Egdon Heath and its Significance

One of the most prominent figures in Hardy’s The Return of the Native is not a human character, but the physical landmark- Egdon Heath. The heath's central role is obvious from the beginning. The novel opens with an extensive description of the heath at dusk. Hardy begins by saying: “A Saturday afternoon in November was approaching the time of twilight, and the vast tract of unenclosed wild known as Egdon Heath embrowned itself moment by moment”. Even though the main story focuses on the relationships between Eustacia Vye, Clym Yeobright, Wildeve and Thomasin, the Heath is the central figure. Many of the events occur on or around Egdon Heath, and equally as important- all of the characters have their own special relationship with the heath.It is  “A Face on which Time makes but little Impression”. The nature of human beings is fleeting and insignificance as compared to the permanence of the heath. Avrom Fleishman in "The Buried Giant of Egdon Heath" regards Egdon Heath as a figure "in both narrative senses of 'figure,' as a person and as a trope". Hardy says:

         “The heath becomes full of watchful intentness. When other things sank brooding to sleep, the Heath appeared slowly to awake and listen”

       The Return of the Native has been called “The Book of Egdon Heath”. Hardy does an award-winning job at extensively describing Egdon heath for his readers. He even brings the heath alive: “The somber stretch of rounds and hollows seemed to rise and meet the evening gloom in pure sympathy, the heath exhaling darkness as rapidly as the heavens precipitated it.” The heath proves physically and psychologically important throughout the novel: characters are defined by their relation to the heath, and the weather patterns of the heath. 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 man's nature." The narrator's descriptions of the Heath vary widely throughout the novel, ranging from the sublime to the gothic.

       Hardy’s description of the Heath has “a symbolic overtone with philosophy”. “It had a lonely face suggesting tragical possibilities” It neither ghastly, not hateful, common place, tame, but it is like man slighted and enduring.  Egdon is the premier and most extended instance of Hardy’s habitual personification of Nature. Hardy himself lived on the fringes of Egdon Heath and was perfectly with this environment. In no other novel of his does background come up as lively and breathing as The Return of the Native.

 “Egdon is a protagonist of Return of the Native”, says Walter Allen. Egdon influences all the characters moving them to love or hate, to despair or to the philosophic mind and they are described in relation to their environment. When Clym moves out of his mother’s house, the fir and beech trees are described to be “suffering more demage than during the highest winds of winter … the wasting sap would bleed for many days to come”. The two most resistatant characters to the Heath are clearly Eustacia and Wildeve; their intense disgust is revealed in their conversation: “You hate the Heath as much as ever; that I know”, “I do … ‘Tis my cross, my misery, and will be my death.” It is ironic when Eustacia says that she is setting for  his fatal journey. We also get an insight to the way Eustacia is feeling through the storm when Hardy says, “Never was harmony more perfect than that between the chaos of her mind and the chaos of the world without.” Hardy describes her as “the raw material of a divinity” whose “celestial imperiousness, love, wrath, and fervour had proved to be somewhat thrown away on netherward Egdon.”

        Clym, unlike, Eustacia, is the product of Egdon and its shaggy hills are friendly and congenial to him. Heath swallows him up and absorbs him into its furze and other creatures. The way Hardy describes Clym when he is out on the Heath working is like something from Snow Wight, with “Amber coloured butterflies” and the“Emerald-green grasshoppers.”  If Clym is the child of heath, Eustacia is haunted by the heath, the reddleman haunts the heath. He knows every nook and corner of heath.  The heath does irreparable damage to Mrs. Yeobright and kills her. Thomasin thinks it an impersonal open ground. She calls it “a ridiculous old place.” But confesses that she could live nowhere else.

 At the very last, Egdon is shown to be inhospitable to man, as remarks D.H. Lawrence: “Egdon whose dark soil was strong and crude and organic as the body of a beast”. The dark-spirit of nature seems to be ready to engulf the whole scenario.

 

When human figures do finally appear, they seem insignificant against the backdrop of the indifferent, ruthless, Egdon Heath. Many times during the course of the story, for instance, Clym will be shown to appear like a tiny insect moving across the face of nature. These elements—the heath as a setting and a symbol, and the way the main characters are shown in relation to their surroundings—demonstrate Hardy’s theme: “Man lives his life in a universe that is at least indifferent to him and may be hostile."

Role of Chance and Coincidence in The Return of the Native

Chances and coincidences play a vital role in all the novels of Hardy. In the work of no other novelist do chances and coincidences exercise such a conspicuous influence on the course of events. The unexpected often happens and always it is the undesirable and unwanted. Such chance events are heavy blows aimed at the head of Hardy's protagonists and they send them to their doom.

         While a character is certainly responsible to a large extent, chances and coincidences often operate as the deciding factor. Hardy believed that there is some malignant power that controls the universe, and which is out to thwart and defeat men in their plans. It is especially hostile to them who try to assert themselves and have their own way. He couldn’t believe in a benevolent Providence; events were too plainly ironical so they must have been contrived by a supernatural power. He found it difficult, if not impossible, to reconcile the idea of a beneficent and benevolent, omnipotent, and omniscient deity with the fact of omnipresent evil and the persistent tendency of circumstances toward unhappiness.

          Hardy shows a persistent and bitter preoccupation with the sorrow of life. We certainly cannot deny the littleness and sordidness of human life. He attributes the tragedy to an “Unsympathetic First Cause”. The Return of the Native shows man as the helpless plaything of invisible powers, ruthless and indifferent. The characters have no such thing as free will.              

     The whole plot of The Return of the Native is tinged with fateful incidents and accidents. 

1-  Johnny Nunsuch has overheard the conversation between Eustacia and Wildeve. Johnny then meets the reddleman Diggory Venn purely by chance. The reddleman learns from the boy the emotional attachment of Eustacia with Wildeve. The reddleman decides to serve Thomasin’s interests by dissuading Eustacia from Wildeve. But he is scolded by her and feeling dejected and failed, goes to Mrs. Yeobright to renew his offer of marriage to Thomasin. Mrs. Yeobright uses this offer to threaten Wildeve to marry Thomasin. This whole series of events are caused by chance and fate only started by Johnny, the boy.

2- Just as Eustacia’s affection for Wildeve begins to wane, an exciting prospect, Clym Yeobright, diamond merchant in Paris, returns to Egdon. His visit prompts Eustacia to facilitate a meeting between them, which eventually results in a mutual attraction. Eustacia makes her disinterest known to Wildeve who finally marries Thomasin. Eustacia is disappointed to discover that Clym has rejected his cosmopolitan lifestyle, however, hopeful that she can change his mind, agrees to marry him. Mrs. Yeobright disapproves both these marriages.

3- By a sheer accident, Christian Cantle who is carrying Mrs. Yeobright’s money meets a group of village folk who take him to a raffle where, by a sheer stroke of luck, he wins a prize and encouraged by his good fortune plays a game of dice with Wildeve. Cantle first loses his own money and later stakes Mrs. Yeobright’s and loses the entire amount. The reddleman appears and invites Wildeve for another bout. This time luck favors the reddleman and he wins all the money from Wildeve. He delivers the whole money to Thomasin, not aware of the fact, that half the money was to be handed to Clym. Mrs. Yeobright fails to receive any acknowledgement from Clym and becomes dejected.

4- That Clym becomes semi-blind when he was hoping to launch his educational project, is a sheer accident which leads to disastrous results. Clym is compelled to become a furze-cutter. The humble occupation chosen by Clym is regarded by Eustacia as humiliating. When Wildeve asks her if her marriage has proved a misfortune for her, her reply is “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.” 

5- When Eustacia goes to a village festival in order to relieve the tedium of her life, she meets Wildeve purely by chance and this leads to their dancing together. She contemptuously describes herself as a furze cutter’s wife. Later he escorts her on her homeward journey, but slips away at the sight of Clym.

6- Again it is purely by chance that Wildeve visits Eustacia at home exactly at the moment Mrs. Yeobright knocks at the door; she has come hoping for a reconciliation with the couple. Eustacia, however, in her confusion and fear at being discovered with Wildeve, does not allow Mrs. Yeobright to enter the house: heart-broken and feeling rejected by her son, she succumbs to heat and snakebite on the walk home, and dies.

7-It is by sheer chance that Wildeve becomes the recipient of a legacy which makes him rich, and this leads to the renewal of Eustacia’s love for him.

 8-It is just a chance that Johnny repeats the dying words of Mrs. Yeobright, exactly at the moment that Clym reaches the cottage. Thus he comes to know the role played by Eustacia in Mrs Yeobright’s death. This leads to the separation of Clym and Eustacia after a violent quarrel.

9- It is just a chance that Clym's letter of reconciliation does not reach Eustacia in time.

10- It is by chance the Charley, in order to please the despondent Eustacia, thinks of lighting a bonfire. She had nothing to do with bonfire. Wildeve seeing the fire comes to Eustacia and she plans to fly away from the Heath.

11- Finally, it so happens that on the night of Eustacia’s escape, the weather assumes a menacing aspect. The night becomes dreadful because of rain and storm. Eustacia seems to drown herself and Wildeve dies in the rescue attempt. Thus Eustacia laments over her  fortune in the words:

       “How I have tried and tried to be a splendid woman, and how destiny has been against me. I do not deserve my lot…I have been injured and blighted and crushed by things beyond my control.”

Conclusion: Hardy certainly makes his story implausible by his excessive use of chance and coincidence. He is intent to show that the stars in their courses fight against the aspiring. The Return of the Native is certainly marred by an exorbitant use of this device. Rightly does a critic say, “The plot of the novel lacks the terrific and terrifying logic of cause and effect that marks the plots of the greatest tragedies.”