What is the Significance of the Heath in Return of the Native?
It is evident right from the beginning that the heath plays an
integral part in the novel “Return of the Native”, this is because the
opening chapter is exclusively about the heath.
The heath assists in creating the feelings of both central characters
and the background heath folk, the first chapter is titled “A Face on
which Time makes but little Impression”, meaning that Egdon Heath is
timeless and everybody on it has little significance.
The reader gains an insight of the novel and its genre through the
first chapter, “It had a lonely face, suggesting tragical
possibilities.” This aids the reader in identifying that there is
going to be something tragical in the novel. Hardy is also using
personification, which brings the heath to life.
In spite of this, the first chapter also does what every other first
chapter in a novel does, it sets the scene. Egdon Heath, as far as the
novel is concerned and the characters inside it, is the world. The
only time that the novel ever abandons the heath is only briefly
between pages 253-257 which is the part when Wildeve and Eustacia are
at the dance together in Budmouth. It is comprehensible that the heath
folk consider Egdon Heath to be everything when they talk about Paris
as if it were a million miles away, “like a King’s Palace as far as
diments go” is the description they use when describing Clym’s shop.
Hardy also uses the heath as a metaphor for how the central characters
are feeling. On page 206, when Clym moves out of his mothers house,
the fir and beech trees are described to be “suffering more damage
than during the highest winds of winter… the wasting sap would bleed
for many days to come”. We also get an insight to the way Eustacia is
feeling through the storm on the heath on page 345-346, “Never was
harmony more perfect than that between the chaos of her mind and the
chaos of the world without”. The brief flowering in the summer time on
Egdon heath represents the love between Eustacia and Clym, when it
flowered it was beautiful and colourful and sweet, but it soon
drooped, dried out and finally died.
When Wildeve and Diggory Venn are playing dice on the heath, the
contrast is prominent between human behaviour and nature, “The
incongruity between the men’s deeds and their environment was
striking”. Hardy is making a comment on human nature and it’s battle
against nature. The behaviour of the two men is described as almost
Before the book even begins there is a page which really helps to set the tone for the book. It also helps the reader to better understand the pages ahead.
It’s important for a writer to gain the reader’s attention in the first chapters in a story and
How the setting was expressed is also a vital part for the development of the story. The opening paragraph gives a vivid description of the situation as would physically been seen.
Foreshadowing: Author hints at what can possibly happen in the story by using the text.
Every detail within the story has some sort of meaning and is there for a
Native Americans have a long history of using native plants, berries, herbs, and trees for a wide variety of medicinal purposes. Native Americans have been using these methods for thousands of years.
The setting of the narrative is also thrown out at various times throughout the book.
serve to allow the reader to perceive not only the story presented in front of them but
An example of a literary device used in the novel is personal anecdotes. While most the book is composed
The setting is extremely important in both novels and films. It can have immense effects on the plot and characters, establishing the atmosphere or mood
that the novel is a log of events and a tale of what might be in the
The setting or settings in a novel are often an important element in the work. Many novels use contrasting places such as cities or towns, to represent opposing forces or ideas that are central to the meaning of the work. In Thomas Hardy's novel, Tess of the d'Urbervilles, the contrasting settings of Talbothays Dairy and Flintcomb-Ash represent the opposing forces of good and evil in Tess' life.
us about this, it also tells us what the story is about and what will
In his novel, Native Son, Richard Wright favors short, simple, blunt sentences that help maintain the quick narrative pace of the novel, at least in the first two books. For example, in the following passage: "He licked his lips; he was thirsty. He looked at his watch; it was ten past eight. He would go to the kitchen and get a drink of water and then drive the car out of the garage. " Wright's imagery is often brutal and elemental, as seen in his frequently repeated references to fire, snow, and Mary's bloody head.
There are certain components that a novel should contain. George Phelps has come up with a six-part basis for identifying novels: the writing must be fictitious, or in other words "not pretend to tell the truth," have a certain length, attain a unity of "plot, theme, tone, atmosphere, or vision," create an illusion of reality, be concerned with character, and be prose (Phelps 7-8). Kettle, in his An Introduction to the English Novel, argues a novel must have two elements -- a quality of life and a significant pattern (13).