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Conflict on the Heath CONFLICT ON THE HEATH APPROVED t Major Professor c ^ Minor Professor g -s- r. Director of "the Dqroartment of English Dean <of the Graduate School ( CONFLICT OF THE HEATH THESIS Presented to the Graduate Council of the North Texas State University in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements For the Degree of MASTER OF ENGLISH By Donna Jane Lusk, B, A» Denton, Texas August, 1968 TABLE OP CONTENTS Page Chapter I. INTRODUCTION . 1 II. THE CHARACTER OP THE HEATH. ....... 7 III,. THE HEATH AS AN EMOTIONAL SETTINGt MRS. YEOBRIGHT AND CLYM, THE NATIVE 17 IV. THE HEATH AS AN EMOTIONAL SETTING AND FATE: EUSTACIA VIE 29 V. TESS AND NATURE 51 VI. THE HEATH AS A REFLECTION OP CLASSICAL TRAGEDY 65 VII. NATURE, FATE AND HARDY-*S COSMIC VIEW 82 VIII. CONCLUSION 96 BIBLIOGRAPHY 100 ill CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION The Victorian dilemma was the result of an industrial revolution and an Ideological revolution. Technically, the age of steam was initiated and mechanclal power was being applied to theretofore manual employments« Ideologically, the age was in a turmoil. A period of • unequaled religious crisis was afoot. The Return of the Native, and, to a lesser degree, Tess of the D'Urbervllles, served as the "darkling Plain" upon which Hardy tried to pose and to solve his theories of the universe, its meanings and its duties toward man. The "darkling plain" in Hardy*s works is represented by Egdon Heath and the country surround- ing this heath. In the before mentioned works, Thomas Hardy sought to work out a world view which would eliminate the problems posed by the Victorian crisis in thinking. In I836, Sir Charles Lyell^-an- Intereated" sctentfrst „of..geology^ published his Principles of Geology. It was a work which proposed to set forth the age of the earth based upon geological data. His work dated the age of the earth millions of years prior to the age which the church doctrine allotted. Although Lyell had not planned this result, the church's doctrine had been challenged. The foundations of the church were weakened slightly. 1 Lyell's thesis, which was considered "heresy," was followed in 1859 by Darwin's Or1Kin of Species, which served to substantiate Lyell* s work. Ifi Darwin* s' theory, evolution required millions of years In which to 00our, and not, as the church had stated, thousands of years since man's beginning. , The Victorian was forced into deciding if there were a God, and, if so, what His duties were toward man. The mere existence of a universe did not necessarily insure the existence of a benevolent God. The predication of many members of the church that science was a study for atheists led many Victorians to a crisis in thinking. To follow reason was to suffer the title atheist; to follow intuition was an insult to man's reasoning capacities. This inconsistency between the church and science was tjae very problem with which Thomas Hardy had to contend.. It is not uncommon for a novelist to work out his world view within the novels themselves, to develop and transmit a philosophy, not In direct statements, t>ut moite often, through his characters and their environments. Such was the case with Thomas Hardy and his county of Wessex. As a young man, Hardy expected too much of the world, and, because of this, he became a disillusioned ideal!st.* 1 Harvey Curtis Webster, The Art and Thought of Thomas Hardy 1 On a Darkling Plain (U.S.A., 1964), p. 2. He was greatly influenced by two of the greatest thinkers of the Victorian period. John Stuart Mill and Charles Darwin offered a pragmatic view of the world. Mill's On Libertygreatly Influenced Hardy's thoughts, to the extent that he committed to memory large portions of the essay. Mill expounds in his work on the threats to Individuality. Individuality, as seen by Mill, was 2 paramount to a person's well-being. John Stuart Mill saw that The general average of mankind are- not only moderate in intellect, but also moderate in inclinations! they have no tastes or wishes strong enough to incline them to do anything usual, and they consequently do not understand those who have, and class all such with the wild and intemperate who they are accustomed [&5j look down upon.3 This desire for individuality, as expressed by Mill, was adhered to by Hardy. Darwin's thesis served to strengthen Hardy's bias for 4 truth, whatever the cost. Hardy, prior to Origin of Species, had "interpreted nature as something 'love alone had wrought.' Darwin thought of nature as the scene of < struggle for existence. ". ."Hardy began to formulate ^William R. Rutland, Thomas Hardy: A Study of his Writings and their Background (New York, 1962), p. 64. 3john Stuart Mill, On Liberty, Representative Government. The Subjection of Woman "(London, 1952) , pp. 85-86. ^Webster, op. cit., p. 45. 5Ibld., pp. 40-41. an idea of nature which was to be expressed in his major novels as an Immutable, uncaring, yet- seemingly malevolent, settine, Into ' which Hardy placed humanity, a struggling, Ignorant and defeated essence, tt Is interesting to note that Essays and Reviews and Origin of Species "could have destroyed his faith and forced him into the first formulation of his 'pessimistic* philosophy, "even if they had not been supplemented by other rationalistic literature." . And with the augmented material at the disposal of a disillusioned Thomas Hardy, his faith in the traditional God crumbled and led him to the plain of doubt on which he and other men of the Victorian Age found themselves. Matthew Arnold captures this dilemma in "Stanzas from the Grande Chartreuse." "Wandering between two worlds, one dead,/ The other powerless to be born,/ With nowhere yet to rest my 7 head,/ Like these, on earth I wait forlorn." This early struggle with religious problems "was an 8 important factor in shaping his melancholy nature." • He endeavored to embody in literature the'implications of science. "He seized these scientific facts and turned 6Ibld., p. 39. 7e. D. Johnson, editor, The World of the Victorians: An Anthology of Poetry and Prose (Mew York, 196^-), p. 75. ^Albert Pettlgrew Elliott, Fatalism in the Works of Thomas Hardy (New York, 1966), p. 18. 5 them to imaginative uses, and there is little doubt that his ideas of Nature and Immanent Will were influenced by them# Religion, it was evident to Hardy, had failed in its purpose. It did not explain empirically the nature of God or the responsibility God had toward his creation, man. "Since the ideals of Christianity had failed to benefit t the race, in Hardy's opinion, it is time for religion to 10 be replaced by a more rational system." The traditional God of omnipotence and omniscience did not seem to care for the condition of man, and this seemed to negate his omniscience. Could a God, who knew the conditions man lived in, continue to let man suffer in his day to day endurance? Hardy did not believe so. Hardy points out that God cannot be endowed with benevolence and omniscience,. If he is benevolent, he must be limited in perception and unable to foresee the ultimate effect of his creative activities. On the other hand, if he is acquainted with conditions on earth, he must be indifferent to suffering.Im- possibly , at the heart of Hardy's philosophy lies the 12 suggestion that man is apparently helpless in this world. 9Ibid., p. 23. *0Lionel Stevenson, Darwin Among the Poets (Chicago, 1932), p. nibld., p. 272. *^Patrick Braybrooke, Thomas Hardy and His Philosophy (Philadelphia, 1927)* P* 159» Hardy's novels of major importance leave the reader with the 11 impression that man is subject to nature's control. J It is, then, in this frame of reference, of disillusion- ment and searching, of man's subjection to cruelty by the external forces of nature, that The Return of the .Native and Tess of the D'Urbervllles will be studied. For, within this frame of reference there lies the heart of Thomas Hardy's cosmic view, and his own. individual, philosophy •of life. His philosophy of life was not meant to be a formal philosophy, merely a means by which he could reach some level of understanding of the cosmos and its purpose. Hardy does not answer questions so much as he asks questions about the universe * *3john Holloway, The Victorian Sar;ei Studies in Argument (London, 1962),p. 265. CHAPTER II THE CHARACTER OP THE HEATH Thomas Hardy did more than create a setting for his stories} he created a character of awesome perspective which dominated all activities within the landscape and personages who dwelled on the heath. The Return of the Native shows two aspects of naturei Nature as simple and Nature as mysterious and illimitable."'' The initial introduction of Egdon Heath sets the tone for the ensuing book as untameable and vast. » » * And the vast tract of unenclosed wild known as Egdon Heath enbrowned itself moment by moment. Overhead the hollow stretch of whitish cloud shutting out the sky was as a tent which had the whole heath for its floor. The heaven being spread with this pallid screen and the earth with the darkest vegetation, their meeting-line at the horizon was clearly marked. In such contrast the heath wore the appearance of the instalment of night which had taken up its place before its astronomical hour was come» darkness had to a great extent arrived hereon, while day stood distinct in the sky.2 The heath was a world unto its own.
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