The Return of the Native Man and the Natural World Quotes

Here's some trivia – the Promethean myth was the favorite myth many nineteenth-century Romantics, who prized counter-culture and rebellion. You can't get much more rebellious than defying the will of the gods, after all. So it's interesting that Hardy (part-time Romantic that he was) cited the myth here, particularly when we consider the "rebellious" nature of Eustacia.

The structure of this sentence is really interesting in that it sort of illustrates its main point for us. The overall idea here is that Egdon undermines Eustacia's fiery personality. The sentence itself sandwiches the romantic words that describe Eustacia ("love," "wrath," etc.) between two very killjoy words: "but" and "thrown away." But after undermining Eustacia's "celestial" nature, the prose gets much more dramatic and romantic once again in order to set up a contrast between the Hades of Egdon and the "celestial" nature of Eustacia, who is figuratively being dragged down by Egdon.

Throughout the novel Hardy tends to alternate back and forth pretty regularly between very short, to-the-point sentences and very lengthy ones that have multiple clauses. After establishing that Eustacia isn't a fan of the heath, the text uses a series of contrasts to really hammer home the point that Eustacia isn't just any woman: she's a rebel. And what the heck does "saturnine" mean? After consulting a dictionary, we learned that it means "gloomy." We would've thought the small-town heath would make a rebellious woman even more rebellious, like in Footloose or something, but apparently not. That Hardy, so unpredictable.

Clym demonstrates a bit of a rebellious streak here as he cheers for nature to kick cultivation's butt. It's notable that Clym's pro-nature spirit is characterized as "barbarous" – it begs the question as to whether or not the word is used ironically. In other words, does Hardy agree with society at large and find untamed nature barbaric, or is he using the word to tell us something else? One clue might be in another word used: "stubborn," which can be taken positively here since it demonstrates how hard-core the heath is.

Eustacia wouldn't have joined Greenpeace. Or even National Geographic. Aside from showing us that Eustacia is not a nature-lover, this short exchange between her and Clym introduces an important theme: the contrast between human nature and the natural world. Two kinds of nature, two very different meanings at work.

This is a major theme. The idea that the heath isn't just a tiny spot in the world but is actually the "whole world" resonates, or is present, throughout the novel. See, Eustacia's depressed feelings about her present location, Egdon, have expanded outward to encompass the entire world, as well as the entire future. So, in a way, Egdon itself has expanded outward for Eustacia and swallowed up all of time and space for her.

It's character contrast time – Eustacia is ready to write off the world as "wrong," but Clym pipes up with an alternate view: people make the world, and nature, what it is.

The diction is kind of out-of-control here. First, we get words that imply life and beauty, such as "vivid green" and "abundant." But we quickly shift to more negative diction that discusses machines and industry and the impact man can have on the environment, with words like "saw-edges." But then we shift again to a very different set of words, which refer to the "ancient world." Hardy ends up proposing a very funky idea here. He suggests that by using machines to cut-up and transform nature, people have not progressed but have actually regressed to some sort of boring and lame "ancient world." People work against natural progress by changing and harming nature.

This is one of the most significant thematic passages of the entire novel with very powerful images of a "flat" and empty landscape. The land here has a literal leveling effect on Clym, who is somewhat horrified to find himself completely "equal" to everything else on Earth. The idea that people aren't any better or worse than nature is a key idea of Naturalism.

The diction really sets up a contrast that furthers the overall point of this sentence. We hear about "soft" vegetation and then contrast that to the hard metal of money and the loud sounds of dice.

Clym is compared to an insect here, which isn't exactly flattering. It gets worse, though – he's also compared to a parasite. In this instance, the heath is clearly the winner in the whole "man vs. nature" debate.

This is a great example of the type of rich imagery and detail that Park Ranger Hardy uses throughout the novel. Here we have a strong sense of movement and color with the description of the "emerald green grasshoppers," and we get a theme as well – the "tribe" of grasshoppers fall all about chaotically as "chance" or fate dictates. Kind of like the people in this book.

It's interesting that Mrs. Yeobright is linked directly to the tree here. The trees are "battered" and "wild," and Mrs. Yeobright herself is "storm-broken," just like them.

As we noted in the "Setting" section, the heath is often personified. So it makes sense that the heath has its own "voice" here via the wind.