An Exploration Of The Tragic Fate Of Eustacia In The Return Of The Native By Thomas Hardy

Thomas Hardy was an important novelist and poet in the Victoria Period. The Return of the Native was a representative of his "character and environment novels", and it was a work in the turning point of Hardy's creation. This novel has aroused wide concern of the critical circles and readers since its publication in 1878. The critics studied this novel from various angles, and this thesis will interpret the heroine Eustacia's tragic fate once more.Eustacia Vye, a pretty girl, was born in a seaside city, Budmouth, whose father was a musician. Eustacia was brought up and educated in this city, while she had to move to Egdon Heath with her grandfather after the death of her parents. However, she was quite alien to the heath from the very beginning, and she regarded it as her cage and jail. What she was thinking was how to escape, which made her gloomy personality even depressing and lonely. She entrusted all her hope to the appearance of a good man, and in her mind, if she could marry an excellent husband, she would leave Egdon Heath smoothly and live a life she was dreaming of all the time. Nevertheless, her plans failed again and again. Her first lover, Dammon Wildeve, gave up her and decided to marry the heath girl Thomasin Yeobright; then her new partner Clym Yeobright made up his mind to live on the heath rather than go back to Paris with her. And because he overused his eyes, Clym became nearly blind, he had to make a living by cutting furze on the heath. This kind of change completely let Eustacia down, and in order to realize her dream, she decided to make a final plunge—return to Wildeve and leave Egdon Heath with him. Unfortunately, there was a big storm on the night when they intended to leave, both Eustacia and Wildeve fell into the river and died.The novel narrated the whole thing happened on Egdon Heath from the angle of a third person. As an outcomer, the conflict between Eustacia and the heath was rather intense, she never thought about how to adapt to the life here, on the contrary, she was just eager to get away. She fought with the tradition to fulfill her dream, but in that society she had little chance to succeed. In the patriarchal society, the female didn't have independent economic and social status, and they even had no independent personality. They were demanded to attach themselves to the male. As a result, Eustacia's rebellion was doomed to be devoured by the reality. Meanwhile, she was a girl with endless desires, she longed for fervent love, perfect lover, high-living life, and romantic feelings. Almost all her behaviors were controlled by her desires, she seldom cared about the social norms and traditional customs. Because of these, Eustacia's struggle against her fate was destined to end in failure, and her tragedy was inevitable.This thesis explores the reasons for Eustacia's tragedy guided by the theories of Darwinism, Feminism, and Psychoanalytic Criticism.