121. Fatalism versus Faith in Hardy's The Return of the Native!

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                                       The Ethics of Acceptance in Hardy's The Return of the Native

          In Thomas Hardy's  The Return of the Native, the author uses the theme of death-and-rebirth to illustrate how the guilt and despair associated with the death of a loved one can motivate subjects to undergo a spiritual or emotional transformation. In a sense, man must choose to sublimate his past regrets into positive avenues of growth and change. Only then can individuation occur. Ironically, the extent of one's heroic potential is directly proportional to the cruelty of his fate. Thus, a character's tragic stature largely depends upon the strength of his struggle against Nature's opposing forces. The major thrust of the novel focuses upon this ethical choice "to take up arms against a sea of troubles," even if it costs them their lives. During her life, Eustasia Vye chooses to confront the harshness of Nature and provincialism with courage, dignity, and love; following her death, Clym uses her spiritual inspiration to commence a spiritual odyssey for his fellow man. In a sense, Eustasia serves as a muse who vicariously encourages her bereaved husband into a new way of life. Just as Peter must overcome his guilt in denying Christ, so must Clym recognize his cruelty to his wife and his mother; otherwise, he cannot create from his past experiences a meaningful future existence.

             In the opening chapters of the novel, Hardy juxtaposes the internal suffering of the characters with the opposing external forces of Nature. Thus, guilt and despair form the tragic backdrop for a pair of star-crossed lovers whose untimely deaths reflect the author's tone of loss and betrayal. Like the chthonic setting of an inverted paradise, the oppressive character of Egdon Heath permeates the novel's tragic tone. Like the forlorn environs of Macbeth's kingdom and barren terrain in which Catherine and Heathcliff find their ultimate resting place, the sinister quality of the landscape contributes to the loneliness and isolation in the hearts of Eustasia Vye and Clym Yeobright. Hardy creates this desolate atmosphere to show how fate serves to victimize its subjects and to foreshadow the catastrophe that awaits them. The author also uses the supernatural in the form of superstition from the traditional folklore of the Egdon citizens to enhance the aura of suspense and add to the sense of futility. Just as the witches form a clay figure to represent the curse they place upon Macbeth, so does a vengeful neighbor form a figure of wax to cast a spell upon a lost and frantic Eustasia on the night of her tragic drowning. Just as Lady Macbeth appeals to the forces of evil to unsex her, so does this village sorceress recite The Lord's Prayer backward as an incantation to the spirits of darkness (356). In this respect, Hardy uses the conflict between good and evil to reinforce the spiritual dimensions of the story. He also uses the ritual of the Maypole to show the extent to which the pagan traditions still permeate the minds of the villagers, and to suggest that in such a rural setting, mysterious and inscrutable forces are still at work to undermine the hopes and dreams of newcomers. Hardy describes the festival fires as "the instinctive and resistant act of man" at the start of winter, which suggests "a spontaneous Promethean rebelliousness against the fiat that this recurrent season shall bring foul times, cold darkness, misery and death." Only during this period of darkness do the "fettered gods of the earth say,' Let there be light'" (23). Here, the author illustrates the eternal struggle between the forces of good and evil by alluding to Prometheus' gift of fire to man, a gift resulting in his eternal punishment on Mount Caucasus. Thus, the malevolent presence of Nature symbolizes an external conflict that corresponds with the internal struggle in the minds of the characters. Hardy utilizes this idea of dual tension in Eustasia and Wildeve's case, when their final attempt at freedom ends tragically during a violent storm.

              The rugged landscape further contributes to the sense of primordial dominance and timelessness, an environment completely impervious to change. Hardy uses the simile of "a man slighted and enduring" to describe the setting, which in its form "had a lonely face, suggesting tragic possibilities" (13-14). Even the faces of the villagers, when merged with the night fires of the Maypole festival, appear ghastly. The ever-changing effect of the firelight upon the joyous participants transforms their appearance into the macabre. This is the heath's fatalistic effect upon man. Hardy expresses this contrast in the following passage: "Shadowy eye sockets, deep as those of a death's head, suddenly turned into pits of luster: a lantern-jaw was cavernous, then it was shining; wrinkles were emphasized to ravines, or obliterated entirely by a changed ray. Nostrils were dark well; sinews in old necks were gilt mouldings." The distinction is clearly drawn. The archetypal image of man-in-harmony with Nature differs from Hardy's concept of Egdon Heath, rough in tooth-and-claw. This grotesque feature, he suggests, even assumes "preternatural" proportions (24). Here, an underlying current of fierce animosity manifests itself in much the same way as Freud would describe the unrestrained vengeance of the Id, or the evil lurking in the dark waters of Grendel's lair. "Civilization was its enemy," Hardy says. These bleak surrounding "had been from prehistoric times as unaltered as the stars overhead" (14). The author uses the metaphor of friendship and affection to show the heath's affinity for dread and gloom (13). Hardy says that "the storm was its lover, and the wind its friend." Egdon is known as "the home of strange phantoms" whose "wild regions of obscurity" evoke terrifying "midnight dreams of flight and disaster" (13). ln essence, Hardy capitalizes on the pagan view of nature as a harsh, uncontrollable force that withstands the strength and cruelty of Grendel's onslaughts, the violent storms of King Lear, and the human sacrifices from Egdon's Druid past. This is the land of Stonehenge, an ageless terrain whose contours still retain traces of Roman occupation.

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