is an occasional episode in the general drama of pain.
Hardy feels that man is born to suffer and the glory of man lies in his
power of bearing his catastrophe. It appears that his mind is trained in
the Greek literature, which was the first attempt to project a mighty clash
between mans dreams and realization. Hardy also portrays this conflict,
but with a slight difference. In Greek tragedy, Fate is some of
supernatural power holds responsible of the catastrophe, while in
Shakespearean tragedy, man is solely responsible for his actions their
consequent disaster. Hardy combines both these concepts to carve his
own view of tragedy. In his stories, destiny is as much responsible for
the disaster, as a character himself. The Return of the Native fully
illustrates Hardys conception of tragedy. Aristotle defines a tragedy is a
story of a conspicuous man, who falls from prosperity to adversity,
because of his error of judgment i.e. his hamartia and his sufferings,

downfall arouses a feeling of pity and fear in us, thus becomes a source
of catharsis. As it is clear from the statement as well as from the
historical facts, that Greek tragedy was the story of a conspicuous man,
related to country life, and almost same is the case with Shakespearean
tragedy. But Hardy sets his tragedy in the rural background. His story
brings forth the downfall of a common man, yet noble. As Clym is a
noble man, his innate kind and loving nature, residing at the Egdon
Heath. He is surrounded by the intense figures of common life, rustics.
His mind is a kingdom, filled with his noble aims of educating the
rustics, in the true sense of the word, as author comments:
He had a conviction that the want of most men was knowledge of a sort which
brings wisdom rather than affluence.
But striving after high thinking, he still likes his plain living. He
struggles selflessly to achieve his high aims, but he is somewhat
unpractical
rather, too simple to plan properly for his goals. And his flaw lies in the
fact he goes too far, selflessly but unplanned, for his aims, and thus
injures himself, both physically and spiritually, causing poor eye sight in
the first case and tension through disharmony with his mother and wife,
in the second case. His unpractical nature also comes out when he
decides to marry Eustacia though she warns him that she would not
make a good home spun wife and his mother pronounces her as an
idle voluptuous woman. Clym thinks that Eustacia would help in his
educational prospects, but she proves to be exactly the opposite. Its
said, that Eustacia holds the greatest responsibility for the tragedy in
The Return of the Native, then it would no be wrong. Hardy also
shows the weak power of decision of Clym that he fails to strike a
balance between his duties (to his mother), his ambition (for teaching)
and his love (for Eustacia). As the author states:
Three antagonistic growths had to be kept alive: his mothers trust in
him, his plan for becoming a teacher, and Eustacias happiness.
And he fails to maintain them, at a time, first inclining totally towards
Eustacia and then towards his mother, and in adjusting his educational
plans between them. According to Hardy, Fate and destiny have always
an essential part to play in bringing a catastrophic end. In the novel

under discussion, destiny is disguised in the cloak of nature and coincidences. Chances and Coincidences occur, in Hardys novels, too
frequently that they become almost unrealistic. In this novel, the story
leads to ultimate tragedy, with the death of Mrs. Yeobright, which is
caused by a number of ironic accidents and co-incidences. It is also the
role of chance that the letter of Clym fails to reach Eustacia, which
becomes the cause of her fatal ending death. Thus, Hardy feels:
Human will is not free but fettered.
Nature is always considered as a living agent, by Hardy, which is
always so strong and influential, that his human characters can never
escape from its clutches. Egdon Heath also depicts such qualities. It
contrasts with the human existence. Eustacia feels the heath, as her
cross, her shame, and eventually it becomes a potential cause and
the place of her death. Nature is also hostile to Mrs. Yeobright, as Heath
kills her by a venomous creature from its own bosom.
Nature also appears as the foreteller of coming events, when the Heath
becomes furious before the death of Wildeve and Eustacia. The thickskinned rustics are also an essential part of Hardys writings. They
perform the role of chorus of the Greek tragedies and provide Comic
relief, like Shakespeares characters. In The Return of the Native
much of the useful information, also, about the main characters is
provided by these rustics. The most important aspect of a tragedy,
according to Aristotle, is the feelings of catharsis. Undoubtedly, the
tragedies of Hardy also provide a source of catharsis. One certainly
experiences the feelings of pity and fear, when one observes Clyms
paralysis of will. He appears in the story as a devoted, sympathetic,
energetic fellow but he ends up as a miserable, pitiable, half-blinded
figure, with the end of the story. Truly, the description of the author is
very true, when he says:
Everywhere he (Clym) was kindly received, for the story of his life
had become generally known.
It can be noted through the treatment of Clym, that Hardys general view
about the human nature is essentially noble and sublime, but tragic. His
main characters portray the higher values of human traits of tolerance
and bearing of misery, the eyes of the reader. In short, it can be said that

Hardys concept of tragedy is of a higher level. Though he does not

reach the height of Shakespeare, but comes quite near to him. Thus, it
can be said that his art of tragedy is perfect.
Q: DISCUSS ROLE OF CHANCES AND COINCIDENCES IN THE
RETURN OF THE NATIVE Ans:
Is chance the same thing as fate? Different readers disagree on this
question. Perhaps it is cruel, deliberate fate that Eustacia, for instance,
has been set down to live on the heath she loathes. It may be mere
capricious chance, however, that Mrs. Yeobright decides to visit on the
very afternoon that Wildeve also decides to come to Eustacia's cottage.
In other words, fate seems to rule events according to some vast pattern,
which is beyond human control. Chance seems to intervene in smaller,
random ways, when human beings are trying to act on their own. Many
readers, however, feel that chance and fate is the same thing in this
novel. Things just happen, without rhyme or reason, and that in it is
the pattern of the universe.
Hardy lost faith in orthodox Christianity quite early in his life. It was
mainly because of the advancement and challenges of science to dogma.
As a consequence, he reached a new kind of scepticism. He felt that
universe is governed by some blind chance and not by any conscious
power. For this reason chance and coincidences play a very vital role in
all the novels of Hardy. Such a conspicuous influence of accidents, on
the course of events, does not appear in the works of any other novelist.
Though Hardys characters are responsible for their suffering yet the role
of chance and coincidences often operates as a deciding factor. Hardy
feels:
An impishness of circumstances invades our life and becomes the
cause of our undoing.
In his novel, man is tossed here and there in the ruthless struggle for
survival and the stronger one suffers more as he tries to resist the sweep
of chance. Hardy believes that chance is an embodiment of fate. He feels
that fate or destiny is sometimes indifferent, but it is most often hostile
to human happiness. He thinks:
Happiness is an occasional episode in the general drama of pain.

The hostile of fate, disguises itself in the irony of circumstances, which

one finds in the novels of Hardy. In other word, when the human beings
are not themselves responsible for the frustration for their hopes and
thwarting of their aims, fate appears in the shape of chance or accident
to contribute to or to complete, their ruin. Hardy thinks:
Chance is the incarnation of the blind forces, controlling human
destiny.
There is also an abundant use of chances, accident and coincidences in
The Return of the Native. These chances are interwoven with the
actions of characters, to bring forth the ultimate catastrophe. Johnny
Nunsuch introduces the first coincidence in the story. He overhears the
conversation of Wildeve and Eustacia, when Wildeve visits her in
response to her bonfire. Johnny narrates this incidence to the Reddleman. As a result of this chance, Reddle-man becomes activity involved
in the affairs of these two principal characters Eustacia and Wildeve. On
the other hand, furthermore, this chance meeting eventually results in the
wedding of Thomasin with Wildeve.
At some later stage, during the story, Christian Cantle meets the village
folks, by a sheer accident that takes him to a raffle (lottery). He is
carrying Mrs. Yeobrights money, which is to be delivered to Thomasin
and Clym, in equal halves. Cantle, by a chance stroke of good luck, wins
prize at raffle. Being encouraged by his winning, he agrees to play the
game of dice with Wildeve and loses all the money of Mrs. Yeobright.
Then, the Reddle-man appears and with his luck, wins all the money
back and delivers all the money to Thomasin. Thus, the chance meeting of
Cantle with the village folks causes a great misunderstanding and also a future
quarrel between Mrs. Yeobright and Eustacia.

The marriage is not a misfortune in itself. It is simply the accident which

has happened since that has been the cause of my ruin.
Another accident is the chance meeting of Eustacia with Wildeve, which leadsnot
onlytotherenewalofbondbetweenthetwobutalsotothesuspicioninthemindoftheReddle-man,who
immediatelygoestoThomasinandinforms her about her husbands plans. The most crucial
accidents, however, are yet to come in the novel. At an occasion,

Wildeve visits Eustacia during the daytime. At the same time Mrs.
Yeobright comes to reconcile with her son. This coincidence creates a
big complication, as Eustacia fails to open the door, while Wildeve is
inside and when she opens it, Mrs. Yeobright has gone while Clym is
fast asleep, just by a chance. Consequently, each of these four characters
has to pay heavily for these accidents, happening simultaneously. On her
homeward journey, Mrs. Yeobright faces yet another accident. She is
bitten by an adder and is dead. Her death results in a fierce quarrel
between Clym and Eustacia. Thus, much of the tragedy of the novel
centres s round the closed door, to which a number of accidents
contribute. At a later stage, Wildeve receives a legacy, by a pure chance.
This news would have been a sign of hope in the story, but the future
events prove Hardys essentially tragic conception of life. Hence:
There is pervading note of gloom, only momentarily relieved.
The news of legacy brings new thoughts to Eustacias mind. Her
meeting with Wildeve encourages her to seek his help in her attempt to
escape from Egdon Heath. Unfortunately, this attempt proves fatal and
deadly for both of them. After the death of Clyms mother, he first
expels Eustacia out of his house but later, he intends to bring her back to
home therefore, he writes a
letter to her, but Captain Vye fails to handover the letter to Eustacia and
she decides to escape with Wildeve to Paris, this chance brings her fall.
Finally, the nature also contributes in the contrivance of chance. On the
night of Eustacias escape, the weather accidentally gets worst. The night
becomes dreadful, because of rain and storm. This desperate situation of
weather adds to the gloomy condition of Eustacia and causes her death.
Thus, Hardy certainly makes his story hard to believe by his excessive
use of chance and coincidence. There are accidents and coincidences in
real human life, but they are not so frequent, as in the novels of Hardy,
nor are accidents and coincidences always malicious and hostile to man.
A critic says:
The plot of the novel lacks the terrific and terrifying logic of cause and
effect that marks the plots of the greatest tragedies. That, yet operates
the way it does more accidental than necessary
.

But to condemn his use of chance altogether is to misunderstand his

view of life. His novels present a bottle between man and destiny,
whereas, destiny appears through chances and coincidences. However,
the realism of The Return of the Native is certainly marred by en
extraordinary use of the device of chances and coincidences: As
Shakespeare says:

Fate has a terrible power; you cannot control it by wealth or war.

Q: DISCUSS THE ROLE OF EGDEN HEATH IN THE RETURN OF
THE NATIVE? Q: EGDON HEATH IS A PLACE BUT IT PERFORMS
LIKE HUMAN CHARACTERS IN THE RETURN OF THE NATIVE?
Ans:
Huge, forbidding, strange- the wasteland of Egdon Heath is like a stage
set for the action of this novel. It offers wide spaces for movement, but it
also has hiding-places for intimate scenes. Its many different faces
reflect or heighten the many different moods of the story. One can
believe that the Heath has many secrets, and has witnessed all possible
varieties of human experience. It is a place of long life and of sudden
death, of fertile spring and short, vivid summer. No matter what feeling
Hardy wants to express at any particular point, the heath can offer it up.
Something about Egdon Heath depresses the restless, adventure-seeking
characters of the novel, Eustacia and Wildeve. But it is a comforting
presence to unselfish people like Clym and Thomasin. As you read,
notice each character's reaction to the heath; it may say something about
his or her inner nature. The less intellectual country folk simply take the
place for granted, just as they take their own souls for granted. Does
Egdon Heath represent life? Time? The supernatural? Destiny? Readers
have suggested these and other possibilities. Perhaps it is not a symbol
for anything, but merely a background, a small universe, having no
meaning, offering no answers. Part of the mysterious appeal of this
novel is that Hardy makes the heath seem so significant, but then never
specifically explains his purposes. We must use our own imaginations to
try to understand and feel what the heath finally means. Egdon Heath is

the first character introduced into the book. The heath proves
physically and psychologically important throughout the novel: their
relation to the heath defines characters, and the weather patterns of the
heath even reflect the inner dramas of the characters. Indeed, it almost
seems as if the characters are formed by the heath itself: Diggory Venn,
red from head to toe, is an actual embodiment of the muddy earth;
Eustacia Vye seems to spring directly from the heath, a part of
Rainbarrow itself, when she is first introduced; Wildeves name might
just as well refer to the wind-whipped heath itself. But, importantly, the
heath manages to defy definition. It is, in chapter one,
A place perfectly accordant with mans nature.
The narrators descriptions of the heath vary widely throughout the
novel, ranging from the sublime to the gothic. There is no possible
objectivity about the heath. No reliable statement can be made about it.
For Clym, the heath is beautiful; for Eustacia, it is hateful. The plot of
the novel hinges around just this kind of difference in perception. Most
of the key plot elements in the novel depend upon misconceptions--most
notably, Eustacias failure to open the door to Mrs. Yeobright, a mistake
that leads to the older womans death--and mistaken perceptions. Clyms
eventual near- blindness reflects a kind of deeper internal blindness that
afflicts all the main characters in the novel: they do not recognize the
truth about each other. Eustacia and Clym misunderstand each others
motives and true ambitions; Venn remains a mystery; Wildeve deceives
Thomasin, Eustacia and Clym. The characters remain obscure for the
reader, too. When The Return of the Native was first published,
contemporary critics criticized the novel for its lack of sympathetic
characters.
All of the novel's characters prove themselves deeply flawed, or--at the
very least--of ambiguous motivation. Clym Yeobright, the novel's
intelligent, urbane, generous protagonist, is also, through his impatience
and single-minded jealousy, the cause of the novel's great tragedy. Diggory Venn
can either be seen as a helpful, kind-hearted guardian or as an underhanded schemer. Similarly,
even the antagonistic characters in the novel are not without their redeeming qualities.

Q: CLYM YEOBRIGHT IS NOT CENTRAL CHARACTER. HE JUST

PERFORMS THE ROLE OF A FOIL TO ENHANCE THE EFFECTS
OF TRAGEDY IN THE NOVEL. DO YOU AGREE? Ans:
Well denotation, if sometimes mistaken, Clym is Hardy's central
character, the returning native of the novel's title. He does not find
happiness, but he does find a kind of wisdom through his suffering. In
the beginning, he is stubborn and proud. When he discovers that he can
cause tragedy for others, he learns humility. Hardy wants the reader to
learn what Clym learns. We cannot always get what we want in life, but
neither can anyone else. Human beings should love one another and try
not to cause each other pain. Well-meaning, intelligent in certain ways,
Clym Yeobright is not suited to life in the real world of his day. He
dislikes city life as effeminate, but when he returns to Egdon, no one
understands his ambition to teach school. His ideas come from books
rather than from direct experience with people. Unfortunately, he does
not really know himself, either. He thinks he is rational and controlled;
but love for Eustacia causes him to act rashly. He thinks he is morally
right; but this leads him to be cruel to others, whom he believes to be in
the wrong. Like his cousin Thomasin, Clym loves Egdon Heath, and the
people there love him for his pure nature. The most important influence
in his life is his home, especially his mother, Mrs. Yeobright.
Temporarily, he leaves her to marry Eustacia, but in the end, even after
her death, her influence on him remains strong. Hardy suggests that
Clym is too sensitive. His constant thinking almost seems to weaken him
physically; his studying literally makes him an invalid for a while. His
high ideas are not very practical. In day-to-day experiences with other
people, he often has little or no idea what they want, or what they are
thinking. Yet this does not make him ridiculous. We have to respect him
because he is struggling to find the truth of life. Though he is sometimes
obtuse, he is never thoughtless. Perhaps he lacks the sense of self that is
necessary to survive. If Wildeve is too selfish, then Clym in contrast is
too unselfish. In the end, Clym dedicates himself to others, hoping to
spread truth and comfort and to teach all men to love each other.
Ironically, he himself has failed with his mother and with Eustacia, the

two people he loved most. He is more successful at loving all mankind

than at being a son or husband.
Q: DISCUSS THE ROLE AND NECESSITY OF MINOR
CHARACTERS, ESPESICIALLY THOMASIN YEOBRIGHT AND
DAMON WILDEVE. WHAT PURPOSE THEY SERVE IN THE
DEVELOPMENT OF PLOT? Ans:
Countrified and inexperienced, Thomasin seems to be less complex and
interesting than the other major characters. So far as we can tell, she is
not as passionate as Eustacia, as intellectually profound as Clym, as
sophisticated as Wildeve, or as intuitively insightful as Mrs. Yeobright.
Hardy likens her to a bird, and she often flits through a scene, scattering
good cheer but not pausing to alight. And yet, it is Thomasin who gets
(and perhaps deserves, in Hardy's view) a happy life, in conventional
terms. As the novel comes to a close, Thomasin feels fulfilled, as a
loving mother and beloved wife. The more ambitious characters have
exposed themselves too openly to fate; she is content with her lot, rooted
to the heath where she has grown up, comfortable with the simple life of
the Egdon area, she belongs. There is no conflict between what she is
and where she is. Perhaps, in that sense, she is the most fortunate
character in the novel. Unhappiness does come to her, but only when
some element intrudes that rubs against the grain of ordinary Egdon lifeWildeve's attraction, Eustacias rivalry, even Clyms return from Paris.
Although she is drawn to Wildeve, he does not belong on Egdon Heath,
and ultimately she cannot be happy with someone who is so foreign to
(and contemptuous of) the ideas, people, and land that her life is tied to.
Diggory, on the other hand, who actually lives on the open heath, is a
good match for her. Uncomplicated as she may be, however, Thomasin
is no fool. She marries Wildeve with her eyes open; she has a pretty
good idea of his faults. Without being told or shown, she recognizes
when his passion for Eustacia
comes back to life. Eventually, when she is free, she comes to
appreciate Diggorys deep, slow, and silent commitment to her.
Perhaps more important than what she sees, however, is
what she wants to see. For example, when Clym and his

mother are not speaking, she tries to act the role of

peacemaker. When Clym is estranged from Eustacia,
again Thomasin urges reconciliation. She does not like
conflict. Perhaps Hardy, who doesn't support traditional
Christian ideas in this novel, nonetheless believes
somewhat in the New Testament idea, Blessed are the
peacemakers. Thomasin is good because she is
concerned for the good of others. She is in harmony with
her world; she wants to share that harmony. Alone among
the major characters, Thomasin represents the continuity
of human life. Clym cannot bring himself to marry again,
but she can. Motherhood is important to her; she won't
even let the hired nurse carry her child. Why she is finally
attracted to Diggory? He is a dairy farmer and has been a
reddleman- in both cases, working with the basics of
sustaining life. These two are meant for each other; for
example, on the stormy night when Wildeve and Eustacia
drown, Thomasin lets Diggory carry her child. She shows
no one else this basic form of trust. Oddly, Thomasin has
little personal history on the page before us- no parents,
no siblings, and no close personal friends. Who is she?
Who or what has influenced her most? In some ways, she
resembles Mrs. Yeobright; also, she is clearly affected by
Clym's opinions. Finally, though, it may be best to see
her, as Hardy does, as a birdlike creature that finds Egdon
Heath her native habitat. She flourishes there. To
understand her, we would have to understand the
mysterious heath itself. Romantic Wildeve is a striking
contrast to Hardy's plain, honest country folk. His past is
shady. He has failed at his career as an engineer, perhaps
because of laziness; he seems never to have failed with
women, however. More than anyone else in the novel, he

cares about money and is usually strangely lucky in

getting it. This man has never had to work hard for
anything. Thoughtless, handsome, eager for what he
cannot have, Damon Wildeve is not a strong or a likeable
character. He seems to have no friends and no family
connections, although he is sexually irresistible to many
young women. He seems unusually sophisticated for the
wilds of Egdon- much like Eustacia. The crucial difference
between them is his overriding weakness. He does not
have her high standards or her depth of feeling. In fact,
Hardy
often shows Wildeve taking rash steps almost frivolously,
like someone gambling with life. He just can't take other
people's needs too seriously. He isn't evil, but he is so
self- centred that other people suffer. What Wildeve wants
most is comfort and pleasure, a life of ease. Even
Eustacia, who partly shares these desires, knows that he
is really not very substantial; she's quickly diverted from
him when Clym arrives, and only returns to Wildeve when
Clym disappoints her. When Wildeve dies, he is not
mourned long. His only legacy, a daughter, is ironically
the product of a marriage to Thomasin that he really
wanted to avoid. Yet perhaps we can feel sorry for
Wildeve, caught up in the tragic web of circumstances,
too weak to resist the fate that sweeps him along. Is
Wildeve a villain- a liar, gambler, and seducer? Or is he
simply a shallow man who has blundered into a more
tumultuous world than he was meant for? Consider both
possibilities as you read the novel. Clym's mother has
definite limitations. She is snobbish, even though her own
social position would not be very high outside Egdon. She

is stubborn and likes to get her own way; she interferes,

with disastrous consequences. On the other hand, her
judgments about people turn out to be remarkably
accurate. Also, her deep love for Clym and for Thomasin
always wins out over her temper, and she is willing to
forgive. She has a strong sense of fairness; for example,
she does her best to be polite to Wildeve. Like her son
and niece, Mrs. Yeobright feels at home in Egdon. Her life
there is simple and unpretentious, in tune with the
community. She is part of an older generation, so perhaps
we can forgive her for trying to manipulate the young
people. What chiefly motivates her is love for Clym. She
wants him to be successful financially, married to
someone who will be devoted to him. And yet, without
knowing it consciously, she also probably wants to keep
him for herself. In addition to being a strong central
character, Mrs. Yeobright is also a kind of symbol. She is
the last representative of her generation. Even at Egdon,
change is on the way. For Hardy, she may well embody
both the faults and virtues of a particular time and place
that's rapidly passing away. Strong and silent, Diggory
Venn is not what he seems to be. At night, he looks like a
demon, but he has the morals of an angel. People think
he is low on the social scale, but he can at any time
return to being a successful farmer. He is also artful,
able to disguise his true feelings, when he is courting the
one love of his life, Thomasin
Diggory is, of course, almost too good to be true. To many readers, he
almost appears to be a supernatural being. He arrives in the nick of time,
whenever Thomasin seems to be in danger. He can move swiftly across
the heath at night; he can beat the lucky gambler Wildeve, even with
Wildeve's own dice. It seems Diggory can almost read men's minds.

Capable, insightful, loyal, he performs the role of a guardian angel. It is

easy to see why Hardy originally thought that Diggory should simply
disappear at the end of the novel, instead of settling down with
Thomasin. Diggory is too fantastic a creation to fit easily into an
ordinary home life. However, he says he has entered this strange life as a
reddleman only because Thomasin rejected him; to marry her, then, he
returns to normal society. Though his actions seem magical, Diggory's
heart is totally human. It is part of his appeal that Diggory steadfastly
loves Thomasin. She is not clever or sophisticated, and she has been
foolish. She is generous, however, and her heart is in the right place.
Diggory unlike Clym and Wildeve, falls in love for reasons that may
cause love to last. He combines Clym's sense of justice with a practical
understanding of how men and women actually live their lives.
Q: DISCUSS HARDYS STYLE OF WRITING NOVELS. DOES HE HAVE
ANYTHING UNIQUE IN HIS VISION OF THE WORLD? Ans:
The Return Of The Native written early in his long career, shows
Hardy trying out different writing styles. He is always ambitious, but he
is not always successful. Occasionally, his poetic descriptions are
pretentious and long-winded; they become top heavy. In other passages,
he tries to record the earthy folk dialect of the Egdon area, and
sometimes his attempts to be accurate can become awkward; the dialect
gets in the way. But the achievements of his style far outweigh the few
failures. His best descriptions are not simple pictures; they're dramas of
life. His most believable conversations have the force, the contradiction,
and the illogic of actual conversations. He has also created a successful
voice in which he can speak directly to the reader. Sometimes it sounds a
little formal, but generally it is a useful way to guide us along, as he
moves easily from discussions of philosophy, for example, to a portrayal
of a simple country scene. Does Hardy's writing move slowly? Perhaps
it does, for us today, conditioned as we are by thirty- second television
commercials and three-

minute pop songs. In Hardy's own day, however,

readers expected to spend long hours every
evening in reading a novel, taking plenty of time to

think about what was happening. When a novel

was published serially, in a magazine, as Hardy's
novels first appeared, the experience of reading a
novel might go on for months. The pace of Hardy's
long, complex sentences is a reflection of the pace
of the times. You can look one by one at the
elements of Hardy's prose- the use of dialect
vocabulary, the vigorous verbs, and the careful
explanations- and still not find the secret of his
best work. Many readers will recall a favourite
scene as brilliantly written. But when they return to
the book, the actual words used may not live up to
the impression they made. Hardy's gift is to
summon up powerful images that take on a life of
their own, quite beyond style. Often, Hardy pulls
back from his story to talk about the past. He refers
frequently to famous characters in classical myths,
the Bible, or history, perhaps to show that people
in all civilizations have had much the same
problems and have probably had the same
questions about existence. Ancient peoples have
been forgotten, and so will we. Egdon Heath is a
symbol of this timelessness; throughout its seasons
and cycles, it remains essentially the same. There
are storms, and there are bright summer days, but
the true nature of the heath never really alters.
Human life, too, has its storms and bright days, but
its essential nature never changes, either. For

Hardy, nature could have many moods. He uses

natural descriptions in several ways: to reflect a
character's inner emotions, to symbolize the
conflicts of human life, to show the comparative
insignificance of human beings. Sometimes nature
seems to help mankind; sometimes nature seems
to turn against us. It is as mysterious as fate. In
this novel, Hardy investigates these and other
aspects of nature; but he also takes obvious delight
in describing various kinds of natural beauty for
their own sake. Anyone with unusual skill likes to
exercise that skill, and Hardy enjoys writing his
famous descriptions: the romantic loveliness and
excitement of the heath by moonlight, the burning
heat of the afternoon Mrs. Yeobright dies, or the
terror of the storm the night of Eustacia's death.
Some characters, like Thomasin, are in harmony
with this beauty; others, like Eustacia, struggle
against it. By making it a powerful presence in this
novel, Hardy shows us that nature is a force to be
reckoned with. Egdon's colourful dialect, seasonal
celebrations, superstitious folk beliefs- these were
disappearing even as Hardy wrote the novel. He
loved his native countryside and tried to re-create
both the land and the people. But he is a faithful
historian, and so he shows the bad with the good.
He is not blind to the faults of uneducated,
unsophisticated country folk; he knows they can be

cruelly prejudiced, as well as loyal. They can be

foolishly ignorant, as well as dependable. Like
Clym, though, Hardy clearly prefers life in the
country to life in the cities. In spite of his realistic
portrayals, nostalgia colours the rustic scenes, for
Hardy is sorry to see the changes that progress will
bring to the villages of his youth.