"A blaze of love and extinction, was better than a lantern glimmer of the same which should last long years" Analyse Hardy's presentation of Eustacia Vye in Book One in the light of this comment.

Hardy also uses other characters interacting with Eustacia to give the audience a further insight into her character, this is particularly apparent in the Wildeve-Eustacia relationship.  By looking at the dialogue between these characters we can begin to see an almost regal power struggle, a common theme in many books such as the Stanley-Blanche relationship in “a streetcar named desire”. The line which in my opinion signifies the power struggle is in the line “Three miles in the dark for me.  Have I not shown my power?”  In the meeting between the characters of Eustacia and Wildeve at the bonfire Hardy shows the audience her past love with Wildeve and also about her attitude to love, which seems to be that she is not in love with any man, but instead in love with the idea of love.  In this way Hardy is presenting Eustacia as an idealist, but in my opinion no man could live up to her ideals.  This is apparent in the line “Damon you are not worthy of me; I see it, and yet I love you”.  Hardy also uses the dialogue to establish her personality, which in my opinion is a very vain character, I came to this conclusion after the line “Have you ever seen anything more majestic that that in your travels?”  

If look at the imagery Hardy uses with Eustacia, particularly the fire imagery such as describing her soul as “flame like” and describing how “sparks” seemed to rise from her dark eyes.  This in my opinion gives the audience the impression that she is like fire, uncontrollable and dangerous yet her live like fire may be short lived and easily extinguished.  The main part of her body that Hardy returns to are her eyes, they are described as being “She had pagan eyes, full of nocturnal mysteries”, Hardy even has the heath folk refer to her eyes, as Timothy says “that lonesome dark-eyed creature” and Granfer Cantle’s comment of how he’d be “glad to ask her in wedlock…take the risk of her wild dark eyes ill wishing me”.  In the light of these comments Hardy establishes that she is different from the heath folk, they don’t even refer to her as human but instead Hardy has them refer to her as a creature. Hardy is also going back to the idea of her not fitting in with the other members of the heath and in my opinion is going back to the idea of Eustacia being a pagan goddess.

In the first Book of the novel we also learn about Eustacia’s desire to escape the heath, this further portrays her as the rebel character, and as we learn in the opening chapter, those who try and rebel against the heath ultimately end up being destroyed by it.  This comes across to the audience through the dialogue between her and Wildeve, in particular when she says “I want to get away from here at almost any cost…but I don’t like to go with you”.  Also in Hardy’s comments “she would not sink her independence to get there”.  This shows that even though she has a desire to escape, she values her independence above desire.  There is also the line “I wish I hated the heath less or loved you more”.  This in my opinion is Hardy trying to show us the true side of Eustacia, she wants to go away but at the same time she doesn’t want to leave.  

In this novel, Eustacia is the character that does not conform to society; she clearly could care less about what the natives think of her.  One thing I perceived in all of the criticisms was the tone of sympathy and liking that pervaded discussions of Eustacia.  In class we could not decide whether or not we actually liked her, but the criticisms painted her not only as a tragic figure, but also as a tragic figure that had no part in her own tragedy.  In other words, the criticisms seemed to say that Eustacia was a sad victim of circumstance and fate; she was a brilliant woman stuck in a confining atmosphere.  As one critic says, “Eustacia finds her potential for effective activity cripplingly limited…emotional power over other individuals is the only kind of influence [she] can exercise.”  I found myself feeling sorry for her despite the fact that she is immature, impulsive, manipulative and completely selfish.  Perhaps these character traits would disappear had she been allowed to express herself in an atmosphere, and with people, equalling her brilliance and passion.