Transition Of View On Woman And Nature In Thomas Hardy’s The Return Of The Native To Tess Of The D’Urbervilles

Thomas Hardy is one of the greatest novelists in British history.His works present abundant view on woman and nature.Among them,The Return of the Native and Tess of the d’Urbervilles were respectively created in his early and later period of novel writing.Both works are of very typical features.The primitive and natural ecosystem of wilderness and the different life courses of the two female characters in The Return of the Native are super-attractive.And the heroine Tess’s miserable life full of ups and downs in the countryside environment in Tess of the d’Urbervilles is also worth thinking.Ecofeminism is an advanced new theory which rises in today’s theories of literary criticism.Through pointing out the facts that woman and nature are both exploited and oppressed,it exposes and tries to eliminate the root of domination logic behind these facts.When we refer to the multi-layered presentation of woman and nature in Hardy’s works,value on ecofeminism is worthy of discussing together.This thesis aims to interpret the transition of Hardy’s view on woman and nature through the analysis and comparison of The Return.of the Native and Tess of the d’Urbervilles created in Hardy’s different times,and explore the rich ecofeminist meaning in them.Meanwhile,this thesis probes into the presentation of woman,nature,and their relationship among these two books to see whether the later one has more significant advance than the former one,also to see whether the-thought presented in this advance accords with the core of ecofeminism or not.In this way,this thesis helps to express the deep concern to woman and nature of Hardy’s works,and what’s more,to reveal the essence of ecofeminism and provide a reference for the ecofeminist studies of this kind.