Return of the Native Essay 'Hardy presents his characters who, he suggests, are totally justified in wanting to escape the suffocating restrictions of their society

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Return of the Native Essay

'Hardy presents his characters who, he suggests, are totally justified in wanting to escape the suffocating restrictions of their society; yet he does not allow them to find their happiness.'

The two characters that I would chose to be appropriate in the light of this statement would be Eustacia and Clym. The characters' attitude toward the heath shows their moods and concerns, from those who look at the heath as a disdainful and dreary place to those who consider Egdon Heath their home. The setting of the novel, Egdon Heath, never changes--it is as forbidding and desolate as it may be toward its inhabitants and its visitors. The heath never yields to anyone.

The nineteen-year-old sultry, sensuous beauty whose passionate, uncurbed nature is uncontrollable. Eustacia hates everything connected to Egdon Heath, especially the turf and furze-gatherers and cutters. She feels that any job or object connected to the heath is degrading and miserable. Eustacia's rejection of the heath shows her rebellion against nature. She desires to love a man worthy of her, a man and who will take her from the dreary, miserable world she knows living on the heath.