Sunday, December 19, 2010

A Tale of Two cities - As Historical and Tragical Novel

Limited view of the French Revolution: A TALE OF TWO CITIES is a historical novel pertaining to
the period before and during the French Revolution. CHARLES DICKENS had always written one
historical novel, Barnaby Rudge which dealt with the period of English History. By the time, he
wrote A TALE OF TWO CITIES he was vitally interested in history. In FR, he found a subject worthy
of his broad conceptions a great nation ripening its own destruction – literally France of course,
but by implication England, too. However, it must be kept that CHARLES DICKENS’s novel doesn’t
by any means depict the enormous sweep and drama of the French Revolution in all its
complexity.

CHARLES DICKENS has condensed the basic threat of the Revolution and the basic lesson that
can be drawn from it by depicting the effects of the Terror, or the revengeful side of the
revolution, on small group of people who get involved in these public events against their will. A
number of sources supplied to Dickens the inspiration of his story of the FR. The main source
was Carlyle’s French Revolution which Dickens had studied many times. In this book, he found a
perfect source for the principal historical scenes and events that he needed for his purpose. The
basic idea for the plot was derived by Dickens from a play called the Frozen Deep by Wilkie
Collins. A novel called Zanoni written by Lytton in a similar context also supplied help to CHARLES
DICKENS. The core of the story of the play is the sacrifice which a character called Wardour
makes in order to save the life of Aldersley. When this play was staged the role of the self-
sacrificing lover was played by Dickens himself with great zest and passion. Dickens transferred
the involvement which he had experienced in the acting of The Frozen Deep to the writing of A
TALE OF TWO CITIES. Dickens has identified himself completely with the part played by Sydney
Carton in the story. This is one aspect of the link between the novel and the personal feelings of
the author.

Crisis and Revolution in his personal life: While A TALE OF TWO CITIES was maturing in his mind,
Dickens was passing through a series of dramatic personal events. His married life with Catherine
had never been happy since the marriage took place. There were two reasons for this
unhappiness. One was incompatibility with his temperament. Second was that Dickens was
deeply interested in a girl before and during the marriage. In his early youth, he had successfully
courted a young girl named Maria Beadnell, but she died causing a great shock and grief to
Dickens. Later his feelings were taken up by an actress named Ellen Ternan who played the role
of Clara in the Frozen Deep with Dickens. Catherine could no longer bear this relationship and
got separated. Such was the personal crisis in his life which were externalized into A TALE OF
TWO CITIES. The French Revolution which deeply affected the destiny of the characters in A TALE
OF TWO CITIES overtook Dickens as a man, as a husband and as a lover. A TALE OF TWO CITIES
enabled Dickens to combine his bent toward social criticism and warning with the technique and
point of view of the historical novel, and it also enabled him to find an escape from the torments
of his personal struggles and at the same time expose those pains in a symbolic form.
Elements of a tragedy: It is not a full historical or personal novel. It is basically a tragedy written
in the background of French Revolution. It depicts the fortunes and misfortune of some
individuals who are drawn into the public events. It is impossible to take the French Revolution
as the theme of the novel. Despite all its melodramatic, injustice, barbaric and historical scenes
of the Revolution, we can, unhesitatingly, state that A TALE OF TWO CITIES is a genuine and
realistic tragedy. A true tragedy in literature depicts suffering and misfortune and shows human
beings struggling against the whirlpools of life. Pathos is the chief emotional effect of a tragedy,
but not pathos alone because pathos alone means sentimentality. In a tragedy, the feeling of
pathos is essentially noble and capable of rising to great heights. A true tragedy produces an
exhilarating effect upon the reader by showing the lofty and heroic side of human nature while
also taking cognizance of the mean, evil and wicked manifestations of human nature. Pity and
Fear are the two dominant emotions aroused by a tragedy, but a true tragedy must effect a
catharsis of these and kindred emotions. Though a novel written with a great deal of objectivity
and detachment is yet one having a great personal and autobiographical significance. It was
written at the time when Dickens was passing through a great crisis and a mental struggle in his
life. The crisis and the mental struggle are reflected in the troubled lives of the characters. The
revolution in Dickens’ own mind shows him struggling with himself not only as a man but also as
an artist in order to evolve a new method and technique of expression. So far his life as a man is
concerned, three of the main characters, namely Charles Darnay, Sydney Carton and Lucie
Manette become projections of Dickens himself. At the time this novel was written, Dickens
wanted an escape from the torments of his personal struggle and this novel helped him.

Limitations of A TALE OF TWO CITIES as a historical novel: A TALE OF TWO CITIES does have
obvious limitations as a historical novel. It attempts no really panoramic view of either the
English or The French political world of those critical years (1775-1793). Barnaby Rudge was
even more comprehensive in nature as a historical novel. In A TALE OF TWO CITIES, CHARLES
DICKENS depicts the beginnings of popular discontent in France; the rising dissatisfaction of the
people, the turmoil caused by public fury, and the excesses and barbarities committed by the
revolutionaries during the years of the FR. CHARLES DICKENS gives us no connected account of
the FR, its progress, and its culmination. He gives us brief and shattered accounts of some of the
principal episodes. He doesn’t give us systematic analysis of the causes of the FR, but he
manages to convey to us all the horrors of the FR. Similarly, he takes no notice of the historical
personalities and their contribution such as Mirabeau and Napoleon. Nor did he attempt to do
what Tolstoy might have attempted. Dickens’s main concern so far as FR is concerned, was to
show that extreme injustice leas to violence and violence then leads to in human cruelty as
shown by the Reign of Terror in France. In the first part, Dickens’s sympathizes with the poor and
downtrodden, but at the end these people become the villains who therefore repel him.

Historical scenes in A TALE OF TWO CITIES: Dickens’s first reference to the outward causes of the
FR comes in the chapter, “The Wine-Shop” in which he uses the symbol of the mill to convey the
grinding poverty though which the people of Saint Antoine are passing. Other chapters such as,
“Monseigneur in town”, “Monseigneur in the country” and “The Gordon’s Head” Monseigneur,
Marquis Evremonde symbolizes the entire privileged class and his assassination by Gaspard,
Gaspard’s hanging and the registration of the Evremonde family and of the spy, John Barsad are
the pointers in the same direction. One of the best-known episodes of the French Revolution is
then briefly described by Dickens in the Chapter; “Echoing Footsteps” That episode is the
storming of the Bastille Madame Defarge’s cutting off the head of the governor with her own
hands prepares us for the excess which will be committed by the revolutionaries. But the real
brutalities and excesses are described at the end when the prisoners in La Force are waiting to
be cut off, a frightening description of the weapons by the revolutionaries on the grindstone and
the awful working of the La Guillotine (The National Razor which shaved close). None of the
great historical leaders are mentioned, only the executioner Samson is mentioned. In the final
part of the novel, Dickens has followed Carlyle very closely. However, Dickens’s debt to Carlyle is
much greater than has been indicated above. Dickens’s accounts of trials, prison procedures, the
tumbrels and the guillotine have all come from Carlyle.

The interweaving of personal life with the FR: A TALE OF TWO CITIES essentially the story of a
group of private individuals, but this story has been told against the background of the French
Revolution which shook France in the years 1789-93. Dickens’s main achievement lies not only in
giving us graphic and stirring accounts in the manner of Carlyle, but also in interweaving the
personal lives of a group of private characters with the events of the FR. (a brief summary that
how the characters are slowly drawn into the FR. The real identity of Charles Darnay, wrongs
done to Dr. Manette by Evremonde family. Their sexual harassment of a girl and Dr. Manette’s
evidence so that he had to stay under prison. Why Madame Defarge is revengeful because she is
the sister of the girl raped by the Evremonde family. Etc. describe Darnay’s visit to France, the
arrest and acquittal of Darnay linked with the revolution, the death sentence against Darnay, the
substitution of Sydney Carton and conclusion of the whole incident.).

The Tragedy of Dr. Manette: This man was a promising young physician, leading a quiet and
peaceful life with his wife in the city of Paris. His life was blighted by the cruelty of the two
Evremonde brothers who took him to attend upon a young girl and her dying young brother.
Give his story of suffering…to the end…

Sufferings of Lucie and Darnay: Life is not very kind to Lucie and her husband either. Lucie lost
her mother when he was still a child. She had never seen her father who lay in the Bastille. She
falls in love with Darnay and marries him though she doesn’t leave her father. Describe their
sufferings. Lucie’s sufferings as a wife and daughter. Darnay’s trial at the Bailey and later
imprisonment at the Bastille and his rescue etc.

The Tragedy of Sydney Carton: Describe his profligate and depressed life. He himself says to
Lucie, “I am like one who died young.” He is a frustrated individual who sinks lower and lower in
life and who is without any hope of improvement. Describe his resurrection and sacrifice for
Darnay.

The Tragedy of People in General: The grim instance of Marquis’ running over a child, the
drinking of spilled wine. The storming of the Bastille, Defarge’s cutting the governor’s head, the
sharpening of the weapons, the carmagnole and the National Razor and all tragic incidences.
(Describe them in detail from the precious answers.)

Dickens’ own Tragedy: Finally, this novel also conveys indirectly and in a veiled manner the tragic
conflict that had been going on in Dickens’ own mind just before he wrote this novel. In 1855 he
separated from his wife because of his love for Ellen Ternan, an actress.

The Moral and the theory of revolution: Although Dickens doesn’t present any systematic theory
of revolution, he certainly reveals a well-defined attitude towards the revolution and seems to
have formed certain definite views about it. In writing this novel, he was he was very particular
about integrating the personal lives of his characters with wider pattern of history. It is the
principal scheme of the novel to show the individual fate mirroring the social order. The lives of
both Dr. Manette and Sydney Carton are parables of the revolution, of social regeneration
though suffering and sacrifice. (Describe suffering of Manette and sacrifice of Carton and
theme). According to one critic, there is no other piece of fiction in which the domestic life o a
few simple private people is in such a manner integrated and knitted with the outbreak of a
terrible public event, so that one seems to be a part of it. Although Dickens was obsessed with
the revolution and its massacre, but he was no revolutionist. It is true that certain Marxist critics
have treated A TALE OF TWO CITIES as the text of revolutionary intentions. A revolution,
according to Dickens, fills prisons, just as the just social order fills them. Madam Defarge is the
ultimate personification of the FR in A TALE OF TWO CITIES; and she is a person whose
uncontrolled desire for revenge has changed her into a monster or pure evil. The final struggle
between her and Miss. Pross is a contest between the forces of hatred and of love. It is love that
wins when Madam Defarge is self-destroyed thought the accidental shooting off her own pistol.
This incident shows that Dickens feels no sympathy for the revolutionaries of Madame Defarge
type. The actual fact is that Dickens regarded the revolution as a monster. The scenes painted in
A TALE OF TWO CITIES are a nightmare it is Dickens’s own nightmare. He teaches us that violence
leads to violence, that prison is the consequence of prison and that hatred is the reward of
hatred. If all French noble men had been as willing to give up their class privileges as Darnay and
if all French intellectuals had been so as keen to expose social abuses as Dr. Manette, there
might have been no revolution or at least no revolution of this intensity. His conclusion about
the French Revolution in the final chapter is as follows:

Crush humanity out of shape and once more, under similar hammers, and it will twist itself
into the same tortured forms. Sow the sameseed of rapacious license and oppression over
again and it will surely yield the same fruit according to its kind.

--------------------------

Sunday, December 19, 2010

Major Themes of the Novel "A Tale of Two Cities"

Resurrection and Renunciation: A TALE OF TWO CITIES is rich in meaning and significance
because it deals with several themes all of which have been skillfully coordinated and integrated
with another. Some of these themes are obvious and others are less obvious and need careful
examination. Dickens shows grand objectivity of historical events, but also shows personal
projection in the novel.

However, A TALE OF TWO CITIES is a highly impersonal work with multiplicity of themes.
Resurrection is indeed the central theme of A TALE OF TWO CITIES. Resurrection here takes a
variety of forms, and almost at every stage, we witness some manifestation of it. Resurrection
has, of course, a religious connotation and generally calls up the image of Jesus Christ rising from
his grave on the third day of his Crucifixion. But here resurrection requires a secular meaning. In
addition to its religious meaning. Related to this is the theme of renunciation. Dickens makes use
these twin themes in a very elaborate manner. Dickens derived both of these themes from
Wilkie Collin’s play, The Frozen Deep in the performances of which Dickens himself had taken
part as an actor.

The resurrection of Dr Manette: First Resurrection: The theme of resurrection is introduced at

the very beginning when Mr. Lorry, who is traveling by the mail-coach top Dover, sends a
message to Tellison’s Bank through the messenger, Jerry Cruncher. The words of Mr. Lorry‘s
message are “Recalled to Life”. (Give summary of Dr. Manette’s story) Mr. Lorry begins to feel
drowsy and it seems to him that he is going to Paris in order to dig out a dead man from the
grave where he had been long buried. When Lorry meets Dr. Manette, it is truly a resurrection or
rebirth after death for Dr. Manette. Second Resurrection: Normal life and living with his
daughter, starting his medical practice and his giving up the habit of shoe-making and the return
of sanity is his second resurrection.

Charles Darnay’s Resurrection: Give Darnay’s account of Old Bailey where Dr. Manette, Lucie and
Carton are present and Darnay is resurrected because of Sydney Carton from a serious crime of
treason against England. Darnay’s second resurrection: When he is caught in Paris and is
prisoned for fifteen months at La Force and is resurrected by the influence of Dr. Manette. (Give
account of case and the prevailing condition of Paris after the revolution). Darnay’s third
resurrection: which is the most important. Dr. Manette’s written paper discovered from his cell is
read out in the court and Darnay is sentenced to death, but his death is replaced by Sydney
Carton, a kind fellow. (Give an account his story at the prison). This is his third resurrection. This
time he has almost been taken out of his grave.

The Resurrection of Carton: Though Carton dies, but he achieves a resurrection in two senses:
Firstly, his death constitutes a spiritual resurrection for him. By this sacrificial death, Carton who
has been leading a life of profligacy, is morally regenerated. This moral regeneration or
redemption is a kind of resurrection for him. Secondly, when Carton conceives his bold plan to
save Darnay’s life, the words of the Christian Burial Service are echo in his ears, “I am the
Resurrection and the life, saith the Lord: he that believeth in me though he were dead yet shall
he live: and whosoever liveth and believeth in me shall never die.” Carton had heard these
words at the time of his father’s funeral, and these words now come to him as a promise that
the man who believes in Lord Jesus Christ never dies. These words echo in his ears when he is
actually going to be executed. Thus, Carton dies, feeling sure that he will find himself alive in
another world. Carton dies with the certainty of resurrection.

The Grotesque resurrection of Cly: There are comic and serious resurrections. Resurrection in
this novel assumes some comic and grotesque forms also. Roger Cly, a spy, is believed to have
died and been buried in the graveyard of Saint Pancras’s Church, but later we find him alive in
Paris at his old occupation of spying. So a man who was thought to be dead, came to life is also a
kind of comic resurrection. His normal funeral ceremonies were performed and he was buried to
avoid the wrath of certain person who had become hostile to him in London.

The comic resurrection of Solomon (Barsad): Another comic example of resurrection is Barsad –
Miss Pross’ brother whom she had almost given up as dead, but he appears in Paris. Miss Pross
unexpectedly sees him and is astonished, though he feels greatly embarrassed to be recognized
by her.

Jerry Cruncher – A Resurrection Man: Another example of the grotesque type of resurrection is
to be found in the nefarious business which Jerry Cruncher is pursuing in order to supplement
his income. He and his associates dig out newly-buried coffins from their graves and take out the
dead bodies in order to sell them to a surgeon for medical purposes. Young Jerry has espied his
father at this kind of work and he too aspires to become “A resurrection man.”

Resurrection in the sense of Political and Social regeneration: Finally, resurrection, for the
purpose of this novel, may also be taken to mean political and social regeneration. The French
People having been oppressed and exploited for centuries have been clamoring for a new
political and social order without any success. Ultimately they rise in revolt against the
established authority and try to being about sweeping reforms. Of course, their action involves
unheard-of-criminal acts. The moral of the French Revolution, according to Dickens is that the
upper classes everywhere should take a warning from what happened in France and should
mend their ways in order to see that the poor are contented and happy.

Renunciation as a theme: The other theme, less prominent but more valuable, is renunciation. It
is through a renunciation of his claim to the family estate and the family title that Charles Darnay
attains a heroic stature in our eyes. When Charles Darnay was still a child, his mother had
imposed a duty on him and he had bravely promised to keep faith with her. On growing up, he
decides to give up his claim to the family inheritance because he realizes that the family to which
he belongs had done many wrongs to the poor people. To him the family inheritance signifies, “a
crumbling tower of waste”. This act of his shows his generous heart, a spirit of self-sacrifice
indicative of his humanitarian instincts.

Social injustice, violence, bloodshed and imprisonment as themes of the novel: Among the
various themes of this novel is the social injustice. This theme is related of course, to the French
Revolution which was largely a result of those oppressive classes. The first glimpse of social
injustice is given in the chapter called the Wine-Shop. When the wine from the broken cask is
spilled on the ground symbolize bloodshed in the streets of Paris and the hunger and poverty of
the people who rush to drink it. The incident of the child being run over by Marquis’s carriage.
He scolds the people for not caring about their children and spins a coin for the bereaved father
as if for the compensation of the death of the child. The most shocking example of social
injustice is the prolonged imprisonment of Dr. Manette has recorded the circumstances under
which he was made a prisoner is hair-raising. A TALE OF TWO CITIES is deeply colored by
Dickens’ early experiences in life and by what was happening to his emotional life when he
started writing this novel. Early in his life, he had been a miserable witness to the imprisonment
of his father which had left an unforgettable impression upon his mind. Prison and Imprisonment
are two themes always present in various novels of Charles Dickens. Almost every body in A TALE
OF TWO CITIES is in prison.

Doubling as a theme: The two lovers of Lucie seem to symbolize the duality in Dickens’s own
heart. Darnay and Carton who physically resemble each other were self-projections by Dickens.
These two men represent the two different sides of Dickens’s literary personality. Darnay
represents the light, sunny and optimistic aspect of Dickens’ personality who goes to France to
help Gabelle without releasing the dangers he will face there. And Carton, on the other hand,
represents the dark aspect of Dickens who loves Lucie but denies her by describing her as “a
golden-haired doll” and he fails to claim her. Dickens’ own optimistic mood is reflected in the
novel. Doubling is also a theme in the sense that every thing in the novel is double. Double
appearances, madness and sanity recurrences, the double arrest of Darnay, his double
resurrection and Darnay’s and Carton’s love for Lucie is also a triangle. Doubling is a technique of
symbolism in the fantasizing of reality, reappears throughout the book. The most obvious
example is physical resemblance of Darnay and Carton. These two personalities represent two
different worlds the social and collective on the one hand and the individual and subjective on
the other. Madame Defarge is an instructive example of Dickens’ attempt throughout this novel
to identity fantasy with reality, as in his own life. This is Dickens’ most personal novel in one way
and the most impersonal in the other.

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Sunday, September 19, 2010

Discuss the symbolic treatment of La Guillotine by Dickens in A Tale of Two Cities to convey the
violence and bloodshed of the French Revolution. (P.U 2004) OR Symbolism lends additional
meanings to those which are apparent on the surface. Discuss with special reference to A Tale Of
Two Cities. (P.U 2005)

Symbolism is an important literary tool used by novelists and poets. A symbol is a sign or a
representation standing for something else by association. It embodies an idea or object and it
signifies something deeper While some symbols are peculiar to a particular novelist, others are
universal as they mean the same everywhere. Whatever the type of symbol used, a symbol
signifies a deeper meaning and it conveys what an entire poem or novel cannot do. As an
expression of an artist's vision, philosophy and ideas, it becomes an embodiment of his passions
and foreboding, his feelings and desires.

Meaningful Symbols

A Tale of Two Cities, is a symbolic novel with great depth and significance. The symbols are used
abundantly and they are not at all superflous as they add depth and meaning to the novel.
Dickens' symbols are a part of his plot and they do not stand out. They dominate the whole
novel and suggest a deeper significance to ordinary things. They are suggestive of much more
than what is apparent. The title itself is as meaningful and symbolic as the two cities which are
juxtaposed by means of symbols and images.

Since A Tale of Two Cities is a narration of private lives against the background of the Revolution,
Dickens makes use of various symbols -personal and conventional - to heighten the horror of the
Revolution and to express his vision of Life through symbols. Inanimate objects, characters and
ideas are used as symbols and images to expound his ideas in an imaginative way.

The Woodman and the Farmer

From the first chapter onwards, we come across symbols which signify a deeper meaning. The
woodman and farmer working side by side, silently and quietly, symbolise Fate and Death
respectively. They are not mere workers but embody the idea that Fate and Death, symbolised
by the Farmer and the Woodman, are quietly working together in France to bring about death
and bloodshed. Together the chopper and tiller are going to change the destinies of those
around them. They are going to sow the seeds of bloodshed and death (Revolution) and finally
bring about death (chop heads)

Symbolic Journey

Chapter two plunges us into a symbolic journey on the mail coach for Dover. The uphill and
labourious journey is symbolic of difficult times in France and England. The mutinous horses
signify that a change is impending — rebellion is around the corner. The mail, its horses and
occupants are suspicious - apprehensive, thus creating an aura of darkness and death we get a
feel of things to come-the Revolution with its bloodshed and butchery.

Images of Ghosts

The ominous and mysterious note continues in the following chapter as Jarvis Lorry visualizes
meeting a ghost, he has dug out of the grave. This image of ghost creates an atmosphere of
mystery about this ghost, who has been "Recalled to Life." It also prepares us for the theme of
Resurrection which dominates the novel. This symbolic expression of ghosts occurs again and
again. This is what oppression does to people - years of stay in the Bastille makes Dr. Manette
appear ghost-like; it is as if he has been dug from the grave. Later, when Charles is imprisoned in
France, he feels that the other prisoners have been humbled so much that they appear to be
ghosts of their former self. The revolutionaries have degraded the aristocrats to such an extent
that they too appear ghostly. It is as if there is death all around. Images of ghosts symbolise
death.

Wine

The novel is replete with vareity of images and symbols in practically every chapter. Another
recurrent symbol is that of wine and the wine shop. In the chapter, "The Wine Shop," a cask of
wine spills on the street and this red coloured wine stains the streets. When the hungry and
thirsty people on the streets rush to drink the wine, their feel, hands and mouth get stained. The
image of wine symbolises bloodshed on the streets of Paris. There is a foreboding that the
people will be party to this bloodshed and massacre. Thus, the spilling of wine stands for blood
and bloodshed i.e. the French Revolution. The wineshop too is mentioned again and again as its
owner is the leader of the Revolutionaries. The wineshop, thus, becomes symbolic of the
Revolution.

Blood

Thus, wine and blood are abundant!}' used as symbols of the Revolution. The colour red, loo is
used freely in this context. Gaspard writes the word "Blood" on the wall. The Marquis watches
the blood-red sun setting in the horizon. His burning chateau looks red as blood - Gaspard's child
is over run by the Marquis and there is blood all around. The revolutionaries sharpen their
weapons to shed blood. The recurrent use of blood as a symbol of the Revolutions heightens the
nightmarish quality of the Revolution and makes us realise that though Revolutions are born out
of oppression and suffering, the result is bloodshed. The aristocrats suck the blood of the poor
and the poor lust for the blood of the aristocrats once they revolt. The result is a blood-bath.

The Grindstone

Another symbol of the Revolution is the grindstone. Though it is originally used to crush wheat,
it symbolises the crushing of humanity. Poor labourers and children are made dull and lifeless by
this crushing machine. Though it grinds wheat, multitudes are left hungry. However, during the
Revolution, it is used to sharpen weapons which are used to kill the aristocrats and other
enemies. Thus, it becomes a symbol of torture, cruelty, destruction and bloodshed.

La Guillotine

Equally symbolic of cruelty and bloodshed is La Guillotine or the National Razor which is used for
beheading the condemned. The graphic description of La Guillotine heightens the horror of the
Revolution and becomes symbolic of cruel fate and violent death. It symbolises the degeneration
of the human race as it replaces the cross. It signifies a new brutal world full of excessive
violence and bloodshed. The guillotine mercilessly and brutally exterminates the aristocrats
whose tyranny was symbolised by the Bastille.

The Bastille

The Bastille too is used as a symbol of tyranny during the Reign of Terror. It is linked to the
images of blood and the Revolution and it houses those who have annoyed the aristocrats. Dr.
Manette was imprisoned in the Bastille for eighteen years for being a champion of the poor
peasant girl. Therefore, it is a symbol of tyranny in the eyes of the revolutionaries. The cruel and
callous Governor, who watched the prisoners shut in solitary cells for years, is slaughtered to
death by Madame Defarge after the Fall of the Bastille.

The Fall of the Bastille symbolises the fall of the aristocracy and an end to the oppression of the
masses by the tyrannical aristocrats who uphold cruelty, unfairness and exploitation. The Bastille
is symbolically meaningful as major events connected with Doctor Manette take place here.

The Carmagnole

Another symbols related to the Revolution is the Carmagnole, the song-dance of the
revolutionaries. The dance gnash their teeth in unison and this symbolises common ideals of
violence and death. This gruesome dance has a nightmarish quality about it as the
revolutionaries express their ubilation in this dance. This frenzied dance highlights the horror of
the bloodthirsty mood of the revolutionaries. It is worse than a battle as it symbolises violence.

Knitting

The violent, vengeful and bloody mood of the revolutionaries is further depicted through the
symbol of knitting. Madame Defarge is forever knitting the names of the enemies of the
Revolution. Knitting acquires a sinister and ominous note as it embodies the ruthlessness,
revenge and cruelty of the revolutionaries. There seems to be no end to her stony-faced and
incessant knitting. It gives a presentiment of disaster - as if nothing can stop the revolutionaries.
Knitting thus, symbolises cruel fate, death and violence.

Echoing Footsteps

Thus, the Revolution is symbolized by images of blood, knitting, La Guillotine etc. It is so

widespread that the echoing footsteps of the Revolution are heard in England by Lucie. She
hears echoing footsteps and feels scared about the future. Sydney Carton also comments that a
great crowd will come into their lives. The footsteps of the revolution finally enter. Lucie's life like
a tempest and the stampede makes them all suffer. Thus, the echoing footsteps are symbolic of
the frenzied and violent Revolution.
Images of Stone

Dickens portrays the meaninglessness of the monstrous and nightmarish Revolution. Not only
through the symbols of blood and violence, but also by means of images of stone. Marquis
Evremonde's chateau is made of stone "as if the Gorgon's head had surveyed it, when it was
finished two centuries ago." The Gorgon, a monster of Greek mythology was such that all who
looked at it turned into stone. The stone chateau is like the Gorgon's head as it made Evremonde
stone-hearted and indifferent. He has no compunctions about exploiting his tenants and he
resembles the stone faces on the chateau. After his death, it is as if another stone face has been
added to the chateau. Later, the revolutionaries too become stone-hearted and callous.

Water and Fire

Besides using images of stone, Dickens also uses water and fire as symbols. Water symbolises
time and life. Dickens writes : "The water of the fountain ran, the swift river ran, the day ran into
evening, so much life in the city only ran into death according to rule", the water ran in the city
and village, both. Later, again the sea is used metaphorically. After the Fall of the Bastille, "The
Sea Still Rises." The sea is symbolic of the Revolution which rises higher as it looks for fresh
victims. The rising of the sea is followed by "The Fire Rises". This symbolises the fire and passions
of the revolutionaries as they ignite the chateau.

Characters as Symbols

Dickens also uses characters as symbols. His characterisation ranges from the road mender to
the Marquis, from figures who symbolise a class to private individuals like the Manettes who are
compelled to be a part of history and public events.

Names of Characters

First and foremost, the names of characters have been used symbolically While Lucie means
luminous, Evremonde means every man and Manette may be construed phonetically originated
from the word 'man'. Ironicalli he has beer, reduced to a number. Stryver is called a lion because
of his ego and greed. He takes credit for his success which is due to Sydney. Sydne; is called a
jackal as he is clever and intelligent. He is like a jackal that has the leftovers of the lion.

Abstract Qualities

Besides names, the characters are symbolic of specific characteristics and abstract qualities.
Lucie gives light and love to everyone around her and she symbolises compassion and
sweetness; Charles embodies patience and fortitude; while Jarvis Lorry symbolises selfless
service and humanity Stryver stands for selfishness and ego; Monseigneur symbolises decayed
aristocracy and Marquis d' Evremonde is a symbol of inhumanity and cruelty; while Miss Pross
embodies love and affection, Madame Defarge is a symbol of hatred, evil and vengeance. Her
encounter with Miss Pross is symbolic of the triumph of love over hatred, good over evil.
Sydney as a Symbol of Sacrifice

Sydney, too is a symbol of love and sacrifice. He dies for Charles and humanity. In doing so he is
resurrected and he resurrects others. His prophetic vision of the future, in the end, is symbolic of
love triumphing over hatred, of France seeing an end to suffering and bloodshed, of rising out of
the abyss to see better days. His death embodies the idea that the solution lies in moral
regeneration, warmth and love.

Resurrection as a Symbol

Thus, Resurrection becomes a major theme and symbol. Sydney says, "I am the Resurrection. I
am the Life". He resurrects Charles twice; Dr. Manette, too is resurrected mentally by Luice's
love; Sydney, is resurrected spiritually by Lucie's compassion. Jerry Cruncher, too, is resurrected
at the end. The novel is replete with images of Resurrection.

But what stands out at the end is Sydney's sacrifice. He becomes a symbol of love. Through him
it becomes a story of rebirth. His death inspires man to be morally regenerated. He embodies
rebirth through love and expiation.

Characters are Parables of the Revolution

Thus, A Tale of Two Cities is a symbolic novel with symbolism integrated into the structure of the
novel. It has a variety of symbols and images, all of which highlight Dickens' message. By
focussing on the meaningless horrors of the Revolution and the private lives of his characters, he
expresses view that public and private distances are so deeply interlinked that man is a part of
history and there is no escape.

In fact, the lives of Dr. Manette and Sydney mirror the social order and they are mirrored by it.
Their lives are parables of the Revolution, social regeneration, suffering and sacrifice. The
Doctor's release symbolises the start of a new order, released from its suffering and finding its
identity in a new and just world.

Conclusion

To sum Up, Dickens has used symbols artistically and significantly in A Tale of Two Cities. The
symbols are a part of the plot and they are so well integrated with the theme of Revolution,
resurrection and love that they make the novel rich in meaning, significant and dramatic.

--------------------------------

Sunday, December 19, 2010

Individualized portrayal of characters in A TALE OF TWO CITIES

A diversity of characters: Dickens is one of the greatest creators of characters in English fiction. A
mere glance of at the list of persons who figure in any of his novels is enough to remind us of the
author’s amazing fertility in invention. He has portrayed a whole variety of characters such as
David Copperfield, Pip, Trotwood and Sam Weller. There is no dearth of real and unique
characters in his works.

Dialogue vs. Incident: A TALE OF TWO CITIES affords ample evidence of Dickens’ capacity for
character –portrayal. The range of characters in A TALE OF TWO CITIES is wide and has deep and
penetrating studies. Some of the figures like Monsieur Defarge and Madame Defarge are
memorable. Dickens purpose in the case of this novel was to allow the characters to reveal
themselves through incidents and through their deeds and actions rather than through
dialogues, but it is wrong to assume that he ignores dialogues. They are as important as the
actions. John Forster, his friend and biographer says, “To rely less upon character than upon
incident and to resolve that his actors should be expressed by the story more than they should
express themselves by dialogue, was for him a hazardous and can hardly be called an entirely
successful experiment.”

The characters are sharply individualized: The characters of A TALE OF TWO CITIES have been
sharply been individualized. Each character is a distinct person in his or her own right. (Describe
their individual qualities to distinguish them.)

The Character of Dr. Manette: discuss his role in the novel/ his habit of shoe-making and
condition of inaction/ his performance at the end of the novel/ his salient qualities/ his insanity/
father-daughter relationship etc./ his responsibility at the attendance of a sick girl and boy
wronged by the Evremonde family/ His prison.

Charles Darnay: Charles Darnay too reveals the essential traits of his character through dialogue.
Of course, one of his basic traits appears through action also. His help to Gabelle/ his
renunciation/ his love with Lucie/ his sincerity: He says to Dr. Manette:

“Dear Dr. Manette, I love your daughter fondly, dearly, disinterestedly devotedly. If ever there
were love in the world, I love her.”

So we can say that dialogue and incident play an important part in the novel.

Sydney Carton: We then come to Sydney whose action is giving up his life for the sake of the
husband of the woman whom he loves is great importance. Carton’s character appears before us
only through dialogues. He has a conversation with Darnay immediately after his acquittal at the
Old Bailey. Carton says that he cares for no body in the world and no body cares about him. He
looks into the mirror and says that he hates Darnay even though there is a physical resemblance
between the two. A dialogue between Carton and Stryver reveals that the former is a “see-saw”
kind of man. Up one minute and down the next. He expresses his love for Lucie in a dialogue and
says that he is a profligate. Describe his aspects of personality from the above answers.
Mr. Lorry: The character of Mr. Lorry is also revealed to us through dialogue. In the beginning, he
has a long conversation with Lucie where he appears to be “a man of business” and describes
himself as such. He has a dialogue with Miss Pross about his concern for Dr. Manette. Towards to
end, he rebukes Jerry for his impious activities. Describe some of his aspects.

Miss Pross, Jerry Cruncher & Stryver: write from their humorous activities above.

The Defarges: write from above information.

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Sunday, September 19, 2010

In 'A TALE OF TWO CITIES' DICKENS heightens the underlying meaning of Novel through his
sophisticated use of humour. Discuss. (P.U 2008)

A Tale of Two Cities, though tragic and full of bloodshed, violence and hatred, has abundant
humour, comic elements, farce and satire. The humour, wit, satire, caricature and farce are an
integral part of his work and relieve us of the monotony of endless seriousness and bloodshed.

Dickens' use of new devices of humour was a contribution to English literature at that time.
Ungrammatical sentences uttered by the illiterate, fun in the contrariness of inanimate objects,
the absurdity of the apt, the humour of the professional and over-riding egoism are the
trademarks of his humour (S.D. Neil). In fact, though his humour is not intellectual, it creates
laughter as it arises from contrast and humour of character, situation and theme. All said and
done, humour is the soul of his work and mingled with pathos, it reflects his attitude to life.

Humour of Character

Dickens, the comic writer lives chiefly in his comic characters. His humour of character is
unsurpassed and we remember him more for his humorous characters than his stories. In fact he
points out social evils with satire and fun instead of being serious. His wit, farce, satire and irony
are not biting. He even treats the oddities of character, kindly.

In A Tale of Two Cities humour of character can be seen in abundance. Though Lucie, Charles,
Sydney and Dr. Manette command our respect, the other characters are all comical in some way
or the other.

Stryver

Stryver, the lawyer is an egoistic character who makes a fool of himself. He is shallow and has no
regard for Sydney to whom he owes his success. He is conceited like a lion but is vain and
hypocritical from within. He takes credit for Charles's acquittal though actually Sydney had been
responsible for it. His marriage proposal for Lucie is ridiculous as he is no match for the delicate
Lucie. He is so self-opinionated that he thinks that he is doing a favour to Lucie by considering
her as a marriage partner. According to K.J. Fielding, "his decision to honour Lucie with a
proposal is magnificently comic with a rightful place in the story." Stryver the lion and Carton the
jackal, create laughter. All this is possible in the hands of master of humour like Dickens.

Jerry Cruncher

Jerry Cruncher, too, is a comic figure. His spiked hair tickles us as much his humorous character
and humorous interpretation of his secret profession do.

Though he calls himself a "Resurrection man", he is irreligious and resurrects or digs dead bodies
to eke out an existence and to promote the cause of science.

His mannerisms in calling himself "an honest tradesman", his profession of being a body
snatcher, his habit of talking to himself and scolding his wife for "flopping, are a source of
comedy in the novel. He fears that his wife's prayers will prolong people's lives, and his
profession as a resurrection man, will suffer. The trait of malapropism is conspicuous in his
dialogue that induce our laughter. For example, he calls a year "Anna Dominoes" instead of
"Anna Domini". His belief that "Dominoes" is a popular game in England which was introduced
by a sport-loving English woman Anna, creates humour and provides comic relief.

However, his presence, besides providing relief, is important for the plot In the course of his
"resurrection business, " he digs up the coffin of Roger Cly and finds the coffin empty as Cly had
faked death to escape the wrath of his enemies. Later, he escape to France and became a
revolutionary spy. This information helps Sydney in blackmailing Barsad into allowing him to
enter Charles' cell in prison and allowing him to die instead of him. So though a comic figure, he
is important for the plot.

Miss Pross

Miss Pross, too is also a comic character who is good at heart. She is described as a wild looking
woman, wifh red hair, covered with a bonnet like a Grenadier's wooden measure. She lays a
brawny hand upon Mr. Lorry's chest and makes him fall. After this she fusses over Lucie and calls
her "my bird".

Her exaggerated remarks about dozens of suitors who come to visit Lucie, create laughter. Her
confrontation with Madame Defarge is comical as well as dramatic and serious. When she tells
her "I'll not leave a handful of that dark hair upon your head, if you lay a finger on me", the
tussle between the two assumes comic proportions. Though a comic character, she is a symbol
of love triumphing over hatred. She also plays an important role in bringing about the death of
Madame Defarge.

Dickens sums up that the peculiar quality in "her character dissociated from stature was
shortness."
Jarvis Lorry

Even Jarvis Lorry, 'a man of business' is comical. He keeps on telling Lucie that he is a man of
business and this heightens the comic effect at times.

Grotesque Character

On the other hand, two characters who are comical in a grotesque manner are the mender of
roads and Madame Defarge. When he shouts "God save the king, God save the King", he is funny
because as a revolutionary he is supposed to hate the aristocrats, and not cheer them for a long
life.

Later, again when he compares his wood-cutting activities to Solomon, the guillotine-master, he
appears grotesquely funny and humorous. Equally grotesque is Madame Defarge who
continuously knits the names of the doomed, inveterately.

Thus, it can be seen that Dickens' humour is sympathetic and satirical. While sympathetically
portrayed characters make us laugh with sympathy, the grotesque and evil characters are
portrayed satirically. His sympathetically delineated characters like Micawbers, Pickwicks and
Miss Pross are simpletons and arouse our feelings.

Caricatures

Dickens also evokes laughter by exaggerating the manners and oddities of his characters. His
caricatures arouse laughter. Jerry Cruncher's spiky hair, Miss Press's red complexion and red hair
and the mender of roads' funny gestures are all sparkle of Dickens's humour. His remarks about
Tellson's Bank also create humour. The partners were "proud of its smallness, proud of its
darkness, proud of of its ugliness, proud of its incommodiousness".

Humorous Situations

Besides humour of character, he creates humorous situations or scenes or themes. For Dickens,
funerals and journeys are a source of comedy. Roger Civ's fake funeral procession is vividly
described to arouse laughter.

Pathos and Humour

Thus, we see that Dickens, the master of humour is comparable to Shakespeare. His humour is
mingled with pathos, and this shows his realistic approach towards life. Life too is full of laughter
and tears. However, he does try to wring an extra tear by giving vivid details. He does not let the
situation speak for itself. For example, when Gaspard's child dies he overstates and exaggerates
and does not let the situation speak for itself.

Conclusion
However, all said and done, his humour is commendable. He highlights evils and monstrosities in
a humorous vein. His humour is present in his characters, phrases, descriptions, situations and
contrasts while Miss Press's eccentricities are a foil to Lucie's gentleness, Cruncher's spiked hair
and ridiculous clothes provide a comic contrast to the conservative Jarvis Lorry. The moody,
morose Carton is a contrast to boastful, egoistic Stryver whose attitude often becomes out of the
way and ludicrous.

John Forster complained that the novel has little humour. In comparison to his other novels, A
Tale of Two Cities stands out for the grimness and gravity of the theme where the plot is
focussed and characters are not abundant. Within this compact structure, which is absent in
Dickens's other significant novels, we get few sparkles of the writer's treatment of humour which
are brilliant, vivid and ludicrous with a tinge of irony.

-----------------------------------------

Sunday, September 19, 2010

A tale of two cities is Dickens’s most impersonal novel, especially because of the grand
objectivity of historical events with which it deals. Discuss. (P.U 2006)

Dickens, as a novelist, stands out for drawing attention to social evils, his humanism, his
philosophic vision of life, his belief in the goodness of man, his characters and his use of humour,
pathos and imagination. A Tale of Two Cities is a tale of two cities Paris and London and the
French Revolution against which the story of a few characters is narrated. He skilfully weaves
private lives and public events, fact and fiction, history and imagination.

Fantasy

His blend of reality and fantasy is a result of his creative imagination. Though he writes about the
Revolution, he has coloured the novel with fantasy. Though he focuses on the Revolution, its
causes and effects, his main emphasis is on the meaningless horrors of the Revolution as in the
context of the lives of a few private individuals. In doing so he makes use

of fantasy. '

Insanity

The element of fantasy is a result of his creative imagination. Insanity as a theme also enhances
this element. Dr. Manette looks insane after his release and his ghost-like appearance lends an
element of fantasy to the novel. He makes shoes to escape from his past. He gradually
overcomes his fits of madness due to the love bestowed on him by Lucie. However, when he
comes to know that Charles is an Evremonde, the past haunts him once again and he resorts to
shoe-making. The ghost-like man once again borders on insanity. Thus, the state of fantasy
becomes an important part of his character.

When Charles is imprisoned the other prisoners appear to be ghosts of their former selves. All
this is a part of fantasy having its root in psychic impulse.

Graphic Details

The basic details of the Revolution are interwoven with the effects of Revolution on individuals.
The graphic details of its horrific and nightmarish side, the fall of the Bastille and the Grindstone
etc., all make the novel a mixture of reality and fantasy. However, to Dickens the Revolution is a
lurid story of violence, vengeance and malevolence. He has drawn vivid pictures of execution
and the La Guillotine. Insanity and frenzy is seen all round as corpses rot and the tumbrils move
to and fro. The revolutionaries are waiting to devour the aristocrats who in their turn are waiting
to be guillotined.

Doubling

"Doubling" plays a major role in the novel as a part of fantasy or something which appears bit
improbable to our natural senses. Dr. Manette is imprisoned and he loses his sanity. He is then
restored to normal life by his daughter but this insanity recurse with the unveiling of Charles's
actual identity. It is the doubling of his madness. Darnay is re-arrested. Now Dr. Manette is the
accuser who was once victim. Sydney Carton resembles Charles Darnay in his appearance. All
these have been criticized as improbable or forced but they do contribute to the fast-paced
action of the plot.

A Story of Suffering

Against this view of the revolution, Dickens has given another picture that is imaginative. Dr
Manette is a symbol of suffering whose past haunts him throughout. Lucie is sweet loving and
compassionate towards all. Charles disowns his legacy to expiate for the sins, of his ancestors.
Sydney Carton, the profligate who cares for no one becomes a symbol of self-sacrifice, love,
humanity and resurrection.

Thus, the Revolution incorporates personal incidents with history. As a result the larger
dimensions of history are ignored. Dickens is not a historian, but a novelist. As an artist, he
successfully blends reality and fantasy.

--------------------------------------------

Bring out the Autobiographical elements in Dickens's A Tales of Two Cities

Deepak Choudhary August 03, 2017 A Tales of Two Cities

Autobiographical elements in Dickens's A Tales of Two Cities

Whether its 'David Copperfield', 'Great Expectations' or 'Oliver Twist', the novels of Dickens
reverberates with autobiographical elements. But these autobiographical elements are so latent
that they do not hamper the fictional progression of the novel. It does not means that the
subjectivity of the novel mars its objectivity. It has been pointed out that A Tale of Two Cities
contains an embodiment of Dickens' passions, and forebodings and the revolution which engulfs
the characters symbolizes the author's own psychological revolution both as man and artist.

A Tale of Two Cities is not strictly an autobiographical novel but has some elements it. There are
two types of autobiographical novels- the 'novel of formation' or artist novel and the 'novel of
education'. They deal with the development of the protagonist's mind and characters at all stage
of life. However, A Tale of Two Cities does not fall in either those categories. The novel presents
many of Dickens's personal views, likes sympathies and antipathies. Dickens was unhappy with
his wife Catherine, the mother of his many children. Born into the middle class Victorian society
Dickens was was not able to excuse any freedom out of marriage. It is a known fact that dickens
loved his lovely sister in law who died at a young age more then he loved his own his wife.

According to Victorian conventions dickens endured his marriage and later forsook it after a
prologed period of domestic catastrophe. In his later life dickens fell passionately in love with
another girl name Ellen. Dickens's participation in Collins's play led not only to a shift in his
personal life, but also to a career development, for it was this play that was inspired him to write
A Tale of Two Cities. In the play, Dickens played the part of a man who sacrifice his own life so
that his Rival may have the women they both love; the love triangle in the play become the basic
for the complex relations between Charles Darnay, Louis Manette and Sydney Carton in A Tale of
Two Cities. Moreover, dickens appreciated the play for its treatment of redemption and rebirth,
love and violence. He decide to transpose these onto the French Revolution, an events that
embodied the same issues on a historical level. In order to make his Novel historically accurate
Dickens turned to Thomas Carlyle's account of the revolution.
Dickens also found great difficulty in finding a suitable title to his Novel. His first choice was 'One
of these Days'. Later he thought of naming his work 'Buried Alive' and then he finally thought of
'A Tale of Two Cities'.

Dickens draws vivid pictures of imprisonment and sufferings. The images are drawn from the
vivid image of imprisonment Dickens had seen as a child. Through the long period of
imprisonment of Dr. Manette, Dickens had revived the suffering oh his own father. He tells us the
18 long years of prison spend by Dr. Manette, Darnay spends 15 months in jail. He also describes
real prisons like New gate Prison, Town in London, Bastille, La force etc.

Dickens wrote the novel at a point in his life when his life was in turmoil.The personal revolution
and fears felt by Dickens are highlighted through Lucie's vague fears- her fear of seeing the ghost
of her father, assassination, the dreadful episodes of French Revolution, the storming of the
Bastille etc. The characters of the novel are both personal and public.There is balance in the
characterization when the character do not become too personal or too public. 'A Tale of Two
Cities' mirrors the crisis and the revolution of novelist's personal life. From this point of views it
would not be wrong to term the novel as a fictionalized autobiographical of Charles Dickens

------------------------------

Resurrection in A Tale of Two Cities

During a time of lost hope, death and war, the `golden thread', Lucie Manette plays the roll of a
heroine doing everything she can to make sure the important people in her life are loved. Lucie
provides not only warmth toward her father, Dr. Manette, but also towards the man that yearns
for Lucie's love; Sydney Carton. Despite all the negativity that surrounds Lucie and her loved
ones, she doesn't fail to lead her father and Carton to rebirth.

Unlike the process of actual birth, rebirth is associated with rejuvenation. Rebirth is a second or
new birth and in the case of A Tale of Two Cities it is deserved. Rebirth is portrayed as nothing
close to the literal meaning of birth at all. Charles Dickens makes it obvious that Dr. Manette and
Carton both deserve a second chance by showing that they both really are good people. In
chapter 19, Dr. Manette earns rebirth by gaining the strength to mentally and literally walk away
from the negative attitude that is associated with his shoemaking bench and his past times.
Carton shows that he deserves rebirth in chapter 13 by proving that he is a good and caring
person when he tells Lucie that even though he craves her love, all he wants is for her to be
happy.

After Dr. Manette's imprisonment in the Bastille for 18 years, the only thing he willingly says is
`105 north tower` and is seemingly hypnotized by his shoemaking bench. This is where Dickens
lets the reader know that Dr. Manette's imprisonment drives him insane. When Dr. Manette is
rescued by Defarge and brought to his `long lost' daughter, rebirth does not take place
immediately, as the doctor continues to repeat things to himself. In chapter 5, Lucie is portrayed
as a caring character simply by the description given of her, as well as others reactions to her.
"...His eyes rested on a short, slight, pretty figure, a quantity of golden hair [and] a pair of blue
eyes that met his own." From simply the description given of Lucie, she can be recognized as a
caring person. Lorry's reaction to Lucie also strengthens Lucie's caring glow. "As his eyes rested
on these things, a sudden vivid likeness passed before him of a child whom he had held in his
arms..." As Dickens compares Lucie to a child, her innocence is proclaimed.

Although the rebirth of Dr. Manette does not take place immediately, Lucie shows her love for
her father from the beginning of his arrival. In chapter six of book the first while Lucie is greeting
her father for the first time in 18 years, she tells him that "the agony is over...I have come here to
take you from it..." This is where the rebirth starts because this is where Dickens lets the reader
know that Lucie is going to do all she can for her father and give him only love. After Dr.
Manette's return to England, its obvious that the doctor is slowly returning to sanity in chapter
five when Dr. Manette is able to make full conversation at Charles Darnay`s trial. In chapter
seven of book the third, the narrator updates us on Dr. Manette. "No garret, no shoemaking, no
One Hundred and Five, North Tower, now! He had accomplished the task he had set himself."
This is where Dickens lets us know that Dr. Manette's return to sanity has been completed. While
Lucie continues to care for her father, another man, Sydney Carton, makes it known that he as
well needs Lucie to cure him.

Just as Lucie did with her father, Lucie will try and do all she can to help her dear friend Carton.
In chapter 13 when Carton stops at the Manette's house, he has a conversation with Lucie in
which he tells her how he feels about himself. At the peak of this conversation, Lucie says "can I
not recall you...to a better course? Can I in no way repay your confidence?" This makes it known
that Lucie will be the one to give Carton a second chance. Lucie does in fact use her love and
sympathy to lead Carton to rebirth and Dickens later shows the effects Lucie has had on Carton.
"[Carton] was so unlike what he had ever shown himself to be, and it was so sad to think how
much he had thrown away..." This a totally new tone that is shown by Carton, whereas from the
start of the book to the introduction of Lucie and his conversation, he was described as a drunk
nobody that obviously thought nothing of himself. In chapter four of book the first Darnay
comments to Carton "I think you have been drinking, Mr. Carton." To this, Carton responds "
Think? You know I have been drinking. I am a disappointed drudge, sir. I care for no man on earth
and no man on earth cares for me." During chapter 13 where Lucie says to Carton "I entreated
you to believe again and again, most fervently, with all my heart, was capable of better things,
Mr. Carton!" Lucie has saved Carton by letting him know that she believed in him.

Both Dr. Manette and Sydney Carton have been saved by the impact of Lucie's unfailing care.
Lucie saves her father by simply caring for him and being a friend, and she also saves Sydney
Cartons life by believing in him and letting him know that he meant more than he thought. The
characters in A Tale of Two Cities obviously play predominant roles in each other's lives, and
resurrection, or rebirth is one of the main themes in this novel. Dickens uses the power of love
to oppose war that is surrounding all of France and England. Resurrection was a very clever
theme for Dickens to use because if the characters in A Tale of Two Cities couldn't be recalled
back to life, they would simply die off.

-------------------------------------------

A Tale of Two Cities: Impact of the French Revolution

A Tale of Two Cities, by Charles Dickens, is set during the French Revolution time period. A young
man named Charles Darnay moves to England with his wife to start a new life after rejecting the
harshness of his family, the Evrémonde. Darnay goes back to France after receiving a letter from
Gabelle, who got himself into legal issues and needed his help. Upon arriving he gets arrested for
the crimes his family committed. Darnay tries to explain that he was nothing like his family, but
the court still finds him guilty and sentences him to the guillotine for execution. Sydney Carton
then gives his life and dies for Darnay due to his love for Lucie Manette and his desire to finally
make his life worthwhile. In A Tale of Two Cities, Charles Dickens employs many characteristics of
the French Revolution into this literary work, depicting the impact the French Revolution had on
his life.

Charles Dickens displays his acrid (bitter) point of view on the aristocratic class during the French
Revolution through Charles Darnay as well as Marquis Evrémonde who are two key characters in
the plot of the novel. Darnay is an affiliate of the Evrémonde decent which is part of the French
elite. Darnay rejects the characteristics that his harsh family is known for, and he escapes to
London in order to start a new life and neglect the memories of the cruel acts that his ancestors
committed. The reader may first see this as a chivalrous act, but Dickens portrays Darnay's
character negatively since his behaviour is that of a coward because he flees to England instead
of getting up on his feet and fighting to stop the brutal treatment of the lower class peasants.
The Evrémonde, with the exception of Darnay, are all cruel and inhumane. Dickens depicts the
atrocities brought upon the common people of France by the aristocracy. He cleverly utilizes the
characters in A Tale of Two Cities, to formulate an extremely cynical view of the nobility as harsh
and barbaric, and the French people cannot rely on these nobles for their well-being. The harsh
portrayal of French aristocracy in A Tale of Two Cities directly correlates to the aristocrats during
the French Revolution. They took advantage of the poor and treated them unjustly, so it is clear
that Charles Dickens sympathizes with the peasants.

In contrast, Dickens almost entirely disregards the severe domination of the middle class during
the Reign of Terror, and he places the blame on blood-thirsty mobs calling for the Guillotine
instead. The characters of Dr. Manette, Sydney Carton, and Lucie Manette are the three most
important characters from the middle class, yet they are not involved in the Revolution and are
portrayed as positive characters. Dr. Manette is a man who had everything taken from him by
the aristocracy, yet he never wishes to exact revenge on their brutality until the mob essentially
forces him. Lucie Manette is the charming daughter of Dr. Manette who brings the best out of
every person around her. Sydney Carton is the hero of the tale who sacrifices himself for his rival
out of love for Lucie and the desire to make his life worthwhile. None of these characters
embody the clever and cold-blooded leadership that embodied the middle class during the
Revolution. This twist of historical facts could either be biased for or against the middle class by
Dickens depending on his point of view. Since the Industrial Revolution was occurring in England
during Dickens' time period, he may have put the middle class in good view due to amount of
respect paid to the middle class in Britain at the time he wrote the novel.

In A Tale of Two Cities, Monsieur and Madame Defarge represent the lower working class during
the French Revolution. Monsieur Defarge is a leader in the cause for revolution who once served
Dr. Manette. Madame is a vengeful and blood-thirsty revolutionary that keeps track in her
knitting the people that must die in the Revolution. It appears as though Dickens over
exaggerated the power of that working class has during the French Revolution. This
overstatement could come out of his personal feelings towards the working due to his childhood
experiences. Another possible bias when discussing the role of the lower class here is his bias
toward the peaceful transition toward a more democratic system like that of Britain. He could be
making the statement that if the change had come from the top, rather than from the bottom,
the more educated and less base members of society could have made the transition smoother
and altogether less violent. This interpretation further emphasizes Dickens' belief that the
changes were necessary, but that he ostracized the violence.

Also, the symbol of wine is used in A Tale of Two Cities to represent the blood of the French
Revolution. Moreover, the wine was spilled in the house of Monsieur Defarge, one of the head
revolutionary Jacques. Clearly, Dickens shows his readers that all citizens living under the
oppression of the French Government will one day be stained red with blood. Soon, all the
citizens nearby have come to drink the wine with an animalistic lust, and they even drink the
wine off of the ground. The citizens become beastly in the presence of wine, just like how they
will become beastly in the presence of blood during the French Revolution. The blood-like wine
further symbolizes the wide encompassment of people involved in the bloodshed of the
revolution. The wine is "red...and had stained the ground of the narrow street...where it was
spilled… it also stained many hands, too, and many faces". This shows readers that the beginning
of the bloodshed will be initiated by these common, oppressed people. It also creates imagery of
the blood, about to be shed during the French Revolution. The spill of the wine symbolizes the
inevitability of the revolution through both the intolerable suffering of the common people, as
well as the literal imagery of blood-stained people. Later, when the French Revolution does
begin at the Bastille, Dickens uses the same imagery of wine representing blood. As
revolutionaries gather at the Bastille, "women held wine to their mouths...and what with
dropping blood". Wine is a powerful, common image that represents both the extensive reach
and the beastly nature of the Revolution.

Charles Dickens incorporates many characteristics of the French Revolution into the novel, A Tale
of Two Cities. He uses symbolism as well as many clever instances of literary elements to depict
the impact the French Revolution had on his life and the people around him during his time
period. Charles Dickens displays the historical event through the characters by placing them in
different social classes and making them act accordingly to fit the major conflict between the
social classes during the French Revolution.

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A Tale of Two Cities: Sydney Carton from Zero to Hero

Charles Dickens extraordinaire (excellent) revolutionist novel A Tale of Two Cities portrays an
excellent character of Sydney Carton who develops dynamically throughout the novel. Carton
overshadows Charles Darnay who is the true lead character by being the actual centre of
attention within the plots. Dickens characterizes Carton as the pivotal figure in his novel, not
because of his heroic suicide at the end but merely because he embodies all the contrasting
elements of the novel. In total, there are three arguments which can be say about Carton which
are his character is personifies as Jackal by Dickens because of his personalities, have an
affection towards Lucie Manette and one who finally proven himself worthy after all.

At the beginning, Dickens describes Carton as a Jackal due to his negative personality that
overwhelm himself. Dickens has also portrays Carton as an alcoholic lawyer with no interest and
motivation within his life as well as everyone who is around him. Firstly, Carton is a lawyer that
does not really care about his owns obligation towards his duty. This can be seen during the trial
of Charles Darnay of who is accused for spying in England.

“Mr. Carton, who had long sat looking at the ceiling of the court, changed neither his place nor
his attitude, even with this excitement.”(Dickens 83)

Dickens describes that during the trial, Carton only take a few notes while the rest of the time,
he only stares at the ceiling and only speaks when is needed. Carton is a drunken lawyer who
takes no credit for his own works. Next, Carton faces a serious drinking issue who like no other
chooses alcohol to tranquil himself from his problems and stress. “Think? You know I’ve been
drinking.”(Dickens 71) Here, Carton confesses that he has a drinking issue that keep him from
concentrating for his work and socializing with those around him. “Then, bring me another pint
of the same wine, drawer, and come and wake me up at ten.” (71)

The relationship between Carton’s character with his moral values are deeply intervened by
Dickens when he writes masterpiece based on society ethic. Beside that, Carton is the one who
does not care about anyone around him. “I care for no man on Earth, and no man on Earth cares
me.”(Dickens 71) Substantially, Carton’s ignorance towards people around him brought an
external conflict between him and the other characters in the novel especially those who care of
him.

Despite his moral conflict that is within himself, the ‘forbidden’ love between him and Lucie
Manette change Carton over the course period of the novel by interfering with his attitude and
personality. Lucie possessing a charismatic charm mesmerizes (hypnotizes) Carton into changing
his attitude by saying “There is a great crowd coming one day into our lives, if that be
so.”(Dickens 86) Carton admires Lucie’s cleverness; he tells her how she makes him believe that,
despite his ruined past, he still has a shred of goodness deep within him. Slowly, Carton develops
the feeling of love towards her but is afraid to let it out. He knows that Lucie will be marrying
Darnay and his chances of proposing her will not be accepted and he did not want to get
dumped again by a woman. “I know very well that you can have no tenderness to me; I ask for
none; I am even thankful that it cannot be.”(Dickens 156) Here, Carton tells Lucie that due to his
weakness in his heart, he is contempt to express his feeling towards her.

Next, Carton promises Lucie that he will offer to help her whenever time comes. Due to his
feeling of rejected love, Carton decides that, to gain Lucie attention he will do anything for her in
whatever circumstances it will be. “Think now and then, that there is a man who would gives his
life, to keep a life you love besides you!.”(Dickens 129) Carton sacrifices himself at the end,
fulfilling what he had promised to Lucie; shows how great and deep Carton loves towards her.
Lucie did notice what he has done at the end and silently thanks him for the huge sacrifice.

At the end, Carton finally proves that his life on Earth is worthy after all in which Dickens
expresses it as the greatest sacrifice of all. He not only proves to him that he is useful but also
advertises that he really cares about those who are around him. When Carton heard that Darnay
is captured by the revolts in Paris and is about to be hanged at the guillotine, he quickly plans on
how to save Darnay and bring him back to England.

Finally, Carton sacrifices himself and is hanged at the guillotine by the revolts. “I see the lives for
which I lay down my life, peaceful, useful, prosperous and happy, in that England I shall see no
more.”(Dickens 320) Carton keeps on reminding him on a verse from the bible that a priest had
once said during his father funeral that is “I am the Resurrection and the life, saith the Lord: he
that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet he shall live: and whosoever liveth and believeth
in me shall never die.” He dies quietly without uttering any words other than praying within his
mind. His final quietude is to be accounted for in relation to Dickens aim to let Carton embodies
‘quiet heroism’.

To summarize, Sydney Carton begins his acts as an unmotivated lawyer, drunken and selfish
towards himself and those who are around him. However, as the plots develop, Carton starts to
change his attitude and personality after having a short date with Lucie Manette which
eventually changes his life forever. He now knows his own abilities and starting to realize how
useful he is in the world he lives. Dickens designs Carton to be a secretive hero that emerges out
from nothing to a great hero in French revolution history.

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A Tale of Two Cities” : Art of Characterization

Characterization is the creation and convincing representation of fictitious characters. A Tale of

Two Cities, written by Charles Dickens, has many different characters with interesting
personalities. Some of the characters in the novel all share one common fact that Dickens used
throughout the book. Charles Dickens based the characters of A Tale of Two Cities on himself
and his life.

Charles Dickens based the virtuous Charles Darnay as a version of himself. Dickens portrays
himself through Charles Darnay in the fact that Dickens and Darnay have the same initials.
Dickens might be portraying that Darnay and himself have so much in common, so Dickens gave
Darnay the same initials. Charles Dickens also presents Darnay’s relationship with Carton to
himself. Charles Darnay’s relationship with Sydney Carton could portray Dickens’ own problem
with his honorable and commonly negative side. Darnay’s relationship with Carton was strong,
as seen in the last book where Carton takes Darnay’s place on the guillotine to be killed. Dickens
might have done this to symbolize love Dickens had for another friend, just like Darnay had with
Carton.

As Dickens based himself on Darnay, Dickens might have also based Dr. Manette as a version of
himself. Charles Dickens might have portrayed himself through Dr. Manette We can trace
parallels between Manette’s career as a physician and his selflessness in reporting the abuses of
the nobility with Dickens’ career as a journalist and advocate for social improvement”. Dickens
might have done this through Manette to show what issues Dickens stood for. Dickens portrayed
himself through Dr. Manette in one more instance. We can see resemblance in Dickens’s
conception of alternative worlds in his books with Dr. Manette’s conception of a place where he
is only a cobbler. Dickens might have done this to basically resemble the two lives he has lived:
one as a child working in a factory, and two growing up and becoming a great author. Dickens
went through a lot in his “two lives”.
As Dickens portrayed himself through Dr. Manette, he will now portray Mr. Stryver on a lawyer
friend. Charles Dickens might have based Mr. Stryver on a lawyer Dickens knew. A Gale research
source says, “It has been surmised that Dickens based the character on an actual person, Edwin
James, a notoriously, unscrupulous lawyer…” Dickens might be portraying Mr. Stryver on this
lawyer to show the rudeness and lying nature lawyers sometimes possess. Dickens also might
have based Mr. Styver on one other characteristic. Charles Dickens based Mr. Stryver on a lawyer
who had a bad reputation; hence, Mr. Styver gets a bad reputation. Dickens might have chosen
Edwin James to portray Mr. Stryver to show that all lawyers have bad names. It is sad that even
lawyers back then had bad reputations. Dickens now portrays Dr. Manette in many different
ways.

Charles Dickens might have based Dr. Manette on his own father. Dickens’ father was not well
with finances, and in 1824, Dickens’ father was imprisoned for debt (Dickens: A Brief Biography”,
par 1). Dickens’ father was imprisoned probably for not paying what he owed to other people. In
the novel, the confounded Dr. Manette is also imprisoned. A Gale research source says,
“Imprisoned in the Bastille for his attempt to imprison the Marquis St. Evermonde’s treachery,
Manette was permanently altered from this experience”. Dr. Manette was also imprisoned, but
in a different way than Dickens’ father. Dickens might have portrayed his own father through Dr.
Manette and his own imprisonment. As Dickens might have based his father’s imprisonment
with Dr. Manette’s, Dickens might have also based the emotional and psychological problems
with imprisonment on this experience.

Charles Dickens might have based the emotional and psychological side of imprisonment with
his father’s and Dr. Manette’s imprisonment. When the finances of Charles Dickens’ family were
put to at least partly to rights, his father was released, the twelve-year-old Dickens, already
scarred psychologically by the experience, was further wounded by his mother’s insistence that
he continued to work at the factory. The young Charles Dickens was hurt emotionally and
psychologically because his father was in prison and he was forced to work in a factory with his
whole family. Dickens might have portrayed emotional and psychological sickness through Dr.
Manette and his experience with prison. Dr. Manette only identified himself as his jail cell
number. Dr. Manette is emotionally and psychologically hurt so bad, it has effected his
communication and social skills. Charles Dickens might have based his own emotional and
psychological problem through Dr. Manette. Charles Dickens might have also based another
event on imprisonment.

Charles Dickens might have based solitude and loneliness through work and imprisonment on
himself and Dr. Manette. David Cody writes, “His[Dicken’s father] wife and children, with the
exception of Charles, who was put to work at Warren’s Blacking Factory, joined him in the
Marshalsea Prison” . Charles Dickens must have felt solitude and loneliness when he was put to
work and all of his other family members were in jail. Dickens might have portrayed this event in
his life through Dr. Manette and his imprisonment. While Dr. Manette was in prison, all he did
was cobble, or shoemaking, which was all he learned to do in prison. Dr. Manette was so lonely
and in complete solitude, no wonder all he did was shoemaking. Dickens might have portrayed
his own case of solitude and loneliness with work through Dr. Manette’s case of solitude and
loneliness in prison. As Dickens based imprisonment on solitude and loneliness, he might have
also based Lucie rescuing her father on an event in Dickens life.

Dickens might have based Dr. Manette’s rescue by his daughter on an event in Dickens’ life
where he was rescued. His father, however, rescued him from this fate, and between 1824 and
1827, Dickens was a day pupil at a school in London. Even though Dickens’ mother wanted him
to stay working in the factory, Dickens’ father rescued him from this doom and put him in school.
Dickens’ might have symbolized this event through Dr. Manette and when he was rescued. Lucie
Manette travels with Mr. Lorry to rescue her father, Dr. Manette. Dickens might have allowed this
event to take place to symbolize his own rescue from his father when Dickens was a child. It
might have also felt good to remember as he wrote what happened and how his relationship
with his father was strong. Dickens also bases some characters off love and relationships.

Charles Dickens based many characters off love and relationships. Sydney Carton loves Lucie
Manette so much, he took the place of her, husband Charles Darnay, and Carton died because of
his love for Lucie. Dickens might be portraying this relationship of love on Dickens own
relationship with Ellen Turnan, an actress who Dickens fell in love. Charles Dickens also bases
another relationship of his life off of one relationship between parent and child. Lucie Manette
loves her father, Dr. Manette, so much that Lucie takes care of Dr. Manette after he escapes and
leaves the prison, La Bastille. Dickens might be portraying his own love for his father through
Lucie and her relationship with her father. Dickens’ relationship with his father was much like
Lucie’s relationship with her father. Charles Dickens aptly based many characters on love and
relationships.

Charles Dickens based the characters in A Tale of Two Cities on himself and his life. Charles
Dickens portrays himself through the characters Charles Darnay, Dr. Manette, Mr. Stryver, and
different relationships with certain characters. The way Dickens portrayed himself through his
characters is brilliant and clever.

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Sunday, October 31, 2010

Adam Bede: Psychological Realism

First of the Great Psychological Novelists

George Eliot is one of the ‘founding-fathers’ of the modern psychological novel. As W.J. Long
points out, “George Eliot sought to do in her novels what Browning attempted in his poetry; that
is, to represent the inner struggle of a soul, and to reveal the motives, impulses and hereditary
influences which govern human action. Browning generally stops when he tells his story and
either lets you draw your own conclusion or else gives you his in a few striking lines. But George
Eliot is not content until she has minutely explained the motives of her characters and the moral
lesson to be learnt from them. Moreover, it is the development of a soul, the slow growth or
decline of moral power, which chiefly interests her.

Her heroes and heroines differ radically from those of Dickens and Thackeray in this respect that
when we meet the men and women of the latter novelists, their characters are already formed,
and we are reasonably sure what they will do under given circumstances. In George Eliot’s
novels the characters develop gradually as we come to know them. They go from weakness to
strength or from strength to weakness, according to the works they do and the thoughts that
they cherish.”

Study of Mental Processes

A.E. Baker rightly points out, “George Eliot’s sphere was the inner man; she exposed the internal
clockwork. Her characters are not simply passive, and they do not standstill, they are shown
making their own history, continually changing and developing as their motives issue into acts,
and the acts become part of the circumstances that condition, modify, and purify or demoralise
the will.” According to David Cecil, “We get behind the clock face and see the works, locate the
mainspring, discover how it makes the Wheels turn. We know just how a character will behave
and why; we knew exactly what special mixture of common human ingredients makes him act
differently from other people.”

Adam Bede: Writing from the Inside

George Eliot’s powers of Psycho-analysis, her understanding of mental-processes, the springs of

human action, the motives which impel a character to act in a particular way, are shown to great
advantage in Adam Bede. Indeed, parts of the novel which have been most highly admired are
those in which she analyses and dissects the souls of her characters and lays them bare before
the readers. This is so much so, the case that many critics have called Adam Bede “the first
psychological novel”. What makes Adam Bede the fore-runner of the psychological novel, as later
exemplified by Joyce and Woolf and countless others, is that the psychology of the main
characters, Adam, Seth, Hetty, Dinah, Arthur, and the Poysers, is a major theme. Eliot has written
this novel principally from the inside of her characters, not from the outside, as most of her
contemporaries and predecessors had done.

Analysis of Causes and Motives

For example, in the chapter called A Journey in Hope, Eliot spends far more time in Hetty’s poor
brain and heart than Hetty spends on the road in her unwise search for her runaway lover. This is
psychology. And the chapters immediately before and after this similarly look deeply into Hetty,
and Adam, too. Although there is sufficient activity to keep the story rolling, there is much more
inner activity than outer. Each chapter is concerned with only a single major episode or action,
or sometimes the several parts of one action, but the analyses of the causes of the actions go on
throughout.

Eliot is very deft in her psychological approach. Sometimes she simply allows us to put an
instrument into a character’s brain to let us see not only what is going on there, but often also to
let us see what the character himself does not see, Shortly after the death of Thias Bede, his wife
Lisbeth was in the Bede home, alone with the body. After an almost ritual cleansing and
purification of the chamber where Thias lay, she slumped into a chair in the kitchen and
contemplated her grief: At another time, Lisbeth’s first thought would have been, “Where is
Adam?” but the sudden death of her husband had restored him in these hours to that first place
in her affections that he had held six-and-twenty years ago: “she had forgotten his faults as we
forget the sorrows of our departed childhood, and thought of nothing but the young husband’s
kindness and the old man’s patience.” This sentence is remarkable not only for its brilliant
psychological insights, but also for the skill and seeming ease with which Eliot handles a
sentence of almost 70 words, and the little flash of knowledge it gives us about Eliot’s own
unloved childhood.

When Eliot’s characters think, we share their thoughts, much as we would the thoughts of
people in novels of the 1960’s. For example, when Adam accidentally comes upon Arthur and
Hetty embracing in the woods, Hetty scurries away, and Arthur, with deliberate and elaborate
carelessness, saunters forward to Adam. He thought, “After all, Adam was the best who could
have happened to see him and Hetty together: he was a sensible fellow and would not bable
about it to other people. Arthur felt confident that he could laugh the thing off, and explain it
away.”

Grasp of Psychological Essentials: Arthur Donnithorne

George Eliot’s grip on psychological essentials enables her to draw complex characters much
better than her predecessors. Writes David Cecil in this connection, “Drawing from the inside
out, starting with the central principle of the character, she is able to show how it reveals itself in
the most apparently inconsistent manifestations, can give to the most varied coloured surface of
character that prevalent tone which marks it as the expression of one personality. Her characters
always hang together, are of a piece, their defects are the defects of their virtues. We are not
surprised that a man, so anxious for the good opinion of others as Arthur Donnithorne, should
selfishly seduce Hetty, because we realise that the controlling force in his character is the desire
for immediate enjoyment; so that his wish to sun himself in the pleasant warmth of other
people’s liking goes alongwith his inability not to yield to the immediate pleasure of Hetty’s
embraces. George Eliot can follow the windings of motive through the most tortuous labyrinths,
for firmly grasped in her hand is always the central clue.”

Mixed States of Mind: Triumph of Temptation

Her power of describing mixed characters extends to mixed states of mind. Indeed, the field of
her most characteristic triumphs is the moral battlefield. Her eagle eye can penetrate through all
the shock and the smoke of struggle, to elucidate the position of the forces concerned, and
reveal the trend of their action. We are shown exactly how the forces of temptation deploy
themselves for the attack, how those of conscience rally to resistance, the ins and outs of their
conflict, how inevitably, in the given circumstances one or the other triumphs. She is particularly
good at showing how temptation triumphs. “No other English novelist has given as so vivid a
picture of the process of moral defeat, as Donnithorne’s gradual yielding to his passion for Hetty.
With an inexorable clearness she repeals how temptation insinuates itself into the mind, how it
retreats at the first suspicious movement of conscience how it comes back disguised, and how, if
once more vanquished, it will sham death only to arise suddenly and sweep its victim away on a
single irresistible gust of desire when he is off his guard.”

Portrait of Moral Chaos

With equal insight she can portray the moral chaos that takes possession of the mind after
wrong has been done. “She exposes all the complex writhings of a spirit striving to make itself at
ease on the bed of a disturbed conscience, the desperate casuistry by which it attempts to justify
itself, its inexhaustible ingenuity in blinding itself to unpleasant facts, the baseless hopes it
conjures up for its comfort; she can distinguish precisely how different an act looks before it is
done, shrouded in the softening darkness of the secret heart, and after, exposed in all its naked
ugliness to the harsh daylight of other peoples judgment.” The guilt ridden conscience of Arthur
Donnithorne is analysed in this way and we are shown the scorpions that sting him and prevent
sleep, “With rare penetration and insight, George Eliot isolates and detects the various warring
elements in Arthur’s mind, his genuine compunction, his horror of being disapproved, of his
instinctive resentment at disapproval, however justifiable, his inextinguishable hope that things
will come right in the end, his irrational conviction that with him, at least, things always must
come right. One grows quite uncomfortable as one watches so merciless, so delicate an
exposure of human weakness. The truth it embodies is universal. In exposing Arthur
Donnithorne, she also exposes her reader.”

—(David Cecil)

Arthur: Analysis of Semi-Conscious Motives

She lays bare the conscious as well as semi-conscious motives of Arthur. We see the workings of
his innermost mind: He had been awake an hour, and could rest in bed no longer. In bed our
yesterdays are too oppressive: if a man can only get up, though it be but to whistle or to smoke,
he has a present which offers some resistance to the past, sensations which assert themselves
against tyrannous memories. For with Arthur’s sensitiveness to opinion, the loss of Adam’s
respect was a shock to his self-contentment which suffused his imagination with the sense that
he had sunk in all eyes; as a sudden shock of fear from some real peril makes a nervous woman
afraid even to step, because all her perceptions are suffused with a sense of danger……Arthur
would so gladly have persuaded himself that he had done no harm. And if no one had told him
the contrary, he would have persuaded himself so much better. “Nemesis can seldom forge a
sword for herself out of our consciences—out of suffering we feel in the suffering we may have
caused; there is rarely metal enough there to make an effective weapon. Our moral sense learns
the manners of good society, and smiles when others smile: but when some rude person gives
rough names to our actions, she is apt to take part against us: And so it was with Arthur. Adam’s
judgment of him, his grating words, disturbed his self-soothing arguments.”

Conclusion

It is George Eliot’s psychological insight into the springs of human action, the subtle analysis of
character and motive accompanying the external action, which gives her peculiar and individual
place among the Victorian novelists. She is one of them and yet how very different and original.
She is the first of the great modern novelists who have a high conception of their art, who regard
the novel as a serious art form, and who are given to the probing of the human psyche, to the
subtle analysis of the subconscious and even the unconscious.

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Sunday, December 19, 2010

Moral conflict in the novel "Adam Bede"

Introduction: GEORGE ELIOT’s novels are all dramas of moral conflict. She didn’t believe in art for
art’s sake, but in art for morality’s sake. According to Leslie Stephen, “GEORGE ELIOT believed
that a work of art not only may, but must exercise also an ethical influence. She believed that our
deeds determine us as much as we determine our deeds.” If we yield to temptation and sin,
suffering and nemesis are sure to follow. We have to reap the consequences of our actions. Her
characters suffer because they violate some moral code, because they yield to temptation
consciously or unconsciously. Both Hetty and Arthur are unable to resist temptation so they
suffer. This moral weakness results in sin which is followed by punishment and intense suffering.
Arthur-Hetty story traces the movement from weakness to sin and from sin to nemesis.

Hetty – intensely human figure: The central character, Hetty is sketched neither as a temptress
nor as an innocent virgin ruined by a profligate young man, but simply as a village girl who has
romantic dreams of life with a handsome and rich lover and she pays full price for her follies. In
the beginning, we find her happy and living a sheltered life without problems and troubles. But
she is vain, frivolous and emotional. Hetty is loved by Adam Bede, a skilled carpenter,
hardworking and widely respected for his qualities. He is a man of whose love every woman
would be proud. (the character of Hetty and story outline).

Arthur’s responsibility in Hetty’s tragedy: as Arthur James points out, “A weak woman is, indeed,
weaker than a weak man.” So Arthur’s responsibility is much greater for the suffering and
tragedy of poor Hetty. (Write Arthur’s character and his good and bad qualities).

Their suffering and punishment: (state analysis of the after-effects of the temptation – moral and
spiritual)

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Sunday, December 19, 2010

Plot-Construction and the Organic whole of the novel “Adam Bede”

A compact whole: The plot of AB is much better constructed than that of many other
contemporary novels. This is so because the novel was not published in parts. It was not
serialized in a magazine. There is not a single character or even in the whole of novel which
doesn’t further its action. The novel is a compact whole. It is like a well-constructed building
from not even a single brick can be taken out without damaging the whole structure. The novels
are GEORGE ELIOT are ‘organic wholes’ in as much as the story, the character, the social
environment are well-integrated. In AB, the life of Hayslope envelops the tragedy. It is an active
society in which most men or women have work to and their characters are affected by that
work.

Integrated Four stories and thematic unity: GEORGE ELIOT was quite alive to the problem of plot-
construction. There are four different stories in the novel: (a) Adam-Hetty love story, (b) Hetty-
Arthur love story, (c) Adam-Dinah love story and (d) the mutual relations of Arthur and Adam.
The problem was how to integrate the four stories into a single whole. The story of Hetty, the
heroine of the novel who is seduced by the Squire and later convicted of a child murder forms
the core of the novel. The inter-linking of the various stories is made possible by the relation of
Adam and Arthur to each other and to Hetty and the marriage of Adam and Dinah rounds up the
whole and satisfies the contemporary conventions by linking the lives of the hero and heroine at
the close. Even integrating the four stories has not kept away from the thematic unity of the
novel. The theme is furthered by each action and event caused by the characters. The story
grows up like a plant out of the idea or theme that, a failure to resist temptation is a moral
weakness and any yielding to temptation is sure to followed divine punishment and consequent
suffering. This theme is interlinked with the theme of moral enlightenment, self- education and
regeneration. Such are the themes out of which the story evolves step-by-step, logically and the
characters are their stories are exposition and illustration of these themes and ideas.

Social environment & the central tragedy: the central tragedy is intimately connected with this
background. The full effect of Arthur Donnithorne’s yielding to the sensuous appeal of the pretty
child-like Hetty depends on the relationship of the two to the world. The pride and well-
grounded self-respect of the Poysers established in the reader’s mind by the vivid pictures of
their surroundings, their working, their home life, their Sunday observance and the neighbors’
opinion of them, all play their part in causing the tragedy and in heightening the bitterness of its
effect. It is the social background that the Poysers have provided for their niece and the
standard of conduct that make it inevitable for Hetty to take flight before the birth of her baby; it
is the esteem in which they are held by which the reader measures their shame. Similarly, it is
Arthur’s upbringing, his relations with his grandfather, his high conception of love and esteem,
he will earn from all his dependants when he inherits the land that explain the price he pays for
the weakness and his suffering. Not only are the story and characters integrated with their social
environment, they are well-integrated in the present novel with their physical world. They are
symbolic of it. They have the softness and fertility of Loamshire and it hardness, its spiritual
deadness. They are not receptive to religion, for their life of ease and self-indulgence has made
them spiritually dead. Dinah serves as a link between the two physical worlds. She has come
from Stonyshire, rocky, hard and barren, but the people there are more receptive to religion,
they are spiritually better alive. So whenever she feels that she is going to be engulfed by the
spiritual deadness of Loamshire, she retires to Stonyshire. It is also to be noted that nature-
background changes in keeping with the change in the fortunes of poor Hetty. Her early happy
life is lived in the physical environment of Hayslope; from here she goes to the barren and rocky
Stonyshire where she is convicted and sentenced to death.

Major Flaws and Ending of the novel: Even best of us have their faults and weaknesses so does
Adam Bede. Despite being the best constructed novel in the world, its ending has come in for a
great deal of criticism. It has been pointed out that the marriage of Adam and Dinah Morris is
not properly motivated, so it seems unnatural and forced. It is merely conventional that Hero
and Heroin must be united at the close. George Eliot is first a philosopher and her critical and
intellectual ability often impedes her artistry in telling a story. The author’s commentary
sometimes holds up the story and makes it labored. For example, the writer labels Hetty as the
sinner and she considers Adam and Dinah well-nigh perfect, but the modern reader finds Adam
a bore and Dinah an impossibly perfect.

Melodrama: The fight between Adam and Arthur in the wood is melodramatic and it was
introduced at the suggestion of George Lewes. The story of seduction, a child-murder and
conviction of an innocent girl, is the common stuff of a cheap melodrama. According to Robert
Speaight, “Too much space has been taken up building up the background. (Give examples of her
images and criticize.)” Joan Bennett says, “If the characterization of Dinah partially fails to
produce the effect intended, it is not because she is too virtuous but because of the author’s
treatment of the subject.” Dinah is afraid to accept Adam because she thinks that her love
would come in the way of her vocation. She retreats to Stoniton to ponder over the issue and
accepts Adam when she meets him at the top of hill in Stoniton. Obviously, a change has come
over her. But we are not permitted to see the process of this change and this is a major flaw in
Dinah-Adam love story.
Arthur James sit eh severest critic of the close of the novel and his criticism is an epitome of all
such criticism. He remarks, “The central figure of the novel is Hetty Sorrel and the story should
have ended with the conviction of Hetty. The continuation of the story after the point is fatal to
the artistry integrity of the novel. His marriage with Dinah waters off the real sorrow for the
tragedy of Hetty. As matter of fact, the further end of the story is a matter for another novel.”
Lettice Cooper’s comments are worth-noting here, “The weakness of the book, besides the
oppressive virtue of Adam and Dinah is, as with many Victorian Novels, the sacrifice and
probability to plot, and the tidiness of the ending. GEORGE ELIOT was moving towards a new
kind of novel in which representation of life was to be more important than the plot. Despite all
these life-like and natural situations and atmosphere drawn in AB, the marriage between Adam
and Dinah seems like a mechanical device to round off the story.” However, Joan Bennett justifies
the marriage of Adam and Dinah on the ground that it enables the novelist to put the last touch
to her definition of Adam’s character. , to make him realize that there was too much of self and
pride in him. A better justification fro the close of the novel is that life at Hayslope had been
shaken and disturbed by the drama of Hetty and it has returned to normalcy because of Adam-
Dinah marriage. George Creeger points out that Dinah-Adam marriage is not an anti-climax, but
it essential, otherwise Dinah and Adam would remain incomplete human beings, for there can
be no fulfillment without love. It also enables the novelist to point out the moral that common
suffering results in sympathy and it is sympathy which is the basis of true love story. Sorrow is
needed to make love true and lasting.

Conclusion: The novel has its faults, but they are minor faults and they in no way detract from
the novelist’s skill in construction. It should be judged in the context of the age in which it was
written and not by modern standards.

-------------------------------------

Sunday, December 19, 2010

Adam Bede as a novel of Rural life

English Midland: GEORGE ELIOT began her career with a loving attachment to the region in
which her youth was passed. Her interest was in a particular locality – English Midland which
had a powerful pull on her imagination. Even in the simplest of provincial situation, life is
revealed clearly, wholly and in depth. The Tragedy of Hetty Sorrel, a tragedy of Sophoclean
intensity and grandeur, takes place in this rural setting.

Major divisions: The rural world in AB possesses two major divisions: the counties of Loamshire
and Storyshire (With their villages, Hayslope and Snowfield). Loamshire – most of the action
takes place here and around the village of Hayslope. Regarded together, the Midland-shire and
village constitute a kind of earthly paradise. Loamshire is a region of corn and grass – a fertile
and sheltered land. Prosperity is not common and poverty is rare. Exile from this snug land is
regarded by its inhabitants as the worst evil so the Poysers don’t want to leave it. Stonyshire –
throughout the novel we are reminded of a different kind of county which is naked and barren
under the sky ‘where the trees are few, so that a child might count them, and there is very had
living for the poor in the winter’ Poverty is common of these people. Loamshire is apparently
soft and fertile, but it has a core of hardness, so also Hetty beautiful and soft apparently, there is
hardness within her which is perceived by Mrs. Poyser. This is expressed in her ‘stubborn silence’
after the child-murder. Dinah tells Mr. Irwine, the Rector of Hayslope, “But I have noticed that in
these villages where the people lead a quiet life among the green pastures and the still waters,
there is a strange deadness to the world.” Loamshire people are spiritually dead, while those of
Stonyshire are more responsive to religion, more spiritually awake though they live in a hard
region.

Sight and scenes: The background against which the drama of AB takes place is picturesque and
graphic and faithful descriptions of the region are abundant in the novel. Its scenes and sights,
landmarks and customs, professions are transitions have been faithfully rendered. The
geographical features such as inns, churches, mansions and road life have been honestly
recorded. These sights and scenes play an important role in the novels of George Eliot. They
appear and reappear in her novels and this imparts to them rare organic whole. The magic of the
world works upon the reader in such a way that he finds himself passing through those instances
of scenery. GEORGE ELIOT’s novels are highly pictorial and graphic in nature. She is a product of
rustic and pastoral environment. She uses rich descriptions in this novel to provide a credible
setting and to bring out the individual character of the setting and places where her characters
live and to which they are bound by traditions, love, family, memory, work and affection. Finally,
GEORGE ELIOT uses landscapes to define, reinforce and foreshadow the events of the plot and
moral situation. There are many scenes in the novel which we should not merely pass over as
background materials. Henry Auster. Mrs. Poyser is the voice of rural tradition and community,
her home, the Hall Farm, provides a background that illustrates her character vividly. The Hall
Farm is the center of orderliness, comfort, love, energy, security and peace. As Walter Allan says,
“Mr. Poyser’s images with his similes from unripe grain, are those of he farmer: Mrs. Poyser’s
those of the housewife.”

Language, Professions & nature: According to Anne Morley, “We do not know if our literature
anywhere possesses such a closely true picture of purely rural life as Adam Bede presents it.”
The noblest achievement of GEORGE ELIOT in the novel is the fact that she has succeeded in
conveying to us the quality or flavor of the life at Hayslope. Its rude language, its typical dialect
and the people in the novel all truly represent the rustic life. The characters in the novel
represent a cross-section of Midland occupations and professions. The carpenter, the preacher,
the Rector, the clergy, the farmer, the dairy-maid and the dairy hands, the common laborers and
the vain village girls are all present in the world painted by GEORGE ELIOT.

The symbolic word of Adam Bede: George Eliot communicates the meaning of her novel partially
by employing symbolism in the description of the physical world in which her characters live.
These patterns point up contrasts and support, by an appeal to the visual imagination, some of
the book's central ideas.

It is obvious that the names of the two counties mentioned in the novel and the names of the
two towns where principal characters live are significant. Snowfield, Dinah's home town, is
located in Stonyshire; as the names indicate, this is a bleak, forbidding region in which people
eke out a poor living on the rocky hills or else work in a factory. Hayslope in Loamshire, on the
other hand, is a pleasant spot where the farmers are prosperous and the workers comfortable;
there are no factories, but only small neighborhood businesses like Jonathan Burge's workshop.

The "world" of the novel thus divides into light and dark, or hopeful and gloomy areas. Taking
this world to represent life, we can see that Eliot is dividing experience into the pleasant and the
unpleasant--giving us symbols for the "light" and "dark" sides of life. Dinah lives in Stonyshire;
she is familiar with the darker side of life, accepts human suffering as necessary and inevitable,
and knows how to deal with it. Adam, Arthur and Hetty, on the other hand, take a much more
optimistic view of things and must learn what Dinah already knows. The crisis of the novel takes
place in Stonyshire (in a town called Stoniton, as a matter of fact) and it is here that the three
Loamshire people discover the meaning of "irremediable evil."

This division is supported by another one--that between controlled and uncontrolled human
actions. We noted in the commentaries that the seduction, the fight between Adam and Arthur,
and Hetty's abandonment of her child all take place in the woods. These actions, prompted by
"natural" urges rather than by a "civilized" use of intellect and will, form one of the two primary
causes of suffering in the novel.

The other cause is that part of reality which is beyond man's control. This area of human
experience is symbolized by the tapping at the door in Chapter 4 which, though a superstition,
turns out to be a valid portent of death, by the force of blind circumstances, and by God.
Religion in George Eliot's novels seems to mean a respectful attitude towards the great
unknown. Dinah, the completely religious woman, realistically recognizes the existence of evil
and is patient and humble. Adam, who is religious in a naturalistic way, and Arthur and Hetty,
who are not religious at all, have pride in them and must learn humility through experience.

Thus the world of the novel is set up to show that man must recognize that life has its less
pleasant side and that suffering derives from the nature of things and from a lack of self-control.
Like Dinah and Mr. Irwine, he must act upon this knowledge, avoiding evil whenever possible,
accepting and dealing with it when it cannot he avoided.

-----------------------------------

Sunday, December 19, 2010

Hetty Sorrel – a perfect representative of Loamshire in Adam Bede

Nature-Background: Hetty Sorrel is a typical specimen of the Loamshire world. According to

George Creeger, “Hetty is a perfect representative of the Loamshire-Hayslope world. Moreover,
the background landscape keeps changes in keeping with changes in her fortune and career. In
the novel George Eliot’s presentation of nature-background is strictly utilitarian, as in that of
Hardy in Tess of the D’Urbervilles.”

Hetty has the fertility of the Loamshire world and also its beauty but conceals an essential
hardness. To think of Hetty as she first appears in the book is to think her a being in certain
places, themselves microcosm of Loamshire, the Hall Farm dairy, its garden and the Grove of
Arthur’s estate. Each of these places has an individual aura, but all are suggestive of fertility and
growth. Furthermore, these places are appropriate to a particular phase of Hetty’s relations with
Arthur. Their first meeting occurs in the Hall Farm. GEORGE ELIOT emphasizes its cleanliness and
purity, but it remains subtly sexualized because of its nature and associated imagery. More
explicitly sexual is the meeting which takes place in the Grove of Arthur’s estate. Henry James
regards Hetty Sorrel as the least ambitious and, on the whole, the most successful of GEORGE
ELIOT’s female figures. He is of the view that Hetty’s misfortune makes her the central figure of
the book. The part of the story which is concerned with Hetty appears to him to be the most
forcible. He concludes, “About Hetty Sorrel I have no hesitation whatever. I accept her with all
my heart.”

Beauty & Harness of the Youth: A second link between Hetty and the Loamshire world is that of
her beauty. It was GEORGE ELIOT writes, “a spring tide beauty, the beauty of young frisky
things.” Such beauty, at once suggestive of fertility and is difficult to comprehend it effect.
George Creeger says, “It is a false beauty because it conceals a core of harness, as does the
beauty of Loamshire itself. The people of Stonyshire observe her apparent beauty and those of
Loamshire know her hidden hardness as Mrs. Poyser says, “Hetty’s heart is as hard as a pebble.’
She is a heartless beauty or rather a beast personified as beauty. Hetty’s hardness is childish or
at best adolescent egocentricity. All people and events have value or significance only as they
affect the narrow circle of her own life otherwise they are not important. At the news of Mr.
Bede’s death, Hetty is concerned only as long as she thinks it is Adam who is meant; when she
discovers her error, she lapses into indifference. She cares little about the Hall Farm, her family,
aunt and uncle. So there is a persistent strain of narcissism in her. One thinks of her inordinate
love of fine clothes and adornment. In such scenes she looks as if she were a worshipper. Before
a mirror she turns up her own sleeves and kisses her arms with the passionate love of life. Even
her love of Arthur is tinged with the same quality; in him she finds the objectification of her day-
dreaming desires. What she loves in him is not so much Arthur as her own self.”

Failure to Grow and Mature: Loamshire-Hayslope is a sheltered world, an earthly paradise. It is

rich, fertile and beautiful world where nature is generous and abundant in this beautiful and
fertile world, the poor Hetty has lived a sheltered life, entirely free from cares and worries which
are the common lot of humanity. The result is that she has grown up without maturity. Growing
up needs struggle; it is a process of facing difficulties and hardships. Childish creatures like Hetty
in the Loamshire world are not called upon to face any such challenges; hence they remain
immature and childlike. She has fantasies and day-dreaming in which she lives. She has
developed a subjective world which entirely prevents her from looking at the objective world
with total impartiality. She has always wished finery, clothes and jewelry. She dreams of a
majestic life like Mrs. Irwine’s and finds herself being taken in a splendid carriage. In the chapter
entitled, Hetty’s world, the novelist gives us detailed emotional fantasies. She couldn’t marry
Adam because he didn’t come up the standard of her conception of a lover. It was only Arthur
whom she adored. Hetty’s dreams were all full of luxuries. The admiring glances from Arthur’s
eyes intoxicated he and she moved about and worked, lost in the world of her dreams. “A new
influence had come over Hetty – vague, atmospheric and full of prospects.” Hetty was quite
uneducated - a simple farmer’s girl, to whom a gentleman with a white hand was dazzling as an
Olympus god. The Admiration of Arthur is like a strong wine that goes to her head and transports
her to a world of fantasy. It is an enchanted world in which Hetty lives and moves. Arthur and
Hetty are both willful children living a sheltered life in Loamshire which may be called an earthily
paradise. They are babes who fall an easy prey to the temptations of the devil. They are not
mature enough to see the consequences of their actions. They realize only after the fall when it
is too late. Much of the tragic catastrophe of both Hetty and Arthur springs from the fact that
they are willful children performing adult actions in an age which is not golden. When the
fantasy breaks and the dream is shattered on reading Arthur’s letter, she is dazed and bewildered
and heart-rending tragedy is the result. George Creeger points out that “Hetty is as much a
victim of Loamshire as its representative.”

Conclusion: She has spiritual deadness and hardness so Dinah tries to prepare her for the
possibility of pain in life in the early part of the novel, but Hetty remains deaf to all these things
because she is self-centered. The effect of Hetty’s ordeal is to externalize the hardness which is
concealed in her heart, although she changes towards the end of the story. No one in the
Loamshire is ready to accept the actions of Hetty not forgive her or in any way help her, but
Dinah Morris is able to restore Hetty to humanity - to a better humanity, at least, than that with
which she had been endowed by her own world.

------------------------------------

Sunday, December 19, 2010

Adam’s education and Growth to Maturity though a process of suffering

Introduction: Critic after critic has expressed that Adam is too good to be sure. It is said he is a
perfect human being, GEORGE ELIOT’s ideal, fully matured and enlightened from the beginning.
But the truth is otherwise. A moment’s reflection shows that he is proud, hard and self-righteous
with little sympathy for ordinary sinners like most common people. As a matter of fact, the novel
traces that process by which he gradually sheds his faults – of his education, enlightenment and
maturity though a process of suffering and love and becomes a complete man towards the end.
The process of his education occupies the center of the novel.

Hard, Proud and Self-righteous: There can be no denying the fact that Adam is hard and self-
righteous. In the first chapter we are told, “The idle tramps always felt sure they could get a
copper from Seth; they scarcely ever spoke to Adam” This is a flaw, if not serious one, in Adam’s
innocence, his confidence that he is righteous and soft for every one. He doesn’t knowingly
wrong any one, but he doesn’t hesitate to hurt. He is convinced of the clarity of his vision and his
understanding, “I’ve seen pretty clear, ever since I could cast up a sum.” The process of his
education and self-realization starts from the encounter between Arthur and Hetty (give details).
George Creeger says, “Adam may be intelligent, diligent, loyal and trustworthy, but he is not yet a
matured man. This is so because head overweighs the heart. He is stern, stiff and harsh,
intolerant, huffy and humorless. He gradually learns the ropes of life.” The reason is that Adam is
not fully involved emotionally with either his father or Arthur. Therefore, he can neither
participate in their plight nor understand it. What is necessary for Adam is that he should get his
heart-strings bound round the weak and erring, but their inward suffering. Precisely, such an
emotional involvement exists for Adam in his relationship with Hetty. The relationship is not a
rational one; rather it is a passion which overmasters him. Adam’s heart-strings are bound fast to
Hetty.

His suffering: As a result of his emotional involvement, Adam suffers and learns to share the
suffering of others. He suffers when he thinks that Hetty has run away to Arthur to avoid the
approaching marriage and he suffers still more when he learns that Hetty has been arrested for
her child-murder. He suffers from deep spiritual anguish, but his response is different from that
of Hetty where she sank into passivity and inaction and he behaved the otherwise and lusts for
revenge. Hetty’s hardness is due to selfishness, so she has no will, but Adam’s hardness is due to
pride she he remains active.

Regeneration through Agents:

At this crisis in his life there is yet the possibility for regeneration through a human agent
exercising the power of love. Adam’s suffering is indeed a precondition for his regeneration. The
agent is a double one. Mr. Irwine and Bartle Massey are both fully matured men. They do what
they can to help Adam in his misery. Sensing in him a potential for violence and a desire to take
revenge on Arthur, they seek to divert him. Irwine uses the power of reason, arguing that to
injure Arthur will not help Hetty and that passionate violence will lead only to another crime.
Adam agrees, but it is not full acceptance. The full acceptance is brought about by Bartle
Massey. The scene takes place in Stoniton and Adam comes here to comprehend the necessity
for compassion and forgiveness in life and thereby achieves what GEORGE ELIOT calls an
awakening to “full consciousness” and participates in a kind of symbolic supper. Before relating
the latest news of Hetty’s trial Bartle says, “I must see to your having a bit of the loaf. I must have
a bit and a sup myself. Drink a drop with me, my lad.” At first, Adam’s feelings are bitter for his
own sufferings and his is first in his revenge, but as Bartle speaks, his hardness melts and he
gradually declares that he will go to the court and stand by Hetty. Adam also took a morsel and
drank some wine sent by Mr. Irwine and stood upright again looked more like the Adam Bede of
the former days.
Education through Suppers: GEORGE ELIOT was an intellectual and philosophical novelist and is
much influenced by the views of Feuerbach whose The Essence of Christianity she translated
into English. Feuerbach points out the religious significance of water, wine and bread. For him
these agents are sacred. Water is sacred for it reminds us the common factor between the rich
and the poor. So water is symbolic of our oneness with nature. This is the symbolic significance
of baptism. Wine and bread are material though provided by nature; demonstrate man’s
superiority over the low creatures. Hence, the sacrament of baptism in which only water is used
is for the children, the immature and the Lord’s Supper in which wine is drunk and bread is taken
is for the mature and the grown-up, symbolic of his manhood, of his distinction from the
animals. Hunger and thirst destroy man’s humanity, taking of bread and wine restores to him his
humanity. This truth is symbolically demonstrated in the novel through suppers which restore to
Adam his humanity, his mental and moral powers conducing to his social, personal and moral
education. In the first supper, Adam finishes the coffin which his father has failed to complete.
He refuses to eat the food that his mother offers to him, but allows his hungry dog to devour his.
Soon he calls for light and a draught of water and admits that he is getting very thirsty. Adam
works on, unaware that the intoxicated father to whom he feels to superior has died a watery
death. The symbol of water like the parallel between man and dog is designed to remind Adam
of his origin from Nature, “an origin which we have in common with plants and animals.” Adam’s
ignorance of the second rule manifests itself at the supper which takes place during the young
Squire’s birthday feast. Adam sits upstairs at the Squire’s table, no longer drinking water, but the
rich Loamshire ale. He accepts a toast in which Arthur Donnithorne, the seducer of Adam’s
bride, wishes him to have “sons as faithful and clever as himself.” The irony is obvious. Proud of
his new capacity as keeper of the woods, Adam must still learn that his full humanity can only be
celebrated though his distinction from nature. Arthur and Hetty, the natural creatures he
surprises in the woods he keeps, force upon him that suffering which alone can elevate man
above the lower creatures. The last and the most significant supper in this symbolic sequence
marks the attainment of maturity on Adam’s part.

Regeneration & Maturity of Adam through love: Adam’s decision to stand by Hetty, an
expression of his old love for her and his new willingness to involve his life with the suffering of
others, has two consequences. It leads to his being able to forgive Arthur and it makes him
capable of a new sort of love. He realizes that truth that “Love doesn’t exist without sympathy
and sympathy does not exist without suffering in common”. For many the love which
subsequently grows between Dinah and Adam (as well as their marriage) seems an anti-climax.
While granting that GEORGE ELIOT has some difficulty in focusing that conclusion. Henry James,
“I cannot agree that it is an artistic weakness. Without is one is left with two of the principal
figures – Adam and Dinah still incomplete human beings. They have suffered in common. They
have in common the painful memories of Hetty; such common suffering gives rise to mutual
sympathy. Love follows such sympathy and it is in the fitness of things that they should come
together and get married.” This love leads to the fulfillment of his personality, and the process of
his growth and maturity is completed. There is now a full integration of head and heart.
-------------------------------------------------

Sunday, December 19, 2010

Maturity and education of Dinah

Introduction: Dinah, too like Adam is immature in the beginning. She is not a fully integrated and
mature personality. She also lacks the balance of head and heart. The novel shows how through
the love of Adam, she attains this balance and becomes a fully integrated and mature
personality. Thus, it is also sent that marriage between Dinah and Adam is not an artistic failure,
but promotes the central philosophical and intellectual purposes of the novelist.

Her Lack of social vitality: She is presented as having compassionate, true and selfless devotion
to God, but she strikes one as having very little genuine vitality. She is all heart. She retreats from
social and family life because it diverts her attention from God. Creeger says, “The cause of her
retreat is the fear of selfishness and hardness resulting from too great abundance of world by
goods. She is unwilling to become fully involved in life. In this respect, she is like her creator. She
observes the human condition, with sympathy and compassion; it is true, but without
involvement. Selfless is a world frequently used to describe her but selfless means not only
something different from selfish; it means also lacking in self. To lack this sense of human
identity is to become something either less or more than human – a god, perhaps, a divinity.”
Creeger further says, “Such a psychological state represents a complete withdrawal from life, and
withdrawal is a characteristic of Dinah. Whenever life begins, Dinah retires to Stonyshire. The
most notable retreat is when Adam has told her of his love. She says, “I must wait for clearer
guidance: I must go from you.” Hetty was incapable of growing up, Dinah is afraid to. ”

Her Maturity: We are not permitted to see the process of her maturity by which she overcomes
her fear and this is a serious flaw in the novel. Adam waits for Dinah to return from her Sunday
preaching not at her home, but on a hill top. Here, he discovers that Dinah has undergone a
change, the power of love for him has in sense over-come her fears; she feels like a divided
person without him. Dinah is domesticated in the end. It is not to be regretted.

Religious views through Dinah: One of the aspects of the life that have significant bearing on the
story is the effect of Methodism and church religion on the Hayslope community. Methodism
has been described as a movement of reaction against the apathy of the Church of England that
prevailed in the early part of the eighteenth century. Its leaders were John Wesley and Charles
Wesley. Evangelism denotes the doctrinal counterpart of Methodism. Seth Bede and Dinah
Morris are ardent but sober Methodists. On the whole, the Hayslope people are either
indifferent to or mildly interested in Methodism. Among church people, there is a perceptible
hostility towards Methodism, which seems to be the result of an apprehension lest Methodism
should drive people away from the church and thus affect its stability and revenues. This hostility
is best exemplified in Joshua Rann who approaches the priest with a complaint against the
activities of the Methodists that they should be barred from preaching in Hayslope. The church
also has sober people such as Mr. Irwine who deals all these matters patiently. The warning
against being ‘over-spiritual’ is one that recurs in GEORGE ELIOT’s novels. Fortunately, the best
representative of Methodism in Adam Bede is Dinah Morris can hardly be accused of being over-
spiritual.

-------------------------------

Adam Bede : Methodism and its propagation

Methodism may be defined as “a movement of reaction against the apathy of the Church of
England that prevailed in the early part of 18th century. John Wesley, who was a student at
Oxford and took holy orders in 1725, founded this movement. Methodist society was formed in
1729 when a few young men at Oxford came together under his leadership. Their object was the
promotion of piety and morality. The greatest success of this movement was among the lower
classes. When the Methodist movement strengthened, lady preachers were appointed to meet
the need. First Wesley Conference was held in 1744, in which women were allowed to preach
but later they were restricted to preach. In the beginning, this movement worked under the
established church, but as the society grew, it became more independent. However, separation
was made after the death of Wesley in 1791.

“Adam Bede’ was published in 1859, but the story of the novel takes place in 1799. This was the
time of most stirring events all over the world. Civil war was fought in United States, in Italy
there raised the Movement of Independence, Japan came out of self-imposed isolation, Russia
freed her occupied areas, and France fell to internal strife. But Hays lope in England, in which the
action of the novel takes place, remains unaffected by all these events. In “Adam Bede”, the
famous religious movement of the time, Methodism, is discussed.

Dinah Morris, who is one of the most devoted and firm Methodist, represents this movement.
She is a very influential preacher and her sermons show the characteristics of Methodist
preaching. Her first appearance in the novel is in a sermon at Hays lope. This sermon has a
purely Methodist appeal. At first there is an emphasis on God’s love for poor, then there is a call
for repentance over the sins and in the end there is warning against worldly vanity. This speech is
very much similar to one of the speeches of Wesley.

This speech creates a moving effect on the audience. However, by and large, the people of Hays
lope remained unaffected by Methodism, while people of Snowfield are more receptive of it.
Dinah is an example of the most sincere type of Methodist. She has a soft nature and has great
sympathy for the sinners. Her chief aim is to know the will of God and to follow it. She consults
the Bible before taking any crucial decision. Hence, she rejects Seth and accepts Adam after
consolation.

Dinah’s Methodist spirit also appears on two occasions. First one is when she visits Lisbeth Bede
to console her on her husband’s death. With her soothing words and manners, she helps Lisbeth
to regain her self-control. Dinah gets this healing touch through her Methodist learning.

The other occasion comes when Dinah meets Hetty in prison and makes her confess. Hetty has
no concept of the agony of soul. She fears only for the suffering of the body. But Dinah makes
her feel the physical presence of God with them. She urges Hetty, “To put a new fear within her-
the fear of her sin. Thus, because of Dinah’s efforts and prayers, Hetty realizes the sufferings of
her soul, confesses her crime and repents on her sin.

The novel also presents the tolerant attitude of the established church towards Methodism.
Through a short speech at the end, it is made clear that Dinah is not going to preach anymore. It
is because the Second Wesley Conference has forbidden the women to preach. It was felt that
women preachers did more harm than goodness with their preaching. But Dinah does not
belong to that group of women. She is a symbol of purity and a force of good. Moreover, much
of the story involves Methodism and hence it progresses through Dinah. However, Eliot is more
concerned with the psychology of the characters and their moral choice. She wants to moralize
the people and Dinah’s Methodist approach also highlights the moral elements to be developed
in the people.

---------------------------

Adam Bede Religion in Adam Bede

By writing a novel that was so intently focused on religion, Eliot risked causing a stir by seeming
to sympathize with Methodists--or, conversely, by seeming to denigrate religion in general .
Methodism, like other types of non-conformism to the Church of England (the Anglican Church),
were extremely unpopular when Eliot wrote this novel. Her work was extremely well researched,
however, and it was based on some personal experiences with Methodism.

The Anglican Church had been formed by Henry VIII of England, who officially seperated his
country from Catholicism in 1534 when the Pope would not allow him to annul his marriage to
Catherine of Aragon in order to take a new wife. Methodism is a Protestant denomination of
Christianity which began in the 18th century and was still quite new in the year in which Eliot
sets Adam Bede--1799. Theologically, Methodism emphasizes the idea (common in other
denominations) that all people can be saved, an emphasis which appealed to the new industrial
workers of England.

Methodism was founded in England by John Wesley and his younger brother, Charles. The two
focused on Bible study and personal interpretations of what Jesus said. They also emphasized
good deeds, especially visiting the sick in hospitals and the guilty in prisons, trying to help save
the souls of those about to die. Dinah visits Hetty in prison not only as her cousin and friend, but
also as a Methodist trying to save her soul, according to her tradition.

Eliot worked hard to pinpoint the exact type of talk common among Methodists. She read
Southey's Life of Wesley and used details about open-air revivals, evangelism, and bibliomany
(opening the Bible at random and reading whatever one sees first as a way to gain divine
guidance) for her novel.

Beyond the research that she did, Eliot had a personal experience with Methodism relating to
her Aunt Elizabeth, Elizabeth Evans, who married Samuel Evans. She was one of a small number
of female preachers who helped spread Methodism through Britain in its early stages. Eliot
models the character of Dinah largely on this aunt. Eliot pinpoints the "germ" of her idea to
begin work on Adam Bede as a story that her aunt told her as a child, which affected her
emotionally. Her aunt described traveling to a Nottingham jail to minister to a young woman
who was sentenced to death for murdering her own baby. Elizabeth Evans accompanied her in
the death-cart to attend her execution. Eliot made this journey the central scene in her original
conception of Adam Bede.

------------------------------------

George Eliot and the Realism of Religion in Adam Bede

George Eliot’s main novel, Adam Bede, was executed in an era in history seemingly closed to
exactly what she opened the literary world to: the devout religion of the masses, the rural,
working poverty-stricken population, which was entirely hidden from the eye of the 19th-
century writer. This was a time characterized by orthodox religious convictions, yet lack of
tolerance towards differing religious opinions. There was overall narrow-mindedness in the
literary air when it came to writing about religion. George Eliot’s work, however, in Adam Bede,
provided a unique look into the previously ignored religion of people who were “simple and
provincial” (Moers 71), not elite and well-bred as they were portrayed before in literature. This
novel was a huge step in the portrayal of realistic religion in writing, instigated by the events,
beliefs and individuals that shaped the life of George Eliot herself (Eliot 2).

George Eliot was born as Marian Evans on November 22, 1819 at South Farm, Arbury,
Warwickshire, in the countryside of England. She spent her childhood at Griff House, a brick
house on the Arbury estate, and at the age of four, she began attending school at Mrs. Moore’s
Dame School, then moving on to Miss Latham’s School and Mrs. Wallington’s School, ending up
finally at the Misses’ Franklin’s School in Coventry. It was at these two final schools where she
picked up much of her adolescent Evangelism (Sprague 11-24), which was to influence her
greatly later in life. Her mother’s death in 1836 brought an end to her formal education, and she
lived with her father, maintaining his house and life until he also died in 1849.

Not long afterwards, in 1854, Evans joined in a marriage with George Henry Lewes, a fellow
writer, critic and companion for Evans. He urged her to write and publish, and even gave the first
name to her pen name, George Eliot, which she soon adapted. Following her first work, Adam
Bede, in 1859, were several other novels: The Mill on the Floss (1860), which was partially
autobiographical, Silas Marner (1861), one of her more famous works, Romola (1863), Felix Holt
(1866), Middlemarch (1872), and, finally, Daniel Deronda, in 1876. This influx of novels ended
abruptly with the untimely death of Lewes, her husband and constant source of encouragement,
in 1878, whom she soon followed in death on December 22, 1880 (Eliot 4).

It was these experiences, though, between her birth into a simple country life and her death
clouded in grief after the death of Lewes, that formed the background for Adam Bede. As Curtis
Dahl points out in the foreword to the novel, Eliot found sources for practically all of her
characters and events in her real life. Dinah Morris, for example, the female preacher of the
novel, was based upon her aunt, Elizabeth Evans, who was a Methodist female preacher herself.
Adam Bede was written in the spirit of her own father, while his brother in the novel, Seth Bede,
bears resemblance to Samuel Evans, her uncle. The background and flat characters of the novel
also mirror much of Eliot’s life in rural England. The novel shows realistic characters, “ordinary
people only slightly retouched,” (Eliot 3) instead of those less realistic ones common to the
times.
The speech of the characters in the novel also shows the realism Eliot successfully injects into
the religious life of normal, pious people living on the countryside just as Eliot did in her
childhood. Adam Bede makes it clear that he believes that poor men such as himself and his
friends are as close to God and as reverent as anyone else.

....There’s the sperrit o’ God in all things and all times- weekday as well as Sunday- and i’ the
quiet works and inventions, and i’ the figuring and the mechanics. And God helps us with our
headpieces and our hands as well as with our souls; and if a man does bits o’ jobs out o’ working
hours- builds an oven for ‘s wife to save her from going to the bakehouse, or scrats at his bit o’
garden and makes two potatoes grow instead of one, he’s doing more good, and he’s just as near
to God, as if he was running after some preacher and a-praying and a-groaning. (Eliot 7)

In this, Adam shows that he believes God sees the working man just as same as he sees the rich
man. At the same time Eliot shows that she knows from her modest childhood that plain,
humble people feel that God is with them in all the labor they do outside of church just as much
as he is there with them when they get down on their knees to pray in church. This is the point
of Eliot’s work: that God is the same for everyone, not just the privileged and elite of society.
God loves all men and women equally, regardless of how refined or wealthy they are, because
God’s omnipresence isn’t selective.

George Eliot knew that God’s attentions weren’t focused solely on those with heavy wallets, and
heavy societal attention as well, and devoted hearts: through her teenage Evangelism right up to
her adult refusal of organized religion and conversion to the freedom of agnosticism, she knew
that God did not love only the rich, as the tracts, articles and literature of the time made it seem.
God loved Adam Bede and Hetty Sorrel, and all their real-life counterparts, just as God loved the
little British girl who was born Marian Evans and would someday become George Eliot and
change the face of modern religious writing forever.

-------------------------------------

Moral Concerns in Eliot's Adam Bede

Eliot is very much concerned with moral issues in the novel Adam Bede in the sense that
morality is such a ladder from which man can lead to the better life. Eliot didn't believe in art for
art's sakes, but in art for morality's sake. She especially talks about virtue and vice.

For her, the virtuous characters should be rewarded for their moral virtue and who have moral
weakness was followed by punishment and suffering. Tragedy occurs because of the temptation
and sin which is too far from morality. Adam Bede brings into prominence the moral idealism.
The novel tells that fellow-feeling or sympathy has a healing power, a redemptive power. People
should extend sympathetic feelings towards their brethren. If friends sympathize with the victim
entrapped in acute suffering, he/she can free from the torturous suffering. Adam Bede intends
to provide a moral lesson. By sharing suffering, the victim can feel relieved. The well-wishers of a
victim should try to understand the inner torture of the victimized person.

Eliot has presented various characters, among them one is Hetty. She always wants to be in her
dream world, which has no smell of morality. She is only concerned with her dream of a
handsome and rich husband. So, she yields to temptation which leads her to the path of tragedy.
She has the tendency of luxury and pleasure seeking. Her all lovely dreams shatter at last. She
has no guiding principle to follow. Although she has attended church regularly, she has not
absorbed a single Christian idea. Hetty Sorrel is put in prison on the charge of killing a baby. She
is in an acutely painful mood in the prison house. Arthur Dounithorne comes back to Hayslope to
perform the funeral rites of his grandfather. He comes to know about Hetty's predicament in
prison. Arthur tries to do everything in his power to free her. By that very moment Dinah Morris
also comes to the prison to see Hetty. Dinah Morris prays with Hetty to open up her heart and
tell the truth. Finally, poor Hetty breaks down and confesses everything that had happened since
she left Hayslope. She had not intended to kill her baby. In fact, she has not actually killed the
child. Two days later, Donnithorne, filled with shame and remorse, brings a reprieve. Hetty's
sentence is commuted to deportation. Hetty gives free rein to her passion. That is why her life
becomes a living hell.

Like Hetty's story illustrates the moral truth of sin and so she is the character of Arthur. He too is
a man of weak moral fiber, yields to temptations as a result, he also becomes the miserable,
wretched and repugnant character. So, both Hetty and Arthur suffer from the deep spiritual
anguish because they lack morality in life. By portraying those characters, Eliot wants to suggest
that who have moral weakness is followed by such punishment and pain. Actually, George Eliot
wants to show the dark consequences of pagan Hellenistic tradition, chiefly, represented by
Hetty Sorrel and Arthur Donnithorne.

Dinah Morris represents another brand of moral idealism George Eliot intended to inculcate her
and her life stand for the realm of sensuality and passion governed by temperance and virtue
from the upper realm of religion. Only by tempering and restraining the galloping emotion and
passion, life can achieve- the desirable level of true happiness. Dinah Morris understands herself.
She brings her life to a successful end. Dinah is too virtuous girl. She serves as one of the best
examples of good morality. She has been presented as a preacher, but also a priest, as a father
confessor to whom poor Hetty confesses her sin.

Another moral character is Adam. He believes in the virtue of hard work. Work is religion and
worship for him. He remains morally perfect from beginning to end. He treats everyone with
respect. In the days in the upper room before Hetty's trail, Adam learns to identify with the
sufferings of others from his communion with parson Irwine and Bartle Massey. He supports and
stands by Hetty as she is sentenced. He consequently becomes a more caring son and brother as
well as a fit husband and father. He thus emerges as a Venerable Bede, who embodies the moral
earnestness of the Hebrew tradition. Adam's vision of bettering the world sounds somewhat
moralistic.

Mr. Irwine is also genial clergyman. He is also a fine and upstanding man who forms the other
example of excellent morality. He is also spiritually unselfish. Dinah represents the ideal goal by
her experience but Mr. Irwine represents the realistic one. In this way, Eliot's serious characters
are envisaged exclusively in their moral aspect. By portraying these characters like Adam Bede,
Dinah and Mr. Irwine, Eliot wants to suggest that the virtuous character should be rewarded for
their moral virtue. They became successful people in their life because of moral sense. So, Eliot
has highly focused the contemporary concept of morality by keeping the moral sense at the
entries together with the characterization of the characters like Adam Bede, Dinah and Mr.
Irwine etc.

------------------------

Development of Adam Bede’s self realization through a process of emotional turmoil within him

Critics are of the view that Adam is a true and perfect human being. He is not an ordinary
person. He is a towering personality. He is unique in many aspects. He is fully a matured person
from the very beginning but it is not true. Though, he is a unique person, yet he is not a fully
developed and mature person. In the very beginning of the novel it is clear that he is rash,
proud, stiff back, self righteous, hard person. He is over serious. He lacks humour. He has a very
little sympathy for the ordinary sinners which we all poor mortals are. The basic fault of his
character is that he lacks the balance of head and heart which is the sign of maturity. This shows
that he is not a mature person.

The whole novel shows a process by which he gradually sheds his faults of his education,
enlightenment and maturity, though a process of sufferings and love; he becomes ultimately a
complete man. Adam is very strong physically. His rolled up sleeves above the elbow show that
he is going to win the prize for the feats of strength. He is an intelligent person. He is a skilled
workman. He is very hard worker. He feels satisfied in his work. He is sincere to every person. He
is sincere to his work, to his parents, friends and relatives but he is not sincere with himself. He is
proud of his clarity of vision, to understand the character of others but he fails to understand
himself. He does not understand Hetty also to whom he loves from the core of his heart. He is
self-righteous. He thinks whatever he thinks is right. As he loves Hetty so he is forced to think
that she also loves him but it is not true. He feels hesitation to express his feelings of love to
Hetty.

Adam’s sense of self righteousness makes him a bit hard and unsympathetic. He becomes
impatient and rash at the faults of other. He is stiff back. He is unforgiving. He becomes very
harsh towards his father because he is not sincere towards his word, he is not responsible. After
the death of his father he repents on his severity which is futile as now it is of no any use. The
death of his father is the first step of the beginning of the process of his education and self
realization. As Adam is a self righteous, proud and stiff back so he cannot learn until he suffers.
Such person cannot understand any other person as he thinks that he is right and no other
person has enough time to educate such a person. As true wisdom comes through sufferings
when such person undergoes through a process of sufferings and mishaps then he evaluates
himself to remove his faults. Till the teenage the nature of a person can be changed by elders
but after teen age no body can change his nature until the person himself wants to correct
himself.

Adam lacks humour, he is over serious. There is no softness or glimpse of love on his face then
how Hetty can love him. She knows about him that he is rash, self righteous and hard. Moreover,
Adam also does not express his feelings of love for her then how can she understand that Adam
loves her. She respects him but she does not love him. She is confused about his character. When
Adam finds his friend Arther making love his beloved in woods, he becomes rash and impatient.
He was shocked at his confidence in his self-righteousness and clarity of vision. This was the
second step of his learning and to evaluate himself that what weakness he has in his character
that Hetty does not love him. Now he cannot tell her that he loves Hetty as he has come to know
that somebody else has already come in her life. At this sight he becomes out of his control and
fights Arthet and beats him very much. This was the only way for him to express his feelings of
love for Hetty.

Adam is intelligent, diligent, trustworthy and loyal but he is not yet a mature person. The reason
is that his head outweighs the heart. There is imbalance of head and heart in him. He is wrathful,
unyielding and harsh. His emotional involvement with Hetty is not rational one but it is a passion
that overpowers him. Adam’s heart strings are bound fast for Hetty. Perhaps it is the result of his
emotional involvement with Hetty that he suffers and learns to share the sufferings of others.
Adam suffers when he sees Arther and Hetty together in the woods. He suffers at various times
when Arther has left Hayslope, the marriage of Adam and Hetty is fixed but when she feels that
she cannot conceal her pregnancy. Moreover, she feels suffocated as her feelings and thinking
cannot be restricted. Her short meeting with Arther overpowers her and she leaves home in
search of Arther. Secondly, she does not want to hurt Adam. Again Adam suffers when he thinks
that Hetty has run away to avoid their approaching marriage. This is the third step of the process
of his education and self- realization. Hetty does not tell Adam anything as he has lost his trust
by beating Arther.

When Hetty has left Hayslope, after some days she gives birth to a baby but the baby dies.
People think that she herself has killed her baby when Adam hears that Hetty is arrested and
tried for child-murder, he suffers still more. He suffers from deep spiritual anguish but his
response is much different from Hetty. Adam lusts for revenge but Irwine tells him that to injure
Arther will not help Hetty. Adam when goes to Hetty he comes to realize that now he cannot
marry Hetty and Hetty cannot become his wife. So, he helps her as a friend. At the end when
Hetty is taken for execution, Arther comes with bail and goes but Adam does not beat him. He
cannot understand the love of Hetty and Arther. Adam’s maturity enables him to forgive Arther
and it makes him capable of a new sort of love. He realizes the truth that “Love does not exist
without sympathy; sympathy does not exist without suffering in common”.

Dinnah and Adam have common painful memories of Hetty. Such common sufferings give rise to
mutual sympathy, love follows sympathy and it is fitness of things that they should come
together and get married. This love leads to the fulfillment of his personality and process of his
growth and maturity is completed. Now there is a full integration of head and heart.

It may be concluded that Adam Bede is a round character. In the whole novel there is
development of Adam Bede’s self realization through a process of emotional sufferings within
him.

---------------------------

Critical Essays Characterization in Adam Bede

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It is always somewhat dangerous to set up ready-made categories and then apply them to
something as various as a work of art, but certain definitions can help us to a clearer
understanding of the characters we meet in Adam Bede.

A flat character is a one-sided figure, a character who exhibits only one or two human traits,
usually in exaggerated form. Such a character's speeches and actions are never very surprising
because they always spring from the same motivations and preoccupations, and he normally
does not change at all in the course of the book. An example in Adam Bede is Mr. Casson, the
innkeeper. Mr. Casson is very much impressed with his own importance, and whenever he
appears in the novel, he is asserting or defending his dignity. He is a man with an inflated sense
of his own importance, and that is all he is. In the same way, Mr. Craig, the gardener at the Chase
and another of Hetty's admirers, is a know-it-all, and whenever we meet him he is dispensing
(often false) information. Real people are never as simple as figures like these. The
characterizations are superficial, static, "flat."

Round characters, on the contrary, possess the complexity which is the norm in real life. They are
flexible and change in response to changed circumstances. Adam, for example, is capable of
being harsh, gentle, loving, cruel, violent, shy, and so on; he has not one trait but many. And he
learns a great deal in the course of the novel and changes gradually from a rather brash and
immature youth to a self-disciplined and emotionally stable man. Adam is a "round" character, a
fully developed and plausibly human figure.

A central character is one who plays a major part in the story and has a hand in the shaping of
events. Central characters do meaningful things and have meaningful things done to them. A
background character is normally not "on stage" very much, at least in comparison with the
central characters. He can serve many purposes: he can help create atmosphere, as Wiry Ben
and the other townspeople do; he can provide comic relief, as the men at the harvest supper do;
he can provide incident, as Molly does when she drops the ale jug. But straight background
characters do not affect the plot line in any very significant way; the drama moves around them,
but it never really touches them.

The novel is so set up that the characters fall into three ranks depending on how directly
involved they are in the novel's central conflict, the seduction of Hetty and its repercussions. In
the "inner circle" stand Adam, Dinah, Arthur, and Hetty. These four are flanked by characters
who are deeply affected by Hetty's seduction but whose lives are not changed by it: Mr. Irwine,
Lisbeth, Seth, the Poysers, and Bartle Massey. Outside of them are ranged the vast host of
straight background figures, people who exist on the periphery of the action.

It is easy to see how, with one great exception; the relative fullness with which each character is
drawn roughly matches his importance to the story as a whole. All the characters in the third of
our categories are "flat," while those in the second are more extensively developed and three of
the four in the inner circle are presented completely "in the round."

This device is primarily practical. If each character were developed fully, the novel would become
unbearably long. But at the same time, the principal characters must be presented as completely
plausible human beings if the conflict through which they struggle is to have any meaning. So
the relatively unimportant figures are merely sketched in, while many pages are devoted to the
elaboration and analysis of the members of the inner circle.

The device also has organizational value. The reader will obviously tend to focus on those
characters he knows most about, just as he would pay most attention to one close friend in a
group of ten people. By setting up her characters the way she does, George Eliot leads us to fix
our attention on the central issue of the novel.

The great exception to this scheme is, of course, Dinah; her characterization is widely considered
to be one of the novel's major flaws. Although Dinah plays a central role in Adam Bede, she is
clearly a straw figure, a plaster saint who can do no wrong. George Eliot puts her through some
slight agitation and a change of heart toward the end of the book, but her basic view of reality
does not change, as Adam's, Hetty's, and Arthur's do. She remains at the finish what she was at
the start: a serene young woman, absolutely and totally devoted to duty, whose too-conscious
piety tends to become cloying.

-------------------------------

Q 2:

Discuss George Eliot’s art of characterization with special reference to “Adam Bede’.

Answer:

In novel writing, like the dramatic art the significance of characterization cannot be denied.
Particularly the modern novelists lay great emphasis on the true and forceful delineation of
characters. The great the quality of characterization, the higher is the appeal of fiction writing.
This is exactly what we find in almost all the great writings of

George Eliot

. She is rightly credited with introducing an almost revolutionary change in the delineation and
presentation of characters. The novelists of later generation have fully acknowledged the
greatness of

George Eliot

in this regard.

D. H Lawrence, one of the most influential modern novelists pays tribute to

George Eliot in the following words:

“It was she who started it all; it was she who started to put all the action inside her characters.”

George Eliot’s skill in characterization is now fully recognized, though it is generally believed that
this mastery is exhibited only in

“Middlemarch” and more particularly in the

“Mill on the Floss”.

To some degree Eliot’s matchless skill is shown equally well in “Adam Bede”, her first full length
novel. Even here her characters are made perfectly credible and their motives are fully
established. It has been mentioned by many critics that she exposes all the complex feelings of
spirit that strike at the doors of disturb conscious. She describes the action before it is
committed. She reveals the actions when they are taking shape into the hearts. When they are
committed their ugliness is exposed. For instances, the character of

Arthur is the best example of the change brought in by the novelist herself. In portraying this
particular character, she lays bare all the conscious as well as semi-conscious emotions which
compel him to action. We see the working of his inner most mind. The characterization in “Adam
Bede” is absolutely vivid and memorable. In the words of a modern critic,

“There is not a single character in the novel which is not perfectly drawn, even if the portrait is
but a sketch still it is a true one. Even the character of Mr. Irwin, the person, is very carefully
drawn and plays a very impressive role in the final predicament of Hetty. His religious learning
has made him a very sensible and caring figure. The sufferings and agonies of humanity seem to
him his own sufferings. He extends full cooperation to anybody who undergoes injustice,
oppression and unfair treatment. Even such a minor character finds full opportunity to make a
mark on the readers.”

The other critic, Hennery James and Gerald Bullet have found some irregularities in the
characterization in “

Adam Bede

”. For example, it is their belief that the major characters like Adam and Dinah do not arouse the
desired interest. They also claim that the character of Mrs. Poysers has been over praised. Both
these critics are unanimous in their opinion that Hetty has been the most successful creation of
all the characters. Her innocence, great interest in life, her sharing capability, and great interest
in human psyche and her free and frank attitude in all matters of life make her a very complete
character, the most suitable for the modern day fiction. The whole gallery of characters, from
major to minor, has been beautifully projected to create desired effect. The perfection and
imperfection of the personalities of different characters make a wonderful sense of literary
triumph by the great novelist. The peak of characterization becomes self-evident when we
glance at the variety of characters, roles they perform and the inner coordination that they
exhibit at every level. The psychological pattern of inner thinking is the hallmark of special gift of
characterization of George Eliot. The complex feelings keep on adding to the overall effect and
the thematic interpretations of the different segments of the plot. The collective picture that
emerges out of this fine blend of action and characterization is a gem indeed. No other novelist
of George Eliot’s era can claim to have produced such marvelous interlink and psychological
treatment at such an artistic level. Characterization is definitely a special feature of George
Eliot’s art of novel writing, which is difficult to surpass.

To conclude, it can be said with absolute confidence that the writing of George Eliot are full of
unique characters which are larger than life. The typical flavour of

George Eliot’s own personality gives colour and broader dimension to her characters. The
matchless characters are the proud product of strong mind of the writer.

Adam, Hetty, Dinah and few others testify this reality.

----------------------------------

Sunday, December 19, 2010

Hardy’s art of plot-construction in Return of the Native

Symmetry and unity: The plots in the novels of Hardy show a remarkable unity and symmetry.
Hardy’s training as an architect seems to have greatly influenced his art in the construction of his
plots. The RETURN OF THE NATIVE has a plot which admirably built and constructed. The plot
largely follows the logic of cause and effect (even though chance too plays its part) and it is free
from any superfluities and digressions. The plot is well-knit and the various love-stories are
interwoven. The setting of the story, namely Egdon Heath remains the same, is a great unity. In
observing the unities, this novel has the stamp of ancient classical tragedy.

A Typical Hardy-tragedy: RETURN OF THE NATIVE is quite typical of Hardy’s peculiar genius and
fully illustrates Hardy’s view of tragedy. In considering any tragic work, whether it takes the form
of a play or a novel, we have to ask the following questions: (1) What sort of persons are the
victims of suffering? (2) What are the causes of the disaster or catastrophe that engulfs them?
(3) What is the emotional reaction of the audience or the readers to the suffering depicted and
what is the nature of the impact that the spectacle of human misery makes on them? (4) What is
the writer’s view of human nature in general (be it good or bad)? The NR answers all the
questions. (discuss the background of the novel and the characters).

The causes of disaster in a tragedy. The clash of human wills and purposes: as previously
studied.

The working of fate, incidents and the hostility of nature: as previously studied.

The emotional impact: The tragic scenes in the novel are very powerful indeed. Hardy’s
description of the circumstances in which Mrs. Yeobright dies is intensely moving. The effect of
her death on Clym’s mind and the haunting sense of guilt which he experiences is also touching.
The death of Eustacia, whether accidental or suicidal, create powerful impact on our minds. The
descriptions of tragic happenings give rise to a wide range of emotions in our hearts – pity, fear,
terror, awe, admiration etc. A “Catharsis” of the feelings of pity and fear is certainly effected, if
by “Catharsis” we mean simply a feeling of relief achieved though an intense experience of the
twin feelings of pity and fear.

The essentials of the plot: The pictorial opening of the novel is famous. It introduces Egdon
Heath, which has been regarded as one of the principal characters in the novel. After dealing
with the Heath, Hardy introduces human characters. The first to appear is Eustacia Vye who is
disgruntled with life and is entangled in a secret love-affair with the local inn-keeper, Wildeve.
(Give summary).

Thomasin and Reddleman essential to the story: The main plot namely the growth of love
between Clym and Eustacia, their marriage, the conjugal unhappiness of the two and the
drowning tragedy follows a logical course, despite certain flaws. (Describe their love-affair and
the role of these two characters in the main story.

The role of Egdon Heath: as previously studied

Dramatic Scenes: describe Mrs. Yeobright’s haste towards Thomasin’s marriage, her death, the
Reddleman’s sudden appearance at the game of dice between Cantle and Wildeve, the bitter
quarrel between Eustacia and Mrs. Yeobright are all the dramatic senses.

Faults and Lapses: The plot construction, however, is not perfect. It suffers from several flaws.
Some of the devices used by Hardy are rather crude and some of the incidents and accidents are
quite unconvincing that a shrewd woman like Mrs., Yeobright could have trusted a simpleton like
Christian Cantle with a considerable sum of money. It is hard to believe that luck, at the game of
dice, should first favor Wildeve and then the reddleman. The whole visit of Mrs. Yeobright to her
son’s home is quite unconvincing. Another feature of the novel which could be termed as a fault
is the numerous comments that Hardy makes in the course of the narrative. These comments
are uncalled for and irrelevant.

The role of rustic characters as comic relief: as previously studied.

Hardy’s view of human nature: as previously studied.

-----------------------------------

Sunday, December 19, 2010

Hardy’s characterization in Return of the Native

Introduction: In the field of characterization, Hardy’s talent, as compared with that of some great
novelists, is narrow. His memorable characters all have a family likeness, but there is no doubt
about the realistic quality of Hardy’s character portrayal. He makes his characters live in almost
vital manner.

We get the feeling that we have actually met the various persons whom Hardy portrays in his
fiction. His characters are made of solid flesh and blood like Clym and Eustacia. They are
recognizable human beings and their conversation, actions, irritations, annoyances and quarrels
perfectly convincing. It has been said that Hardy’s great success is with subtle characters. But
the fact is that his men and women are the most vividly realized when they are simple, primal
characters: rustics such as Grandfer and Christian Cantle, sturdy countrymen like Diggory Venn.;
passionate wayward women such as Eustacia and plausible rogues such as Wildeve. The
portrayal of male characters are admirable, he perhaps succeeds ever better in the treatment of
men than women. This choice of his characters leads him away from intellectual complexities
which delight most novelists. If his best characters are not subtle, the art that describes them is
surely one; for he can record the minutest fluctuations of emotional experiences --- write the
problems in the relationships of the characters and discuss them--- such as incompatibility of
Eustacia etc. Hardy introduces each of his principal characters with a vivid description of the
personal appearance. The reddleman is described “as young and, if not exactly handsome,
approaching very near to handsome.” Wildeve is quite a young man. The grace of his movement
is singular. It is “the pantomimic expression of a lady-killing career.” Eustacia is “full-limbed and
somewhat heavy and soft to the touch as a cloud. She has pagan eyes, full of nocturnal
mysteries.”

The portrayal of Eustacia: RETURN OF THE NATIVE contains some of Hardy’s greatest characters,
notably Eustacia and Clym. Her rebellious nature and force of will are for what Hardy calls her,
“the raw material of the divinity”. She is the most powerfully-drawn woman in the Hardy’s
portrait-gallery. Her selfishness, her charms and beauty, her uncontrolled passions do not blind
us to her celestial imperiousness. Hardy suggests that she is a goddess in her power. She has a
femme fatale in her power to arouse passions in others and Cleopatra in her pride, her passion
and her scorn of consequences. She is Hardy’s greatest creations whom no reader is likely to
forget. She herself is responsible for the tragedy that befalls her. These are the factors which put
her to tragedy: Her unsatisfied longing to be taken to Paris and her Hatred of Heath are the main
factors governing her fate. She was attracted towards Clym simply by the hope that she would
be taken to Paris. She was also aware of his deficiencies and she frankly confessed to Clym that
she didn’t have the makings of a good house-wife. But she also told him that she loved him and
that she could sacrifice her dream of Paris for him, “ To be your wife in Paris would be heaven to
me; but I would rather live with you in a hermitage here than not be yours at all.” In spite of this
her desire of Paris never perished. Her reaction to Clym’s furze-cutting, her renewed interest in
Wildeve, Her failure to open the door, and her final decision and death are all the factors which
contribute to her tragedy. Eustacia’s own weaknesses and lapses play a large part in bringing
about the tragedy. Her love of gaiety and fashion, her worldliness and incapacity to appreciate
her husband’s lofty nature and her inconsistency are the powerful factors.
Mrs. Yeobright’s character: Mrs. Yeobright has been vividly portrayed. Her love for her son is her
most outstanding quality. With it she combines a strength and firmness of mind, a shrewdness
and sagacity. She has a practical mind especially in her assessment of Eustacia. Her opposition to
her son’s educational plans shows her narrow-mindedness.

The portrayal of Clym: His portrayal is much less complex. His aversion to materialistic and
fashionable life of Paris, his great love for her mother, his decision to be a school teacher and
educator and his acceptance of his misfortune all make him a convincing character. The
delineation of his character has superbly been made by Hardy.

Diggory Venn: In the portrayal of Diggory Venn, too Hardy is matchless. He represents the
honest, steadfast, devoted, self-sacrificing and selfless lover. Some of us remain unconvinced by
the selfless love he expresses towards Thomasin. It would be seen that he has nothing else to
do but safeguard the interests of his farmer sweetheart.

Wildeve’s character: Wildeve is the villain whose conduct arouses disgust in our minds. He is
depicted as casual, irresponsible, selfish, pleasure-loving and even callous. He plays with the
hearts of girls, marries one of them and runs away. He strongly reminds us of Sergeant Troy in
Far From the Madding Crowd. He has attractive manners and amiable nature. He partly redeems
himself by sacrificing his life for Eustacia. The character of Wildeve is convincing.

Contrasted Portrays: One important aspect of Hardy’s characterization is the contrasting

portraits of his characters. Mrs Yeobright and Eustacia are as unlike each other as any two
women could be. The one honest and devoted; the other, unscrupulous and inconstant in love.
Cly is contrasted with both Diggory and Wildeve. He portrays men though in a narrow range, but
he delineates women eminently. There are three women characters in the novel. Eustacia, Mrs.
Yeobright and Thomasin (Compare them). There are only three main male characters; Clym,
Wildeve and Diggory Venn (Compare them here).

The Egdon Heath: In delineating the various characters, Hardy makes use of the natural
environment in which these characters live. Egdon Heath is not only the scene of the story; it
dominates the plot and determines the characters. (write attitude of different characters to
Heath)

The Rustic Group: We cannot ignore the rustic group of characters. Although they appear here as
a group, yet they have been individualized too. (Write their function and qualities)

-------------------------------------

Sunday, December 19, 2010

The role, function and significance of Egdon Heath with attitudes of various characters to it.

Symbolic of Hardy’s philosophy: RN has been called “The Book of Egdon Heath”. With most of
the other novels of Hardy, the scene could be transposed to other part of Wessex without
affecting the story except RETURN OF THE NATIVE where Egdon Heath is the dominant factor.
Wessex was an old name for a territory in the south-west of England. Hardy revived this name
for a region of which he himself was a native.

Hardy’s picture of Wessex is the most elaborate study of landscape in English Literature. No one
before Hardy has made the landscape a part of the story. He sees Egdon Heath not only with
reference to space but also with reference to time. For instance, he points out that Heath had
remained unchanged since the time of Julius Caesar. His attitude to Egdon Heath shows a rich
complexity. Egdon influences all the characters moving them to love or hate, to despair or to the
philosophic mind. Egdon is symbolic of Hardy’s philosophy. It neither ghastly, not hateful,
common place, tame, but it is like man slighted and enduring. Egdon is the premier and most
extended instance of Hardy’s habitual personification of Nature. Hardy himself lived on the
fringes of Egdon Heath and was perfectly with this environment. In no other novel of his does
background come up as lively and breathing as NR. It appears as a working character. Most of
the story takes place on the Heath. It symbolizes the whole cosmic order. If we need to
understand the human aspects of RETURN OF THE NATIVE, we must first know Egdon Heath.
These significant and vital features of the RETURN OF THE NATIVE make it a Wessex novel.

The function and role of Egdon Heath: EH is all-pervasive, without it the novel would be
inconceivable, for it provides it with the special dimension and holds the action of the novel and
its characters. The function of the EH is to emphasize the real circumstances in which man lives.
What the individual may feel about those circumstances is irrelevant for he never escapes them.
The Heath is an extended image of the Nature of which man is a part, in which he is caught,
which conditions his every being. His life in relation it is as short-lived as the bonfires which the
peasants make of the furze that grow on the heath. The nature of human beings is fleeting and
insignificance as compared to the permanence of the heath. It has its own life and provides
livelihood to the furze-cutters who work on it. He shows us the heath through all the seasons of
the year.

NaeemCharacters as part of the Heath: The human inhabitants of the heath are seen by Hardy
almost from an anthropologist’s point of view. When the peasants dance in August, time seems
to be telescoped; the countries slip by, and the men behave as their ancestors did “for the time
Paganism was revived in their hearts, the pride of life was all in all.” Christian Cantle, Grandfer
Cantle, Timothy Fairway and Sam – the rustics are as much a part of Nature, and of the life of the
heath, as the toads in March that croak like big ducks. Heath influences the principal characters
of the novel especially Eustacia. She feels great hatred for the Heath. “Egdon was her Hades.”
She was an outsider on the Heath, not born or bred there. Its environment was most hostile to
her. This environment could make a woman poet, novelist etc, but it makes Eustacia saturnine.
She longs to live a fashionable life in Paris. In talking to Wildeve, she says, “’Tis my cross, my
shame and will be my death.” Clym, unlike, Eustacia, is the product of Egdon and its shaggy hills
are friendly and congenial to him. Heath swallows him up and absorbs him into its furze and
other creatures. If Clym is the child of heath, Eustacia is haunted by the heath, the reddleman
haunts the heath. He knows every nook and corner of heath. The heath does irreparable
damage to Mrs. Yeobright and kills her. Thomasin thinks it an impersonal open ground. She calls
it “a ridiculous old place.” But confesses that she could live nowhere else.

How the heath influences the plot: The influence of Egdon on the course of events in RETURN OF
THE NATIVE is considerable. --- describe chance and coincidence…

Rustics on Egdon Heath and their lifestyle: Hardy establishes firmly his imaginative world of
Wessex – geography, landscape, folkways, agricultural pursuits as the background for his main
characters. These are rustic characters – an integral part of the Heath through whom we become
acquainted with the beliefs, customs, habits, bonfires, the Maypole celebrations, turf and furze-
cutting. All these are described by Hardy in relation to the rustic characters represented by
Grandfer Cantle, Christian Cantle, Fairway, Humphrey, Sam, Susan Nunsuch and others. Through
these characters we learn some of the superstitions that were current at that time such as
beliefs in ghosts and witches. Susan Nunsuch, who believes Eustacia to be a witch, pierces her
with needles at the church, and afterwards makes a waxen effigy of her, sticks pins into it and
puts it on the fire to melt. She adopts this device to bring about Eustacia’s and a little later she
dies. These rustic characters convey to us the spirit of the country-side in Wessex. They lead a
conventional life. Eustacia, Clym and Wildeve suffer but the rustics go on. Although they are men
of very limited knowledge, but have wisdom and logic of their own. One striking feature of
these rustic characters of Wessex is their zest for life and a capacity to make jokes and enjoy
jokes. They provide much humor in the novel and are a source of unconscious humor. Grandfer
Cantle’s egotism and vanity greatly amuse us. He says that even if he had been stung by ten
adders, he would not have lost even a single day’s work. “Such is my spirit when I am on my
mettle.” Christian Cantle amuses us by his over-whelming inferiority complex and by his
cowardice. He is afraid of ghosts and haunted places. He complains that no woman is prepared
to marry him.

Rustics as part of the background: Rustics figures in all of Hardy’s novels except the last two, Tess
and Jude the Obscure. These characters are a part of the background. They play a critical role
and are presented here as a group. These characters are part and parcel of Egdon Heath. They
are a source of information about the principal characters. They usually comment of the main
characters and bright out certain information and develop plot. It is actually rustics who cause
development in the life of main characters. According to one critic, the rustic characters play an
essential role, “Their part is organic, not decorative, they are much more than the Greek chorus
which they have been called. They are in fact the basic pattern to which other characters
conform or from which they differ.”

Over-emphasis of the Heath: According to one critic, Hardy’s use of the heath as a background is
not excellent. The use of clichés and jargons make it worse. Some critics have not reacted
favorably to the prominence which Hardy has given to Egdon Heath. One critic, for example,
says, “The difficulty with the heath is the way in which it constantly threatens to move from
background to the foreground to claim an importance.”
-------------------------------

Sunday, December 19, 2010

There is a discord in the nature of existence. Man is working to one end, Destiny to another.
These ends may coincide or they may not. Either way it is Destiny who decides what shall
happen. Discuss with reference to Return of the Native

The vital role of chance and incident (fate): Chances and coincidences play a vital role in all the
novels of Hardy. In the work of no other novelist do chance and coincide exercise such a
conspicuous influence on the course of events.

While a character is certainly responsible to a large extent, chances and coincidences often
operate as the deciding factor. Hardy felt that an evil power ruled the universe, defeating every
endeavor of man to better his fortune or to find happiness. He couldn’t believe in a benevolent
Providence; events were too plainly ironical so they must have been contrived by a supernatural
power. He believed that Fate and Destiny were sometimes indifferent; but often hostile to
human happiness. In other words, when human beings are not themselves responsible for the
frustration of their hopes, or when their temperaments and mutual conflicts do not wreck their
happiness, fate intervenes in the shape of chance or accident to complete or contribute to their
ruin. Hardy shows a persistent and bitter preoccupation with the sorrow of life. We certainly
cannot deny the littleness and sordidness of human life. He attributes the tragedy to an
“Unsympathetic First Cause” and he assures us that the “President of the Immortals had ended
his sport with Tess”. The Return of the Native shows man as the helpless plaything of invisible
powers, ruthless and indifferent. The characters have no such thing as free will.

The Reddleman’s chance meeting with the boy Johnny: Johnny Nunsuch has overheard the
conversation between Eustacia and Wildeve when the latter visited Eustacia in response to her
signal of the bonfire. Johnny then meets the reddleman purely by chance. The reddleman learns
from the boy the emotional attachment of Eustacia with Wildeve. The reddleman decides to
serve Thomasin’s interests by dissuading Eustacia from Wildeve. But he is scolded by her and
feeling dejected and failed, goes to Mrs. Yeobright to renew his offer of marriage to Thomasin.
Mrs. Yeobright uses this offer to threaten Wildeve to marry Thomasin. This whole series of
events are caused by chance and fate only started by Johnny, the boy.

The Game of Dice: By a sheer accident, Christian Cantle who is carrying Mrs. Yeobright’s money
meets a group of village folk who take him to a raffle where, by a sheer stroke of luck, he wins a
prize and encouraged by his good fortune plays a game of dice with Wildeve. Cantle first loses
his own money and later stakes Mrs. Yeobright’s and loses the entire amount. The reddleman
appears and invites Wildeve for another bout. This time luck favors the reddleman and he wins
all the money from Wildeve. He delivers the whole money to Thomasin, not aware of the fact,
that half the money was to be handed to Clym. Mrs. fails to receive an acknowledgement from
Cly and goes to ask Eustacia if she had received any money from Wildeve. The question
innocently asked creates a misunderstanding and causes a quarrel and complication in the
relationship of Clym. If Cantle had not met the village folks by chance and lost the money and
gone straight to Thomasin and Clym, there would have been no chance of clash between
Eustacia and Mrs. Yeobright.

The Accident of Clym’s semi-blindness: That Clym becomes semi-blind when he was hoping to
launch his educational project, is a sheer accident which leads to disastrous results. Clym is
compelled to become a furze-cutter. The humble occupation chosen by Clym is regarded by
Eustacia as humiliating nor can she bear his stoic acceptance of his semi-blindness and care-free
singing while cutting furze. Clym asks her if she thinks that she has married him in haste and
ruined her chances of happiness, her answer is almost yes. When Wildeve asks her if her
marriage has proved a misfortune for her, her reply is “The marriage is not a misfortune in itself.
It is simply the accident which has happened since that has been the cause of my ruin.” The
accident referred to is of course Clym’s semi-blindness. In other words, fate has played a trick
upon Clym when he was going to be successful; fate intervened and ruined his eyesight.

Eustacia’s chance meeting with Wildeve at the village festival: When Eustacia goes to a village
festival in order to relieve the tedium of her life. She meets Wildeve purely by chance and
Wildeve invites her to a dance. She contemptuously describes herself as a furze cutter’s wife.
Later he escorts her on her homeward journey, but slips away at the sight of Clym; however, the
reddleman sees him parting from Eustacia and arouses certain apprehensions in the mind of
Thomasin regarding her husband’s relationship with Eustacia.

The closed door and its consequences: describe the summary.

A legacy for Wildeve: It is by sheer chance that Wildeve becomes the recipient of a legacy which
makes him rich. Describe all the details from summary…

The Bonfire: It is by chance the Charley, in order to please the despondent Eustacia, thinks of
lighting a bonfire. She had nothing to do with bonfire. Wildeve seeing the fire comes to Eustacia
and she plans to fly away from the Heath.

The weather conditions: Finally, it so happens that on the night of Eustacia’s escape, the weather
assumes a menacing aspect. The night becomes dreadful because of rain and storm. Anything
can happen on such a night. Give details…

Conclusion: Hardy certainly makes his story implausible by his excessive use of chance and
coincidence. He is intent to show that the stars in their courses fight against the aspiring. The
Return of the Native is certainly marred by an exorbitant use of this device. Rightly does a critic
say, “The plot of the novel lacks the terrific and terrifying logic of cause and effect that marks the
plots of the greatest tragedies”.

-------------------------------

Sunday, December 19, 2010

To what extent is character and fate responsible for tragedy in Return of the Native

Pessimism, Fatalism, Determinism: Words like pessimism, fatalism and determinism have freely
been used by critics and readers to describe Hardy’s philosophy of life. These labels largely
convey his outlook and attitude. Every where in the novels of Hardy, human beings appear to us
crushed by a superior force. He is pessimistic because he believes that man is born to suffer and
he is fatalistic because he believes that destiny is hostile to man and that it governs human life,
allowing very little free will.

Whether his creed is fatalism or determinism, Hardy is haunted by the vision of necessity. He
shows us the sad consequences of a conflict of contradictory wills and the development of this
conflict is crossed at every moment by accidents which interpret them. Hardy, however, is not
cynic. He doesn’t regard man as essentially mean and wicked. There are villains in his novels; but
he believes that there is more goodness than evil in human nature. Man is capable of heroic
endurance of misfortune. Therefore it is possible to call Hardy a determinist than a fatalist.
Fatalism implies a blind supernatural power and determinism implies the logic of cause and
effect.

Character and Fate responsible: Hardy believes that “happiness is an occasional episode in a
general drama of pain.” He didn’t think life to be a boon. Hardy’s conception of life is essentially
tragic. The conflict is one in which there is only the remotest chance of escape. Man suffers from
a lack of foresight and from an inability to subdue his own insubordinate nature and this
suffering is aggravated by the chances and incidents and a strange overwhelming power. The
Tragedy in RN is due largely to the weaknesses and faults of the characters themselves. To that
extent, character is fate, but tragedy is also caused by the natural and fateful forces working on
the other end.

Clym’s responsibility: Human weaknesses largely determine the course of events in the novel.
Clym is a noble man and would like to serve his fellow human beings by educating them. He is
not a materialistic man. In fact, has forsaken the fashionable life of Paris and returned to Egdon
Heath. We should not expect such a man to be unhappy; but he has his shortcomings. He fails to
perceive Eustacia’s unsuitability as a wife to a man like himself. He is unable to see materialistic
nature of Eustacia and love for worldly gaiety. She warns him that she doesn’t have the makings
of a “good some-spun wife” and his mother emphatically tells him that he would regret his
marriage to Eustacia whom she rightly describes as an “idle, voluptuous woman” but Clym
doesn’t see to these warnings. Having fallen in love with and married Eustacia, fails to keep the
marriage. He also fails to balance between his wife and mother. Both the couples are
incompatible with each other.

Mrs. Yeobright’s responsibility: Mrs. Yeobright, though a respectable matron for whom we feel
great respect, is rigid and obstinate. Being worldly and practical, she is unable to read Clym’s
mind and feels unsympathetic to his humanitarian projects. She objects to her educational plans
and marriage to Eustacia.
Wildeve’s responsibility: Wildeve is the villain of the piece and is the author of much of the
misery that the characters suffer. He is an unscrupulous man, with a shallow nature and shifting
loyalties. He fluctuates between one woman and another, marries one of them but keeps
running after the other. His intimacy towards married Eustacia triggers more crises in the lives of
characters.

Incongruities of the situation: The tragedy in RN results from the incongruities of the situation in
which these characters find themselves. For example, the incongruity of incompatibility between
Clym and Eustacia, she hates Edgon Heath as much as Clym likes it. She like the glamour of Paris
and thinks Heath a hell. Describe the tragic story in brief…

The role of destiny: The responsibility of the characters for their tragedy is obvious. We
repeatedly have a clash of wills and a conflict of purposes between the various persons involved,
each pulling in a different direction. The tragic situation keeps mounting and the characters
reach the limit. We are unable to understand the force working behind their tense and tragic
life. It is destiny which manifests itself in the form of accidents and incidents. It is just when Mrs.
Yeobright has determined to reconcile between the couple that the demon of mischance begins
its game. Mrs. Yeobright’s death is the result of many ironic accidents and coincidences. She
arrives at her son’s house at a time when Wildeve is having an intimate conversation with
Eustacia and when she cannot immediately open the door. Mrs. Yeobright turns back and on her
way back home is bitten by an adder and is killed. Before her death, she tells the boy, Johnny
whom she meets purely by chance that Eustacia had discarded her. Clym has driven out Eustacia;
fate resumes its flippant jests. He writes a letter to her to come back; but the letter miscarries by
a few minutes. Clym, unaware of this, sits in his house waiting for Eustacia to knock. The night is
the worst imaginable. The Heath is beaten by wind and rain. At length, a woman’s footstep is
heard. He feels excited. Thinking it to be Eustacia, he finds Thomasin who breaks the news of
Eustacia’s elopement with Wildeve which ends in drowning. We must remember that almost all
Eustacia’s meetings with Wildeve after her marriage to Clym have been accidental. All these
incidents are responsible for their tragic ends and are supplemented by human weaknesses and
get aggravated.

The Part of Nature and Egdon Heath: In Hardy’s stories, nature is always a personage and this
personage is embodied here in Egdon Heath. Heath is the dark immemorial environment whose
influences control the lives and destinies of those who dwell here. Egdon Heath symbolizes the
whole cosmic order, win which man is but an insignificant particle. Eustacia looks upon Heath as
a great enemy. She regards it as her cross, as her shame and as the potential cause of her death.
Egdon Heath is swept by rain and wind causing death to Eustacia and Wildeve and it also kills
Mrs. Yeobright with its venomous adder from its bosom.

--------------------------------------

The character of Eustacia Vye

The essay is on Eustacia Vye Hardy's wonderful creation in The Return Of the Native. The essay
tries to analyse her critically and sees Hardy's Thoughts Behind her creation.

The Character of Eustacia Vye

The Wessex novels contain a wealth of material so far as the woman characters are concerned.
Hardy shows immense power in the characterization of the woman characters in his novels.
Indeed, it would be quiet right to call Hardy a specialist in women. Deep as is his understanding
of the human nature as a whole, it is in the female personality that he is most learned. In sheer
greatness she stands out with Sue and Tess. She has her affinities with Flaubert's Ema Bovary
and Jane Austen's self deluded young women. She is born passionately romantic at odds with
her environment, though Hardy did not try to depict her with the cruel exactitude of Flaubert.

The memorable Portrait of Eustacia Vye which Hardy builds up in chapter VII of 'The Return Of
The Native' lends to her a certain splendor and glory to which her actions, behaviors and
utterances do not conform. She does not, in the course of Hardy's narrative touch the heights to
which Hardy elevates her in his description of her character and personality in the aforesaid
chapter.

Physically, Eustacia is described as "full limbed and somewhat heavy; without rudiness as
without pallor; and soft to the touch as a cloud". To see her hair is to imagine that a whole
winter does not darkness enough to form its shadow. Her Pagan eyes were full with nocturnal
mysteries. Her mouth seems formed less to speak than to quiver, less to quiver than to kiss.
Someone might have added less to kiss than to curl. So fine are the lines of her lips that, though
full, each corner of her mouth is as clearly cut as the paint of a spear. Her presence brings
memories of such things such as Bourbon Rose, Tropical Midnights and Rubies. Her moods recall
lotus-eaters and the march in "Athalie". Her motion suggests the ebb and flow of the sea and
her voice reminds one of a musical instrument.

Eustacia says Hardy was "the raw material of divinity". Going on to strengthen her dignity, Hardy
continues, "On Olympus she would have done well with a little preparation. She had the
passions and instincts which make a model Goddess, that is those which make not quite a model
woman". Eustacia Has a dignity which is rather unusual in her class. Perhaps this dignity was the
gift of heaven. This "Queen of night" as Hardy calls her seldom scheme, but when she did
scheme her plans and preparations showed rather the comprehensive strategy of a general
rather than those small arts called womanish, though she could utter oracles of Delphian
ambiguity when she did not wish to speak in a straightforward manner. In heaven she would
have got a seat between the Heloises and the Cleopatras. She is likened to the Pagan goddess,
Hectate. Hardy writes, "But celestial imperiousness, love wrath and fervor had proved to be
somewhat thrown away on netherward Egdon. Her power was limited and the consciousness of
this limitation had biased her development. Egdon was her Hades, and since coming there she
had imbibed much of what was dark in its tone thought inwardly and externalyy unreconciled
there to."

Around two contrasting notions(a model goddess and a model woman), Hardy went on with the
characterization of Eustacia in different perspectives and visualized her particularly as an object
of "Vision". George Wotton points out three conflicting moods of perception which form the
basis of the structure of perceptions of Hardy's writings: the distracted gaze signifying the faulty
vision which takes the apparent to be real, the idealizing vision signifying the form of self
reflection and the intuitive insight signifying the social class vision. Based on such a classification
we can find how the perceptions of Eustacia differ in nature. Wildeve's perspective represents
the distracted gaze, for h only regards her as a beautiful woman, a desirable lover and a
compelling object of his sexuality. Hardy concentrated more on how most of the Egdon
Natives(including Mrs Yeobright, Thomasin, Digggroy and the others)view her as an "egregious"
woman. Their perspective should belong to the third category, the intuitive insight. Although few
of the people really know Eustacia they did not hesitate to to form their own ideas regarding her
based on their 'intuition'. She is "the beauty on the hill" to most men,"a proud girl from
Budmouth" and a "voluptuous, idle woman" to mrs Yeobright, a disreputable rival to Thomasin
to Diggory and an evil witch to Susan. No matter how the impressions may differ one point they
all share in common is that Eustacia neither seems to be one of them nor a model woman by any
standard. Eustacia lives in a imagined world like Narcissus. Hardy deployed her own idealizing
vision to reveal her subjective consciousness that is a projective dream of the world around her.

The life she leads on the heath makes us think of her as a beautiful and a tragic woman whose
mind and aspirations are that of a romantic schoolgirl. She always felt lonely on the heath
desiring and pining for the realization of her dreams and wishes. She wanted love and her
concept of love was quite different. Hardy writes "To be loved to madness was her great desire.
Love was to her the one cordial that could drive away the eating loneliness of her days. And she
seemed to long for the abstraction called passionate love more than for any particular lover."
She does not pine for a particular lover; she despairs because she cannot find one lover for
whom she can pine. Fidelity in love for fidelity's sake has less attraction for her the one lover for
whom she can pine. Fidelty in love for fidelty's sake had less attraction for her than most
women. She felt that a blaze of love, even if it got soon extinguished, was better than the dim
lights of a lantern even if it were last for many years. When Wildeve assures Eustacia that he will
never wish to desert her, she replies:

"I do not thank you for that, I should hate it to be all smooth. Indeed, I think I like you to desert
me a little once now and then.. Love is the dismallest thing where the lover is quite honest."

Eustacia's native place was not Egdon but Budmouth, a fasionable sea-side resort at that time.
She came to egdon with her grandfather after the death of her father. Eustacia hated the change
from Budmouth to Egdon, and she felt like a one banished;but here was she forced to live. Much
of her discontentment and unhappiness of her life is due to her life in Egdon. She tell to Wildeve
regarding the heath,"'tis my cross, my shame,and will be the cause of my death". And her words
prove prophetic.

Been ravishingly beautiful she suffers from the fault of valulting pride and vanity. She is fully
aware of her Physical beauties and wants constant acknowledgement of it. For instance , when
Wildeve meets her after having failed to marry Thomasin on the first occasion, Eustacia throws
back the shawl she was wearing and, revealing her face and throat, she asks him with a smile if
he has seen anything better than that in the course of his travels. A little later she tells him that
she had lighted the bonfire in order to test her power over him and o get a little excitement by
summoning him and enjoying a feeling of triumph over him. When the reddleman urges her not
to come between Thomasin and Wildeve, her reply is fully characteristic of her and shows her
pride and vanity. She gives vent to her feelings of jealousy and resentment by saying that
Wildeve was hers before he became Thomasin's and that he likes her (Eustacia) best. "I will not
be beaten down by an inferior woman like her", she says with reference to Thomasin's desire to
marry Wildeve. She becomes almost arrogant towards the reddleman when she says:"but I lose
all self-respect in talking to you".We also learn here that Eustacia does not feel much concerned
about peoples opinion regarding her. She is always on her own.

Eustacia initial interest in Clym is based on the fact that he has tasted the fashionable life of Paris
where she hpes to accompany him in case she gets married with him. However after a closer
association she falls in love with Clym. Eustacia with all her "romantic dreams of heroic love and
social brilliance" marries Clym under the illusion the he will be her gateway to Paris.But she did
not know Clym's mind and the conflict starts. Her dreams gets shattered. She couldn't tolerate
Clym's furze-cutting and his mother and faces a situationthat is beyond her grasp. Regarding her
marriage with Clym she explains passionately to Wildeve: "But do I desire unreasonably much in
wanting what is called life-music, poetry, passion, war and all the beating and pulsing that is
going on in the great arteries of the world? That was the shape of my youthful dream; but I did
not get it. Yet I thought I saw the way to it in my Clym." Her desire is eminently reasonable in
that it reveals her appetite for life;eminently mistaken, in that such an appetite can never be
satisfied in terms of the images of romance provided in 'The lady's history' she read at school.

She bears partially the responsibility of Mrs Yeobright's death. She is not a tricky or a deceitful
woman at any rate but under the influence of Wildeve she fails to reveal to Clym a fact which in
all fairness should have been disclosed. When Clym comes to know all the facts regarding his
mother's death, he naturally demands a ful explanation from her. She tells nothing, leaves him,
and goes straight to her grandfather's house, where she can, "observe herself as a disinterested
spectator, and think what a sport for heaven this woman Eustacis was."

Finally in her desperate attempt to leave the heath, she attempts a desperate flight with her
former lover Wildeve and gets drowned. Hardy never tells us whether Eustacia's death was
accident or suicide, but suicide is the inevitable explanation, since she considers herself trapped
between the intolerable alternatives of staying at Egdon or living with a lover she considers
inferior that herself. She having no money of her own did not like the idea of depending on
Wildeve solely. Through her death Eustacia "eclipsed all her living phases"

From her first appearance in the novel it is quite clear that Eustacia must destroy herself or be
destroyed by the forces to which she will not submit., and throughout there are foreshadowing's
of her inevitable death: her brilliant but wasteful bonfire, her proud isolation, th associations
with darkness and hell, her vexing combination of stubbornness and impulsiveness, her grand
schemes and her impossible dreams. Eustacia is the authors expression of his author's fatalistic
view of life. Eustacia cries, "How I have tried and tried to be a splendid woman and how destiny
has been against me! I donot deserve my lot." Eustacia tries to go against nature and is
destroyed.

A poet of his century, Hardy was deeply influenced by the Romantic movement in poetry,
specifically the Satanic and Promethean themes of Byron, Shelley and Swinburne. His poetic
passion is seen in its full energy in Eustacia. Eustacia is both a rendering of Shelleyan
romanticism, as well as a critique of it. "To put Eustacia into a flattering literary company for a
moment, she has much in common with Milton's Satan if one considers the whole of Paradise
Lost. Both the rebels have awesome energy, independence, limitless desire, and a stubborn
courage to resist their circumstances; in this sense, whether he knew it or not Hardy was of
Eustacia's party. Both rebels are also fanatically arrogant, petty comic egotists, and they have to
be so given their author's views of the romantic rebellion against reality."
"Eustacia is established as a genuine antithesis to the Heath in all its related meanings. Where it
is stoic she is tragic; where it survives, she aspires to burn out with a great passion; where it
ignores time, she likes to stare at the sand running out in her small hourglass; where its botany
and geology all seem tuned to avoid great conflicts, she courts them perversely. The heath
accommodates, eustacia violates. The heath has preeminently adjusted its place in nature,
Eustacia refuses hers in society and delights in flaunting its conventions." Eustacia aspires to the
Dionysian fulfillment of personality. In Eustacia Hardy has presented a character "who is both a
heroine and a parody of the heroine, a Queen of night and a courtly pretender, or alazon who
must be ridiculed by mock-heroic techniques. This romantic heroine is both a goddess and a
mortal walking on stilts playing at divinity"

Eustacia underwent a singular transformation during the novels composition, from a daemonic
sort of female Byron, or a Byronic witch-like creature, to he grandly Beautiful, discontented, and
human-all too human but hardly blameworthy---heroine who may be the most desirable woman
in all nineteenth-century British fiction. "A powerful personality uncurbed by any institutional
attachment or by submission to any objective beliefs; unhampered by any ideas"

------------------------

Sense of Disillusionment of Life in Thomas Hardy's 'The Return of the Native'

Thomas Hardy has a very pessimistic philosophy of life and his characters also suffer from the
disillusionment of their lives. He shows man lives in an indifferent world. The Return of the
Native is based on the assumption that man is destined by God to suffer the overwhelming pain
and suffering which exits in the world.

All the main characters of The Return of the Native namely- Clym, Eustacis, Wildeve, and Mrs
Yeoright have their own aim ambition. But all their plans turn into vain. All of their lives are full
of aim. But they are trapped in a series of bitterly ironic events. They are faced with an
incomprehensible universe.

The protagonist of the novel, Clym at an early age have been sent to Budmouth and from where
he had gone to Paris. In Paris he had placed in trade and he had rise to the position of a manager
of a diamond-merchant’s establishment. He is a boy of whom something is always expected. He
feels that he has to use his services for the people in Egdon Heath. In order to be of some service
to the people, he wants to start a school. His misfortune, semi blindness disables him from
executing the educational project.
In his love affair also he was not successful. Clym is very much attracted by the charm and
beauty of Eustacia. Ignoring his mother’s strong opposition he takes a cottage at Alderworth,
several miles away from Blooms-End. But the utter incompatibility of temperaments had
foredoomed their marriage.

The heroine of the novel, Eustacia was fully aware of the beauty, which nature has bestowed
upon her. She didn’t care about what people may tell about her. She can’t bear the loneliness
that heath has. She says, “Tis my cross, my shame and will be my death”. Eustacia dreamed of a
life in Paris. She hopes that if she marries, Clym he may take her to Paris. She has fascination for
the pompous city life. But Clym on the other hand wants to settle in Edgon. So she had to stay in
Heath. In the later part of the novel she tries to escape from the Edgon Heath with the help of
Wildeve. Coincidentally Clym writes Eustacia a letter begging her to return to him - but he sends
the letter too late. Eustacia does not see the letter before she leaves to flee with Wildeve. If she
had, she might have no die like this.

Mrs Yeobright, the mother of Clym, is a woman of middle age with well-formed feature. She
vehemently opposes the plans of Clym to start a school. She wants Clym to go back in Paris
because there he has a respectable job. She had brought up her with great care and devotion.
She also strongly opposes not to marry Eustacia. She says, “Is it best for you to injure your
prospects for such a voluptuous, idle woman as that?” But nothing could restrict her son from
staying in the Heath or marrying Eustacia.

She was shocked, for example, by the sight off her son dressed as a furze cutter. She could not
believe her eyes. She had thought it was only a diversion or hobby for him.

Again she resolves to reconcile with her son. But she never gets the chance to reconcile with her
son and she dies.

Wildeve

Though Wildeve is depicted as a demon here but still he is also the portrayal of disillusionment.
In the beginning of the novel, Wildeve responses quickly to Eustacia’s signal fire. It is true that he
wishes to marry her. But he could not. And in the later part of the novel he unhesitatingly leaps
into the stream with all his clothes on to try to rescue Eustacia. But in this time also he fails and
dies.

Analyzing all the above discussed characters we can say that man is thus posited to be the
source of the cosmic but the cosmic is considered to be too complex for human understanding.

---------------------------------------------

“The poet in him will make trees as lively as men while the next moment the philosopher in him
will make man as tree.”

Nature is vast engine, run by a wild impulsion, a Will that knows not why it acts. But
Hardy’s essentially religious Nature, craving for something beyond, could not rest without some
approximation of a Divine Artificer, a Source of more divine than what he calls the Immanent
Will which works unconsciously. It is a determinism that manipulates the whole of web of
causation. This determinism is not ethical, it is not even conscious or in any way responsible,
even to itself. It may seem an awesome idea, but where is the tragic conflict when Tess, Jude and
Henchard are reduced to more automate?

Nature is Symbol of Impersonal forces of Fate. Nature is the background against the human
drama as well as actor in the play. Nature is always present, the incarnation of living force with a
will and a purpose of its own, now and again taking an actual part in the story, but more often
standing aloof, the human creatures who struggle on its surface: “Darkness and silence ruled
everywhere around. Above them rose the primeval yews and oaks The Chase, in which there
poised gentle roosting birds in their last nap; and about them stole the hopping rabbits and
hares. But, might some say, where was Tess’s guardian angel? Where was the providence of her
simple faith? Perhaps… he was taking, or he was pursuing, or he was in a journey, or he was
sleeping and not to be awakened.”

The landscape Wessex is always their in his novels, now grimly smiling; now frankly
menacing. It is not wordsworthian benevolent Nature but it’s more malevolent – “it’s come on in
stealthy and measured glides, like the most of a chess- player”. Hardy does not regard Nature as
a kind and generous mother. For Hardy Nature is the agent of cruelty and destruction- no
sympathy for human beings- insensible to the feelings of man.

David Cecil: “however, Hardy’s attitude towards Nature was not wordsworthian. He did not
believe that Nature has any holy plan or healing power. Being influenced by the theory of
evolution he found much in nature that was cruel and antagonistic to man.”

Nature has been used in several capacities by Hardy in his novels. The influence on Nature
on humanity has been presented in different ways. Nature influences the moods and action of
Hardy’s human characters. In the most his Nature scenes, Hardy presents an emotional
connection between Nature and human being. Sometimes Nature is affected by human
emotions, and sometimes man is affected by Nature’s feelings. In Tess, we see a change in
Nature’s feeling in accordance with the emotional change in Tess’s life. With the progressive
wreck of Tess’s happiness, there is also symbolic change in the climate and atmosphere of the
place where she goes, from the secluded vale of Black moor to the silent vale of the great
dairies, the bleak land of Flint comb-Ash and at last the temple of Stonehenge. The Nature is one
aspect of fate, like chance, accidents, and coincidences.

Nature in all its forms becomes a protagonist in his work. Hardy saw nature as a sentient
force with a definite personality; by allowing his characters to interact with nature in his fictional
countryside of Wessex (the counties of Berkshire, Hampshire, Wiltshire, Dorset, Somerset and
Devon), Hardy is able to add to his fiction a great sense of drama and a profound vision of man in
harmony with the natural world. It has been noted that "Hardy instinctively unites nature and
man, making the external setting a kind of sharer in the human fate" (Howe; 23) and that he
writes so that "the landscape takes its place as an actor in the drama of human life" (CH; 413).
Perhaps no other writer, living or dead had such an understanding of nature and at the same
time possessed the writing skill and emotional depth to capture and convey this world in print.

Man-Nature conflict in Hardy's novel works in different ways, at different levels of narrative
and character. It is associated with Hardy's tragic vision of life which owes a lot to determinism
and especially the Greek tragic model of antiquity. It is man's conflict with fate or destiny
almighty that comes across through the presence of nature--an indifferent if not domineering
and hostile universe, in which man is 'un accommodated'.

The conflict is also related with a Darwinian view where the Christian faith struggles with the
theory of evolution. What Hardy merges with the Darwinian nature is the post-lapserian myth of
nature as in Christian theology.

In the novel, Egdon Heath, in all its agency and autonomy is a representation of Hardy's
natural world. It demands absolute subjugation and if its domination is countered, it hits back, as
with Mrs. Yeobright, Clym and Eustacia. Surrender would lead to survival in nature's terms as we
see with the likes of Venn and Thomasine.

Hardy also presents to us the conflict between the human will to change the natural and the
resistance to change in nature. This is in a way, the clash between antiquity and civilization,
between nature and culture.

-----------------------------------------

Thomas Hardy’s Treatment of Nature: His Originality

1. His Landscape painting.

Hardy’s Love of Nature: Provincial and Local

Hardy’s love of nature is extremely provincial and local. Born and bred in that tract of South
England which he called Wessex, he loved it all his life with the glow of a lover. He was
permeated with its sights and sounds, with its odour and substances.

Hills, dales, heaths, rivers, meadows and woodlands of Wessex appear and reappear in one
novel after another, and constitute at least one half of the charm of his works. He has intimate
familiarity with his beloved Wessex and renders it with great fidelity. It is not only a scenic
background to his stories, but is almost on over-character dominating the course of action. In
The Return of the Native, for example, Egdon Heath is a super-character casting a shadow over
the lives of all the characters and influencing the course of their lives at critical moments. It is
seldom that he strays out of Wessex, and whenever he does so he makes a sorry hash of it. He is
never at his best when out of Wessex.
Does Not Spiritualise Nature

Moreover, in his love of Nature there is nothing mystic or transcendental as in that of

Wordsworth. Though he habitually personifies nature-objects, he never believed that nature has
a separate life, a soul, of her own. He loves nature for her beauty, and not for any mystic
qualities that she might have. He does not worship her as a kind and benevolent goddess,
watching benignly over those whose souls are in harmony with her own soul. He is too much of
a realist to care for such romantic nonsense.

His Love of Nature: Comprehensive and Unconventional

But in another respect, his love of nature is more comprehensive and thorough than that of any
of the romantics. He loves and enjoys the conventional beauty of nature. The beauty of moonlit
glades, hills and dales, the arrival of spring when a thousand flowers bloom and birds make
sweet melody, the murmuring of rivers, the beauty of the sunset and the daydawn, all fire his
soul, move him to ecstasy and inspire him to poetic descriptions. Beautiful nature passages, that
bear eloquent testimony to his love of conventional nature, are scattered all up and down his
works. But he also finds beauty of a new kind in such desolate wastes as Egdon Heath. He finds
haggard Egdon sublime and majestic and vexes lyrical in praise of its grandeur. In Tess of the
D’urbervilles, he finds an unconventional beauty of a tragic tone in desolate, forlorn tract of land
called Cross in Hand. He has a special love for the bleak and barren, for the wild and the stormy.
His love of the beauteous forms of nature, as well as of her uglier aspects, makes nature
alternately lovely and sinister in his works.

Love of Rustics and the Lower Creatures

Thomas Hardy loves not only the scenes and sights of nature but also those who live in her
midst. His characters are all drawn from among those who live and work in the lap of nature. His
best characters are hay-trussers, dairymaids and men, woodcutters, furze-cutters, etc. He loves
simple, elemental natures and portrays them with great effectiveness. Not only does he love the,
“natural man”, but also the lower creatures of nature, the humble breathren of man in nature’s
teeming family. He is one of the greatest animal lovers in English Literature. At every step in his
works, he displays a close familiarity with their ways and habits. Some of his animal portraits —
as the sheep dogs of Gabriel Oak —are among the immortal figures of literature. Whenever he
sees an animal in suffering his heart goes out to it. His best characters are all born
humanitarians. They are all great animal lovers. Tess, for example, never could bear to hurt a fly
or a worm and the sight of a bird in a cage used often to make her cry. When she finds some
pheasants suffering death agony, she is moved to tears and puts them out of their misery.

Awareness of the Faults of Nature

Thomas Hardy is both a poet and a scientist. As a poet, he loves the beauty of nature, but as a
scientist he does not ignore her faults. He is conscious of the ephemeral nature of her beautiful
shows. He enjoys the sweet music of birds, but also knows that it is short lived. The rose may be
beautiful but it has a thorn which pricks the chin of his beautiful Tess. He knows that the serpent
also hisses where the sweet birds sing. He gives us both the sides of the picture — the ugly as
well as the beautiful, the bright as well as the dark. He portrays nature completely.

Nature Red in Tooth and Claw

Contemporary science has also made him aware of the brutal struggle for existence that goes on
everywhere within the apparent calm of nature. He finds nature rich with rapine, red in tooth
and claw. Life lives upon life, the strong prey upon the weak, and he comes to the sorry
conclusion that mutual butchery is the law of nature. There is no harmony in nature, but
everywhere there is an internecine warfare. In disgust he turns from nature to his own kind, for
there at least he finds “Life loyalties”.

Nature Indifferent to Human Lot

Unlike Wordsworth, he fails to find any, “Holy plan” at work in nature. How can one talk of a holy
plan of nature when there is lawlessness and warfare everywhere within her and when children
after children are born to shiftess parents like the Durbeyfields ? Why does nature bring out
innocent children into this world, when she cannot provide for them? Nature is not benevolent
or kind, but rather she is indifferent to human lot. Nature’s indifference is again and again
emphasised in the works of Hardy. Thus, Nature remains indifferent as’ the chastity of Tess is
violated in her lap. She remains indifferent to this heinous crime and does nothing to protect her.
Though the life of Tess has been ruined, but everything in nature goes on as usual. As hot anger
burns in the heart of Hardy at the spectacle of Tess’ suffering, he goes to the extent of calling
nature, “shameful”, “cruel”, and “treacherous”. It is nature’s indifference which makes life a,
“strange orchestra of victim shriek and pain “.

Nature Not a Suitable Norm: One Exception

Hardy does not consider nature a suitable norm for human conduct. To follow her would be to
ape her own brutality and lawlessness. He finds nature’s teachings vile and sinister. There is no
question of nature being our teacher or of our receiving from her both, “law and impulse.” But
he makes one notable exception. He advocates that our marriage laws should be based on the
laws of nature, and an illegal surrender, at least when it is the result of force and treachery as in
the case of Tess, should not be regarded with disfavour, because it is not looked down upon in
nature. Thus Tess is a pure woman, for she has broken no law known to nature but only a social
law.

Hardy as a Landscape-Painter

Hardy’s keen powers of observation and word painting make him a notable landscape-painter. “If
word-pictures could be hung on walls”, says Duffin, “Hardy’s nature pieces would fill up an entire
gallery.” Hardy’s nature descriptions are fresh and accurate. They are not bookish, but based on
first hand observation of the facts and phenomena of nature. He observes everything, nothing
escapes his eye, but he selects only those details as are likely to serve his purpose. Thus in his
nature descriptions he combines imagination with realism, fact with fiction. By the careful
selection and ordering of material he hightens the significant aspects of a scene and renders it
with greater effectiveness.

Methods of Landscape Painting

This makes Hardy a notable landscape-painter. His methods of landscape painting are like those
of a director of a modern movie. First, he gives us the broad outlines of a scene, and then moves
the camera forward and gives us the details of the landscape. This combination of the methods
of Wordsworth and Crabbe is best seen in the description of the valley of the ; Great Daires. As
Tess arrives there, we are first given the bird’s eye perspective of the scene and then the details.
We are first told that the air was clear, ethereal and bracing, and that the waters of the river
were clear and rapid. As Tess approaches nearer, we are even shown the large-veined udders of
the cows that, ‘hung ponderous as the sand-bags, the teats sticking out like the legs of a gipsy’s
crock; and, as each animal lingered for its turn to arrive, the milk fell in drops to the ground.’ A
similar method has been employed in painting the Vale of Blackmoor.

In certain respects Thomas Hardy has an advantage over the painter, who paints with the brush.
A painter of landscapes can paint only what he sees; Thomas Hardy gives us also what he hears.
Thus he even describes the sound of the juice running in the vein of plants and the stir of
germination in all nature, with the coming of spring. The varied, whispering sound made by
heath bells and heard by Eustacia is the classic example of Hardy’s powers of hearing sounds of
nature, and of rendering them into words. Another thing : Hardyi shows us things in motion
which a painter of landscapes with the brush cannot do. There is nothing static in Hardy’s
landscapes. He shows things growing, moving and becoming different from what they are. Thus
the change in the moods and aspects of Egdon Heath is carefully noted and described.

Hardy’s Landscapes: Subject to Human Moods

Hardy’s landscapes are always subjected to human moods and situations. Thus the landscape in
Tess changes according to the fate of the heroine. As a happy, innocent maiden, we find her
dancing happily on the village green. The scenic background (landscape) is idyllic. Then she rallys
and passes some of the happiest days of her life at Talbothays. The landscape is beautiful,
refreshing, in keeping with the happy love of Tess and Clare. As a deserted wife, we find her on
the bleak and barren Flintcomb Ash farm. The nature-background is desolate and barren like her
own life.

His Landscapes: Vast and Majestic

Contemporary science has revealed to Hardy the vastness of nature both in time and space.
Hardy’s landscapes rest on geology. Even history and pre-history are invoked to cast over the
land of Wessex a romantic glow. All Wessex is rich in historic associations. It abounds with relies
of the past. Thus we are told that the Vale of Blackmoor is a historic district. The traces of its
earlier conditions are to be fcund even now in the oak copses and irregular belts of timber that
yet survive. The sky is then brought in to lend a touch of grandeur and majesty to the landscape.
Human figures are then introduced and their insignificance in scheme of things is pointed out. In
this way, Hardy constantly belittles humanity. We would quote only one example from Tess of
the D’urbervilles to illustrate the point :

“Every leaf of the vegetable having previously been consumed, the whole field was in colour a
desolate drab : it was a complexion without features, as if a face, from chin to brow, should be
only an expanse of skin. The sky wore in another colour, the same likeness, a white vacuity of
countenance with the lineaments gone. So these two upper and neither visages confronted each
other all day long, the white face looking down on the brown face, and the brown face looking
up at the white face without anything standing between them, but the two girls crawling over
the surface of the fonner, like flies.”

A similar accuracy and vividness marks his painting of the storm scene in the Far From the
Madding Crowd, and his description of Edgon Heath, a desolate waste, in The Return of the
Native. “Norcombe Hill by Night” remains the most glorious example of Hardy’s nature-painting
by night. Even the sky and the stars are brought in to add majesty and splendour to the scene.
Thomas Hardy is at his best when painting scenes of desolation or describing weather at its
worst.

Hardy’s Nature-Treatment: Revolutionary

Thus Thomas Hardy’s treatment of nature marks a complete break from the romantic tradition.
It is as great a revolt as that of the romantics themselves against the nature-treatment of Pope
and his school.

-------------------------------------

The Pessimism of Thomas Hardy

Is Hardy a Pessimist?

Much ink has been spilt in proving, and disproving too, that Hardy is a pessimist through and
through. But Hardy himself repeatedly denied this charge in his prefaces, letters and diaries. He
called himself an “evolutionary meliorist” and a realist. Let us here examine the arguments, both
for and against, and then from our own conclusions.

Arguments of Hardy’s Critics

Those who charge Hardy with being a pessimist do so on account of his ‘twilight’ or gloomy view
of life. They point out that in Hardy’s considered view all life is suffering. Suffering is the
universal law and happiness is but an occasional episode. In one of his poems, “Tire Poet’s
Epitaph”, he calls life a “senseless school” and in another one that “Life offers only to deny.” In
hide the Obscure a child, called Father Time, murders his step brothers and sisters and then
hangs himself. He does so because he feels that life is not worth living, and it is better not to
have been born at all. Hardy himself adds the comment that Father Time symbolises the coming
universal wish not to live.

Hardy Pessimistic about the First Cause

Moreover, Hardy’s critics point out, he is pessimistic about the governance of the world. He
rejected early in life the Christian belief in a benevolent and omnipotent anthropomorhic God or
First Cause. He rather conceives of Him as malevolent, as one who take delight in the suffering of
us mortals. In Tess we are told, “Justice was done, and the President of the immortals had ended
this sport with Tess.”

In one of his poems he speaks of the Creator as, “Godhead dying downwards, with eyes and
head all gone” and elsewhere refers to it as some “vast imbecility”. Thus in his view ‘the supreme
power is blind, imbecile and malevolent and it takes joy in killing and torturing his innocent
creation. In this ill-conceived scheme of things, with an hostile imbecility as the supreme
governing force, there can be nothing but, “strange orchestra of victim shriek and pain.” If this is
not pessimism, ask the critics of Hardy, then what is?

Hardy’s Own Point of View

But Hardy vehemently denied this charge, times out of number. He pointed out that he was an
artist and not a philosopher. It would be wrong to read any considered belief or theory of life in
his mood-dictated writings. Expressions, like the one in Tess, regarding the President of the
immortals, were simply poetic fancies, merely poetic devices like the use of ghosts, witches,
fairies, etc., commonly used in all imaginative literature. Poems like “The Poet’s Epitaph” were
merely impressions of the moment and did not represent his considered view. He should not be
judged by them. In his letters, diaries and prefaces he frequently explained his own point of view
and called himself an, “evolutionary meliorist”, or an “explorer of reality.”

Hardy a Realist and Not Pessimist

The fact is that Hardy was a thorough realist. Born and bred in a scientific age, he could not shut
his eyes to the fact of suffering. Therefore, the cheap, blind optimism of poets, like Browning,
who sang,

“God is in His heaven

All is right with the world.”

failed to satisfy him. Rather, the brutal and ruthless struggle for existence which he saw being
waged in Nature everywhere, the starvation, hunger, sickness and disease which stalks the earth,
made him feel that God was not in heaven and all was wrong with the world. He claimed, and
rightly, that his position was nearer the truth. Nor could he agree with the Romantic poets, like
Wordsworth, who said that Nature had a “Holy plan” and that there was joy everywhere in
Nature. How could it be so, when number of children were born to shiftless parents, like the
Durbeyfields, to bring misery to themselves and to others. The world was already over crowded,
there were already too many hungry mouth to be fed. Acutely conscious of this fact of universal
suffering, he felt with his own Jude that mutual butchery was the law of nature. This is not
pessimism, but realism. This state of affairs can be mended not by turning our backs to it, but by
facing it squarely. He therefore taught :

“If a way to the better there be

It implies a good look at the worst.”

This is a perfectly sane and healthy view of life and no rightminded person can object to it.

Hardy’s View of the First Cause: Scientific

As regards the creation and the Creator, Hardy was much influenced by the scientific theories of
his age. He agreed with evolutionary scientists, like Darwin, that the universe could not have
been created out of nothing by a single act of creation. It was in a constant process of evolution.
With all modern thinkers, he lost faith in the benevolent, anthropomorphic God of Christian
orthodoxy and conceived of the First Cause as an inhering force or energy, working constantly
from within. Thus Hardy’s universe is in a constant state of evolution. He conceives of this energy
as indifferent and unconscious, without any hostility or any sense of pleasure in causing pain.
This is his considered view. But when carried away by his indignation, he shakes his fist at the
cause of things and personifies it as a conscious and hostile Creator. For example, with
indignation burning in his heart at the unmerited suffering of Tess, he calls the First Cause as the
President of the Immortals who kill us for their sport. He may be excused for inch poetic’fancies,
for they have been made use of by all poets and writers of fiction. They do not reflect in any way
this logical position.

Ultimate Enlightenment of the First Cause

Moreover, he believes that this energy or power would gradually evolve consciousness and then
human lot would undergo amelioration. Towards the end of his epic-drama, The Dynasts, his
most philosophical work, he holds out a hope of the gradual emergence of a better order of
things. In this drama, he calls the First Cause, Immanent Will, and says that already,

“….. a sound of joyance thrills the air,

Consciousness the will informing

Till it fashion all things fair,

And the rages of the ages shall be mended.”

This is certainly not pessimism. It may be what Hardy called, “evolutionary meliorism.”

Philosophy of Resignation, Not of Nihilism

Besides this, Hardy is not a Nihilist. Except in his last novel Jude the Obscure, he never advocates
a rejection of life. Suffering, no doubt, is the universal law but human lot can be ameliorated a
great deal through tact and wisdom and through wise social reform. It is a philosophy of
resignation which he teaches. The Wessex rustics are resigned to their lot and suffer patiently.
Joan Durbeyfield’s suffering is not so intense, because when faced with misfortune she again and
again mutters, “It was to be”, and then goes about her way as usual. Elizabeth-Jane and
Thomasin tactfully adjust themselves to their circumstances and so escape much misery.

Emphasis on Wise Social Reform

Social reforms can go a long way towards ameliorating human lot. Marriage laws, specially,
should be liberalised in favour of the fair sex. ‘Pure’ women, like Tess, who are more sinned
against than sinning, should not be looked down upon and treated as outcasts. Our double
standards of morality must go. A marriage should be dissolved as soon as it becomes a cruelty to
either of the two contracting parties, for it is then no marriage at all.

Hardy’s View of Man

Moreover, Hardy does not take a degarded view of mankind. Odious villains, detestable and
condemnable rascals, are few in the Wessex Novels and none of them is an unredeemed villain.
Thomas Hardy cannot draw completely odious people. David Cecil writes in this connection,
“Odiousness implies meanness; and mean people neither feel deeply nor are aware of any issues
larger than those involved in the gratification of their selfish desires.” If Hardy tries to draw such
a mean person, he is a dreadful failure. It does not mean that all his successful creations are
virtuous. Henchard and Eustacia commit sins, but they do so in a grand manner. There is no
calculated selfishness in them. Moreover, they know they are wrong : they are torn with
conscience. They are simply carried away by an over-mastering passion. Therefore, we do not
dislike them. Mankind for Hardy always assumes heroic proportions. The Wessex Novels are the,
“apotheosis of the human spirit”, and not expositions of its meanness.

Hardy a Humanist, and Not a Pessimist

The spirit of, “Loving-kindness”, Hardy advocates, should he the basis of all human relations.
Much of human misery results from the imperfections of the First Cause, but much more
suffering can be avoided if we are kind and sympathetic to each other. Instead of seeking refuge
in nature and turning our back on life, we should rather turn to our own kind, for,

“There at least discourse trills around,

There at least smiles abound,

There sometimes are found,

Life-Loyalties.”

A poet who could write like this cannot be called a pessimist. Thomas Hardy is a ‘humanist” or
what he called himself an, “Evolutionary meliorist.”

To Sum Up

1. There has been hot controversy as to whether Hardy is a pessimist or not.

2. Those who consider him a pessimist point out :

(a) In his view all life is suffering and happiness is only an occasional interlude.

(b) The ruling power is blind, unconscious of human suffering and lacking in moral sense. Its
activity is purposeless.

3. Hardy considered himself a realist and an evolutionary meliorist. He believed that,

(a) If a way to the better there is, it requires a good look at the worst.

(b) The rulling power would be gradually enlightened with the passing of time.

(c) Human lot can be improved by tactful and adjustment to one’s. circumstance, by wise
social reform and “loving-kindness.”

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Thomas Hardy’s art of plot-construction in Return of the Native

By admin On In English Literature, Literature, Thomas Hardy Tagged art of plot-construction,

Return of the Native, Thomas Hardy

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Thomas HardySymmetry and unity: The plots in the novels of Hardy show a remarkable unity
and symmetry. Hardy’s training as an architect seems to have greatly influenced his art in the
construction of his plots. The RETURN OF THE NATIVE has a plot which admirably built and
constructed. The plot largely follows the logic of cause and effect (even though chance too plays
its part) and it is free from any superfluities and digressions. The plot is well-knit and the various
love-stories are interwoven. The setting of the story, namely Egdon Heath remains the same, is a
great unity. In observing the unities, this novel has the stamp of ancient classical tragedy.

A Typical Hardy-tragedy: RETURN OF THE NATIVE is quite typical of Hardy’s peculiar genius and
fully illustrates Hardy’s view of tragedy. In considering any tragic work, whether it takes the form
of a play or a novel, we have to ask the following questions: (1) What sort of persons are the
victims of suffering? (2) What are the causes of the disaster or catastrophe that engulfs them?
(3) What is the emotional reaction of the audience or the readers to the suffering depicted and
what is the nature of the impact that the spectacle of human misery makes on them? (4) What is
the writer’s view of human nature in general (be it good or bad)? The NR answers all the
questions. (discuss the background of the novel and the characters).

The causes of disaster in a tragedy. The clash of human wills and purposes: as previously studied.

The working of fate, incidents and the hostility of nature: as previously studied.

The emotional impact: The tragic scenes in the novel are very powerful indeed. Hardy’s
description of the circumstances in which Mrs. Yeobright dies is intensely moving. The effect of
her death on Clym’s mind and the haunting sense of guilt which he experiences is also touching.
The death of Eustacia, whether accidental or suicidal, create powerful impact on our minds. The
descriptions of tragic happenings give rise to a wide range of emotions in our hearts – pity, fear,
terror, awe, admiration etc. A “Catharsis” of the feelings of pity and fear is certainly effected, if
by “Catharsis” we mean simply a feeling of relief achieved though an intense experience of the
twin feelings of pity and fear.

The essentials of the plot: The pictorial opening of the novel is famous. It introduces Egdon
Heath, which has been regarded as one of the principal characters in the novel. After dealing
with the Heath, Hardy introduces human characters. The first to appear is Eustacia Vye who is
disgruntled with life and is entangled in a secret love-affair with the local inn-keeper, Wildeve.
Thomasin and Middleman essential to the story: The main plot namely the growth of love
between Clym and Eustacia, their marriage, the conjugal unhappiness of the two and the
drowning tragedy follows a logical course, despite certain flaws. (Describe their love-affair and
the role of these two characters in the main story.

The role of Egdon Heath: as previously studied

Dramatic Scenes: describe Mrs. Yeobright’s haste towards Thomasin’s marriage, her death, the
Reddleman’s sudden appearance at the game of dice between Cantle and Wildeve, the bitter
quarrel between Eustacia and Mrs. Yeobright are all the dramatic senses.

Faults and Lapses: The plot construction, however, is not perfect. It suffers from several flaws.
Some of the devices used by Hardy are rather crude and some of the incidents and accidents are
quite unconvincing that a shrewd woman like Mrs., Yeobright could have trusted a simpleton like
Christian Cantle with a considerable sum of money. It is hard to believe that luck, at the game of
dice, should first favor Wildeve and then the reddleman. The whole visit of Mrs. Yeobright to her
son’s home is quite unconvincing. Another feature of the novel which could be termed as a fault
is the numerous comments that Hardy makes in the course of the narrative. These comments
are uncalled for and irrelevant.

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Hardy’s skill in plot-construction in the Novel: Its merits and demerits

The plot of the return of the Native has all the characteristic features of a typical Hardy-plot. For
one thing, the plot is old fashioned. It is based on the conventional love-triangle i.e., two women
loving one man or one man loving two women. The plot is made up of two love stories which are
closely inter-linked to form a single whole. The two stories cross each other at several places.
Indeed, in this novel, as C. Duffin points out, there is not merely a love-triangle but a rhomboid
(a four cornered figure) with a tale. Clym and Wildeve both love Eustacia, and Wildeve and the
Reddlcman both love Thomasin. Thus the love situation is more complicated than in the other
novels of Hardy. The reddleman plays a significant role in both the stories and is an important
connecting link.

We get in the novel the conventional villain and the conventional lover, faithful and devoted,
ready to help the object of love even at the cost of his own happiness. Wildeve is the villain of
the piece, and reddleman is the faithful lover, helping his beloved, unknown and unseen, and
ultimately winning her love by his devotion and sincerity. The end of the Thomasin-reddleman
love story is conventional. The villain is ultimately defeated, and the lovers are happily married.

The plot of the novel is dramatic. There is nothing superfluous in it. The story moves straight,
without any digressions and side issues to the catastrophe. It is a novel constructed in scenes. As
a building rises brick by brick, so also the plot of the novel is constructed scene by scene, each
scene carrying the story a step forward towards the Catestrophe. The story opens with the
masterly description of Egdon Heath, then there is the bonfire scene to be soon followed by the
poetic description of Eustacia standing alone on the Rainbarrow. Wildeve and the reddleman
gambling by the light of the glow-worms, the journey of Mrs. Yeobright across the heath,
Wildeve and Eustacia dancing in the moonlight, etc., are some other memorable scenes in the
novel.

The novel is also dramatic in the sense that there is much in it that is sensational, thrilling, and
melodramatic. Indeed, this is one of the criticism brought against the novel. Wildeve is the
conventional villain of a melodrama, well-dressed and handsome, making love to two women at
one and the same time, ultimately eloping with one of them and deserting the other, and
meeting his death by drowning. There are broken marriages, impersonations, casting of magic
spells, etc., all lifted directly from a melodrama. The various tricks which the reddleman employs
to frighten Wildeve arc melodramatic. Indeed, critic after critic has commented on the Jack-in-
the box effect produced by his mysterious and sudden appearances at unexpected places.

Another fault of the plot of the novel, is the excessive use made of chance and coincidence. The
Catastrophe in a novel must be inevitable and natural. It must follow logically from the events
that have gone before. But in Tlie Return of the Native excessive role is assigned to chance; too
much depends upon chance events. Chance events like Clym’s murmuring in his sleep, “mother’,
just when Mrs. Yeobright knocks at the door, the chance delay of Clym’s letter of reconciliation to
Eustacia, are only two instances out of many. The result is that the plot of the novel looks
artificial and unnatural.

Another fault of the plot is its double-ending. Wildeve-Eustacia story has a violent end, and the
Catastrophe is terrible. It is tragedy “wrought to the uttermost”. Some say it is too depressing
and pessimistic. Reddleman Thomasin story, on the other hand, has a happy end, and ll has been
said that it weakens the tragic intensity of the main plot. However, we cannot agree with such
views. By showing Thomasin and reddleman happy and contented at the end, the novelist has
introduced a note of meliorism in the novel. In this way, he has shown that some limited
happiness is possible even in this sorry life of ours, only, like Thomasin, we should have patience,
prudence, and forbearance. Thus the happy end enables the novelist to present his view of life
faithfully and truthfully. The double-ending is not a fault, but a great artistic merit.