In Book 1, Chapter 1, Hardy paints a vivid picture of Egdon Heath using metaphors of architecture and detailed visual imagery of the sky touching the earth:
Overhead the hollow stretch of whitish cloud shutting out the sky was as a tent which had the whole heath for its floor. The heaven being spread with this pallid screen, the earth with the darkest vegetation, their meeting-line at the horizon was clearly marked. In such contrast the heath wore the appearance of an instalment of night which had taken up its place before its astronomical hour was come: darkness had to a great extent arrived hereon, while day stood distinct in the sky.
The metaphor of the clouds as a "tent" over the heath emphasizes the moorland's dominance over the sky. Rather than being underneath it in a way that implies inferiority, the sky actually shelters it. Hardy’s visual language underscores the stark contrast between the darkness of the heath and the brightness of the sky, as they come together in a “meeting-line” that is “clearly marked.” Indeed, the heath actually always looks as if it's already nighttime, although "day stood distinct in the sky." This contrast between earth and sky reinforces the heath’s alignment with darkness. In these descriptions, Hardy is suggesting—even before any major characters are introduced—that while powerful and majestic, Egdon Heath is in some ways a profoundly unpleasant place.
In Book 1, Chapter 1 of The Return of the Native, the narrator utilizes metaphors comparing Egdon Heath to time to depict the expanse and significance of the moorland. This is underscored with powerful visual imagery. Describing twilight falling on the heath, Hardy writes that:
The distant rims of the world and of the moor seemed to be a division in time no less than a division in matter.
In this passage, Hardy engages a metaphor comparing the landscape of the heath to the idea of time. This suggests that the heath is not merely a physical location, but rather an entity so vast and influential that it extends beyond its physical boundaries. It’s so big, Hardy implies, that it has its own space-time.
The phrase "distant rims" creates a visual image of boundless space and planetary enormity, evoking the impression that the heath could actually be its own world. This highlights the magnitude of the heath in the narrative as a whole. It’s not just the primary setting for the novel: the landscape has a directly negative effect on the behavior of many characters for much of the book. All of this points to the fact that Egdon Heath is more than just a backdrop for the events of The Return of The Native. It plays a crucial role in shaping the lives and destinies of the characters, and it's so important that it actually affects time and space. By portraying it as an expansive and timeless entity, Hardy underscores the heath's critical role in the unfolding drama and establishes its symbolic significance within the narrative.
In Book 1, Chapter 3, Hardy uses metaphors of clothing and contrasting visual imagery to create a vivid, primitive scene as the first bonfires are lit on Guy Fawkes night in Egdon:
The first tall flame from Blackbarrow sprang into the sky, attracting all eyes that had been fixed on the distant conflagrations back to their own attempt in the same kind. The cheerful blaze streaked the inner surface of the human circle—now increased by other stragglers, male and female—with its own gold livery, and even overlaid the dark turf around with a lively luminousness, which softened off into obscurity where the barrow rounded downwards out of sight.
The metaphor of the flame's "gold livery" presents the bonfire as if it is a splendid coat (a "livery" is a uniform worn by officials or servants). This language emphasizes the richness of the scene’s colors and the warmth of the fire. The stark visual contrast between the darkness of barrow and moor and the light of the flame intensifies the festive atmosphere, making it feel both primal and almost ritualistic.
As Hardy later mentions, this scene evokes the "ashes of the first British pyre," suggesting a connection to ancient, primal rituals. This connection underscores the novel's exploration of the enduring influence of the past on the present. When bonfires recur later in the text, images of caves, hunts, and wounds accompany them, further evoking the prehistoric.
The limited reach of the flame Hardy describes here also highlights the isolation of Egdon from the wider world. Despite the intensity of the fire and its effect on the surroundings, its circle of light and the humanity it illuminates remains a small, enclosed ring within the blackness of the heath.
The recurring motif of bonfires in this novel represents passion, secrecy, danger, and the primal instincts of the characters. Bonfires are bright, intense, and have an inherent potential for destruction. Hardy depicts them in lavish detail, employing visual imagery, metaphors, and similes when describing them and the events they point toward. The vivid visual language associated with fire creates a strong impression on the reader. For example, in this passage from Book 1, Chapter 3, Hardy describes a night-time scene on the heath as the Guy Fawkes Night bonfires are set ablaze:
Red suns and tufts of fire one by one began to arise, flecking the whole country round. They were the bonfires of other parishes and hamlets that were engaged in the same sort of commemoration. Some were distant, and stood in a dense atmosphere, so that bundles of pale straw-like beams radiated around them in the shape of a fan. Some were large and near, glowing scarlet-red from the shade, like wounds in a black hide. [...] These tinctured the silent bosom of the clouds above them and lit up their ephemeral caves, which seemed thenceforth to become scalding caldrons.
All of the visual imagery in this passage invokes a starkly contrasted picture of black night and glowing red flame. The bonfires are so intense that they even tint or “tincture” the “caves” of the clouds in the sky, overtaking the entire scene. Hardy evokes the primal with this metaphor of the clouds as "caves." The denizens of the heath have, in a sense, reverted to an ancient state of shelter and flame. The bonfires are also made to seem like an inherent part of the scenery. They sprout from the ground and the sky organically like “red suns and tufts of fire.” Although they've been made by humans, they are also a natural part of the heath's visual landscape.
Hardy furthers this description with the use of visual language in two similes. The fires make the interior of the clouds seem like “scalding caldrons,” and the nearby ones are so bright that they slash through the night like “wounds in a black hide.” The scale of the scene is enormous, as it stretches from “distant” villages to the “bosom” of the sky. The bonfires, which happen regularly throughout the novel, mirror the passionate, often destructive relationships among the characters. They "wound" and "scald" the night as Hardy's characters wound and scald one another.
Hardy associates bonfires in particular with the affair between Eustacia and Wildeve. This pair signal each other for their secret meetings with these fires. The darkness of the heath, the heat of the flames, and the nature of their love affair all become tangled up in this web of images, metaphors and similes. All is hot, dark, primal, and painful in this relationship. For example, in Book 1, Chapter 6, Wildeve and Eustacia meet by a fire:
‘I have come,’ said the man, who was no other than Wildeve. ‘You give me no peace. Why do you not leave me alone? I have seen your bonfire all the evening.’ The words were not without emotion, and retained their level tone as if by a careful equipoise between imminent extremes.
Eustacia and Wildeve cannot help but seek one another out. Wildeve can have “no peace” when Eustacia is around, even though he knows their relationship is immoral. The danger of the bonfire—which always threatens to spread and damage its surroundings—is reflected in this pairing.
The recurring motif of bonfires in this novel represents passion, secrecy, danger, and the primal instincts of the characters. Bonfires are bright, intense, and have an inherent potential for destruction. Hardy depicts them in lavish detail, employing visual imagery, metaphors, and similes when describing them and the events they point toward. The vivid visual language associated with fire creates a strong impression on the reader. For example, in this passage from Book 1, Chapter 3, Hardy describes a night-time scene on the heath as the Guy Fawkes Night bonfires are set ablaze:
Red suns and tufts of fire one by one began to arise, flecking the whole country round. They were the bonfires of other parishes and hamlets that were engaged in the same sort of commemoration. Some were distant, and stood in a dense atmosphere, so that bundles of pale straw-like beams radiated around them in the shape of a fan. Some were large and near, glowing scarlet-red from the shade, like wounds in a black hide. [...] These tinctured the silent bosom of the clouds above them and lit up their ephemeral caves, which seemed thenceforth to become scalding caldrons.
All of the visual imagery in this passage invokes a starkly contrasted picture of black night and glowing red flame. The bonfires are so intense that they even tint or “tincture” the “caves” of the clouds in the sky, overtaking the entire scene. Hardy evokes the primal with this metaphor of the clouds as "caves." The denizens of the heath have, in a sense, reverted to an ancient state of shelter and flame. The bonfires are also made to seem like an inherent part of the scenery. They sprout from the ground and the sky organically like “red suns and tufts of fire.” Although they've been made by humans, they are also a natural part of the heath's visual landscape.
Hardy furthers this description with the use of visual language in two similes. The fires make the interior of the clouds seem like “scalding caldrons,” and the nearby ones are so bright that they slash through the night like “wounds in a black hide.” The scale of the scene is enormous, as it stretches from “distant” villages to the “bosom” of the sky. The bonfires, which happen regularly throughout the novel, mirror the passionate, often destructive relationships among the characters. They "wound" and "scald" the night as Hardy's characters wound and scald one another.
Hardy associates bonfires in particular with the affair between Eustacia and Wildeve. This pair signal each other for their secret meetings with these fires. The darkness of the heath, the heat of the flames, and the nature of their love affair all become tangled up in this web of images, metaphors and similes. All is hot, dark, primal, and painful in this relationship. For example, in Book 1, Chapter 6, Wildeve and Eustacia meet by a fire:
‘I have come,’ said the man, who was no other than Wildeve. ‘You give me no peace. Why do you not leave me alone? I have seen your bonfire all the evening.’ The words were not without emotion, and retained their level tone as if by a careful equipoise between imminent extremes.
Eustacia and Wildeve cannot help but seek one another out. Wildeve can have “no peace” when Eustacia is around, even though he knows their relationship is immoral. The danger of the bonfire—which always threatens to spread and damage its surroundings—is reflected in this pairing.
In The Return of the Native, Thomas Hardy paints vivid character portraits of two starkly different women, Eustacia Vye and Thomasin Yeobright. These characters are foils for each other, each emphasizing the traits of the other through their contrasting natures. Their differences are apparent not only in their characters, but also in the imagery and metaphors Hardy uses to describe them physically. Describing Eustacia in Book 1, Chapter 7, Hardy writes:
Eustacia Vye was the raw material of a divinity. 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. [...] There would have been the same inequality of lot, the same heaping up of favours here, of contumely there, the same generosity before justice, the same perpetual dilemmas, the same captious alternation of caresses and blows as we endure now. She was in person full-limbed and somewhat heavy; without ruddiness, as without pallor; and soft to the touch as a cloud.
Eustacia is the embodiment of ambition, absolutely driven by her desire for change. She's depicted as almost divine, with “passions and instincts” more like a goddess than a normal woman. Physically, she's described as “full-limbed” and “heavy”, while still being “soft as a cloud.” This creates a disconcerting conflict when a reader tries to picture her: she is at once ethereal and heavy, “full-limbed” and “soft.” This confusion in her appearance reflects the perplexities in her character. Although she's romantic and quite loving, she’s also self-centered, ambitious, and is always looking for a way to better her situation.
Eustacia's ambitious and restive nature contrasts sharply with Thomasin's contentment and adherence to tradition. Thomasin's physical descriptions only further emphasize the opposition in their characters. When Hardy is describing her in Book 2 Chapter 8, he writes:
The sun, where it could catch it, made a mirror of Thomasin's hair, which she always wore braided. It was braided according to a calendric system: the more important the day the more numerous the strands in the braid. On ordinary working-days she braided it in threes; on ordinary Sundays in fours; at May-polings, gipsyings, and the like she braided it in fives. Years ago she had said that when she married she would braid it in sevens. It was braided in sevens today.
Thomasin, as this passage outlines, is the epitome of stability and tradition. Hardy uses a metaphor to describe the innocent visual image of her hair shining in the sun, which "makes a mirror" out of it. This smooth hair, carefully braided according to the “importance” of the day, reflects her orderly, predictable nature. Hardy even repeats the word "braided" twice, emphasizing her alignment with routine and repetition. She's loyal, kindhearted, and grounded, representing the conventional values of her community in Egdon Heath. Whereas Eustacia is aligned with "clouds" and "goddesses," Thomasin is described in the terms of the cycles of the earth. Eustacia is exciting and unpredictable, whereas even Thomasin's hairstyle follows a calendar.
Eustacia Vye is linked to the imagery of flames, fire and heat throughout the novel. This motif—and the metaphors and similes of fire Hardy uses when it occurs—refers to her inflammatory character. It also gestures to her passionate nature and her tendency to act destructively when out of control. In Book 1, Chapter 7, the narrator comments that:
Assuming that the souls of men and women were visible essences, you could fancy the colour of Eustacia’s soul to be flame-like. The sparks from it that rose into her dark pupils gave the same impression.
The tactile and visual imagery of Eustacia's soul being "flame-like," hot enough to send sparks rising "into her pupils" reinforces the association of her personality with heat. As opposed to other female characters in the novel, Eustacia often publicly expresses anger and discontent. This "heat" is apparently visible in her personal appearance, as well as in her words. Later in Book 1, this image of Eustacia being internally aflame reappears:
‘Ah, my life!’ said Eustacia, with a laugh which unclosed her lips, so that the sun shone into her mouth as into a tulip, and lent it a similar scarlet fire.
The simile in this passage compares the sun shining into Eustacia's mouth to sunlight breaking through the thin petals of a tulip. Both images evoke delicacy and vivacity for the reader. Like a flame, she's pure energy, but like a tulip, she's fragile. Even when Eustacia is a flower, she's still a fire. This description also emphasizes Eustacia's natural beauty and sensuality. Tulips are often associated with sexual love, which aligns with Eustacia's sensual nature.
It is not just her personal "fire" that Hardy focuses on, however. The other motif with which Eustacia is often linked is that of bonfires. Her affair with Damon Wildeve is delineated by clandestine meetings at night around open flames. Eustacia's association with fire, especially given this, is also a subversion of the "darkness" Hardy ascribes to her. She is a character made up of contrasts, like a bonfire burning on the heath—she is firelight and darkness.
In Book 1, Chapter 7, Hardy employs allusions, imagery, metaphors, and similes to help the narrative introduce Eustacia Vye. All this hyperbolic language gives an intense and somewhat mocking introduction to her physical beauty:
Her presence brought memories of Bourbon roses, rubies, tropical midnights, and eclipses of the sun; her moods recalled lotus-eaters, the march in ‘Athalie;' her motions, the ebb and flow of the sea; her voice, the viola. In a dim light, and with a slight rearrangement of her hair, her general figure might have stood for that of either of the higher female deities. The new moon behind her head, an old helmet upon it, a diadem of accidental dewdrops round her brow, would have been adjuncts sufficient to strike the note of Artemis, Athena, or Hera respectively [...]
The author uses the metaphor of a viola to describe Eustacia's voice, implying that it is sweet and melancholy. He also refers to her motions as “the ebb and flow of the sea,” a metaphor implying that she is graceful and rhythmic in her movements. The allusion to the "Lotus-Eaters," a poem by Alfred, Lord Tennyson, characterizes her as a pleasure-seeker. This sets an early tone for Eustacia’s character development in the novel.
The passage is crammed with sensory imagery—tactile, visual, olfactory, and auditory—that evokes the exotic and the fabulous. Hardy compares Eustacia's presence to that of “Bourbon roses, rubies, tropical midnights, and eclipses of the sun,” all images of rare, precious and expensive things. Many of these images also evoke more than one sense: for example, the “Bourbon roses” make the reader think of floral perfume, soft petals, and attractive, densely-folded blooms. Eustacia’s description by Hardy here is ridiculously hyperbolic, especially as it goes on for a good deal longer than this passage does. The description, the author implies, has as much to do with how Eustacia sees herself as anything else. The narrator is poking fun at her with the overblown language of this description.
In the following passage from Book 1, Chapter 7, Hardy establishes the motif of darkness, which becomes a regular occurrence in The Return of the Native. The narrator employs dark visual imagery and several metaphors and similes referencing darkness to underscore Eustacia Vye's inner turmoil:
Egdon was her Hades, and since coming there she had imbibed much of what was dark in its tone, though inwardly and eternally unreconciled thereto. Her appearance accorded well with this smouldering rebelliousness, and the shady splendour of her beauty was the real surface of the sad and stifled warmth within her.
In this passage, Hardy utilizes the metaphor of Hades—the underworld in Greek mythology—to depict Egdon Heath as a hellish place for Eustacia. The dark imagery used to describe Egdon Heath reflects its effect on Eustacia, as she is "stifled" and "shady" within it. The dark "tone" of the place, which she has "imbibed," refers to the drama, secrets, and danger associated with the heath. The "shady splendour" of Eustacia's beauty likens her visually to the moorland, which is both beautiful and frightening in its darkness.
The motif of darkness also appears in Book 1, Chapter 8. Hardy's narrator further explores the link between darkness and the moor's menacing aspects as Johnny Nunsuch walks home alone at night:
The thorn-bushes which arose in his path from time to time were less satisfactory, for they whistled gloomily, and had a ghastly habit after dark of putting on the shapes of jumping madmen, sprawling giants, and hideous cripples.
In this passage, the tactile and auditory imagery of the heath being filled with "thorn-bushes" and "whistling gloomily" serves to illustrate its eerie, perilous nature. Darkness is linked to the theme of mixed communications and deception in this novel: things not being as they seem in the night is a physical manifestation of this. This sensory language of darkness emanating from the heath itself is also consistent with its effect on Eustacia. There's a sense that the heath is a bad influence on some of those who live on it, "darkening" their lives.
Finally, in Book 4, Chapter 1, Hardy extends the motif of darkness to the cycles of natural life on the moor. He uses a simile to liken the cycles of the year on Egdon Heath to the periods within a day:
It was the one season of the year, and the one weather of the season, in which the heath was gorgeous. This flowering period represented the second or noontide division in the cycle of those superficial changes which alone were possible here; it followed the green or young-fern period, representing the morn, and preceded the brown period, when the heath-bells and ferns would wear the russet tinges of evening; to be in turn displaced by the dark hue of the winter period, representing night.
Here, the "dark hue" of winter refers to both the "dark" season of the year and the darkening of each evening. Hardy describes the natural cycles of life on the moor through visual imagery of blooming and rotting. This makes the moor seem as if it is the central, controlling aspect of life for Hardy's characters, both their clock and their calendar. The moor's darkness is never far away. Even in the "flowering period" of summer, any move away from darkness is "superficial" and temporary.
In the following passage from Book 1, Chapter 7, Hardy establishes the motif of darkness, which becomes a regular occurrence in The Return of the Native. The narrator employs dark visual imagery and several metaphors and similes referencing darkness to underscore Eustacia Vye's inner turmoil:
Egdon was her Hades, and since coming there she had imbibed much of what was dark in its tone, though inwardly and eternally unreconciled thereto. Her appearance accorded well with this smouldering rebelliousness, and the shady splendour of her beauty was the real surface of the sad and stifled warmth within her.
In this passage, Hardy utilizes the metaphor of Hades—the underworld in Greek mythology—to depict Egdon Heath as a hellish place for Eustacia. The dark imagery used to describe Egdon Heath reflects its effect on Eustacia, as she is "stifled" and "shady" within it. The dark "tone" of the place, which she has "imbibed," refers to the drama, secrets, and danger associated with the heath. The "shady splendour" of Eustacia's beauty likens her visually to the moorland, which is both beautiful and frightening in its darkness.
The motif of darkness also appears in Book 1, Chapter 8. Hardy's narrator further explores the link between darkness and the moor's menacing aspects as Johnny Nunsuch walks home alone at night:
The thorn-bushes which arose in his path from time to time were less satisfactory, for they whistled gloomily, and had a ghastly habit after dark of putting on the shapes of jumping madmen, sprawling giants, and hideous cripples.
In this passage, the tactile and auditory imagery of the heath being filled with "thorn-bushes" and "whistling gloomily" serves to illustrate its eerie, perilous nature. Darkness is linked to the theme of mixed communications and deception in this novel: things not being as they seem in the night is a physical manifestation of this. This sensory language of darkness emanating from the heath itself is also consistent with its effect on Eustacia. There's a sense that the heath is a bad influence on some of those who live on it, "darkening" their lives.
Finally, in Book 4, Chapter 1, Hardy extends the motif of darkness to the cycles of natural life on the moor. He uses a simile to liken the cycles of the year on Egdon Heath to the periods within a day:
It was the one season of the year, and the one weather of the season, in which the heath was gorgeous. This flowering period represented the second or noontide division in the cycle of those superficial changes which alone were possible here; it followed the green or young-fern period, representing the morn, and preceded the brown period, when the heath-bells and ferns would wear the russet tinges of evening; to be in turn displaced by the dark hue of the winter period, representing night.
Here, the "dark hue" of winter refers to both the "dark" season of the year and the darkening of each evening. Hardy describes the natural cycles of life on the moor through visual imagery of blooming and rotting. This makes the moor seem as if it is the central, controlling aspect of life for Hardy's characters, both their clock and their calendar. The moor's darkness is never far away. Even in the "flowering period" of summer, any move away from darkness is "superficial" and temporary.
Eustacia Vye is linked to the imagery of flames, fire and heat throughout the novel. This motif—and the metaphors and similes of fire Hardy uses when it occurs—refers to her inflammatory character. It also gestures to her passionate nature and her tendency to act destructively when out of control. In Book 1, Chapter 7, the narrator comments that:
Assuming that the souls of men and women were visible essences, you could fancy the colour of Eustacia’s soul to be flame-like. The sparks from it that rose into her dark pupils gave the same impression.
The tactile and visual imagery of Eustacia's soul being "flame-like," hot enough to send sparks rising "into her pupils" reinforces the association of her personality with heat. As opposed to other female characters in the novel, Eustacia often publicly expresses anger and discontent. This "heat" is apparently visible in her personal appearance, as well as in her words. Later in Book 1, this image of Eustacia being internally aflame reappears:
‘Ah, my life!’ said Eustacia, with a laugh which unclosed her lips, so that the sun shone into her mouth as into a tulip, and lent it a similar scarlet fire.
The simile in this passage compares the sun shining into Eustacia's mouth to sunlight breaking through the thin petals of a tulip. Both images evoke delicacy and vivacity for the reader. Like a flame, she's pure energy, but like a tulip, she's fragile. Even when Eustacia is a flower, she's still a fire. This description also emphasizes Eustacia's natural beauty and sensuality. Tulips are often associated with sexual love, which aligns with Eustacia's sensual nature.
It is not just her personal "fire" that Hardy focuses on, however. The other motif with which Eustacia is often linked is that of bonfires. Her affair with Damon Wildeve is delineated by clandestine meetings at night around open flames. Eustacia's association with fire, especially given this, is also a subversion of the "darkness" Hardy ascribes to her. She is a character made up of contrasts, like a bonfire burning on the heath—she is firelight and darkness.
In Book 2, Chapter 6, Hardy utilizes rich visual and tactile imagery, a metaphor of Paradise, and similes describing protection to depict the inviting scene of an Egdon Christmas party. His description of the “settle,” a type of wooden bench traditionally placed by the fire, offers a sense of warmth and safety. This is juxtaposed with the harsh conditions outside, as the narrator relates:
At the other side of the chimney stood the settle, which is the necessary supplement to a fire so open that nothing less than a strong breeze will carry up the smoke. It is, to the hearths of old-fashioned cavernous fireplaces, what the east belt of trees is to the exposed country estate, or the north wall to the garden. Outside the settle candles gutter, locks of hair wave, young women shiver, and old men sneeze. Inside is Paradise.
Through Hardy's rich tactile and visual imagery in this passage, the settle is painted as a protective and comforting element in the room. It provides shelter from the smoke of the fire and the noise of the outside world. The vivid sensory details of the world outside the party are as unpleasant as the settle is lovely: “candles gutter, locks of hair wave, young women shiver, and old men sneeze.” Inside the settle is warm and pleasant, but the outside world is cold and cruel. The metaphor of the settle as “Paradise” furthers the idea of it as a haven of warmth and safety. Using this metaphor, Hardy transforms a mundane household object into a symbol of comfort and security. It’s not just a place to sit: in Egdon Heath, the settle is “Paradise.”
As if this were insufficient, Hardy also employs two similes to further emphasize the benefits of the settle. The narrator compares the settle to the “east belt of trees” on an estate and to the “north wall of a garden.” These comparisons suggest the settle's function as a protector" it shelters people, in the way that trees shield an estate from harsh eastern winds or a north wall provides a buffer against cold gusts for a garden.
In The Return of the Native, Thomas Hardy paints vivid character portraits of two starkly different women, Eustacia Vye and Thomasin Yeobright. These characters are foils for each other, each emphasizing the traits of the other through their contrasting natures. Their differences are apparent not only in their characters, but also in the imagery and metaphors Hardy uses to describe them physically. Describing Eustacia in Book 1, Chapter 7, Hardy writes:
Eustacia Vye was the raw material of a divinity. 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. [...] There would have been the same inequality of lot, the same heaping up of favours here, of contumely there, the same generosity before justice, the same perpetual dilemmas, the same captious alternation of caresses and blows as we endure now. She was in person full-limbed and somewhat heavy; without ruddiness, as without pallor; and soft to the touch as a cloud.
Eustacia is the embodiment of ambition, absolutely driven by her desire for change. She's depicted as almost divine, with “passions and instincts” more like a goddess than a normal woman. Physically, she's described as “full-limbed” and “heavy”, while still being “soft as a cloud.” This creates a disconcerting conflict when a reader tries to picture her: she is at once ethereal and heavy, “full-limbed” and “soft.” This confusion in her appearance reflects the perplexities in her character. Although she's romantic and quite loving, she’s also self-centered, ambitious, and is always looking for a way to better her situation.
Eustacia's ambitious and restive nature contrasts sharply with Thomasin's contentment and adherence to tradition. Thomasin's physical descriptions only further emphasize the opposition in their characters. When Hardy is describing her in Book 2 Chapter 8, he writes:
The sun, where it could catch it, made a mirror of Thomasin's hair, which she always wore braided. It was braided according to a calendric system: the more important the day the more numerous the strands in the braid. On ordinary working-days she braided it in threes; on ordinary Sundays in fours; at May-polings, gipsyings, and the like she braided it in fives. Years ago she had said that when she married she would braid it in sevens. It was braided in sevens today.
Thomasin, as this passage outlines, is the epitome of stability and tradition. Hardy uses a metaphor to describe the innocent visual image of her hair shining in the sun, which "makes a mirror" out of it. This smooth hair, carefully braided according to the “importance” of the day, reflects her orderly, predictable nature. Hardy even repeats the word "braided" twice, emphasizing her alignment with routine and repetition. She's loyal, kindhearted, and grounded, representing the conventional values of her community in Egdon Heath. Whereas Eustacia is aligned with "clouds" and "goddesses," Thomasin is described in the terms of the cycles of the earth. Eustacia is exciting and unpredictable, whereas even Thomasin's hairstyle follows a calendar.
In this passage from Book 3, Chapter 3, Hardy describes an important encounter of Clym's with Eustacia. The author uses visual imagery, a metaphor of sharpness and foreshadowing to hint at the complexity and pain that will characterize their relationship:
The lowest beams of the winter sun threw the shadow of the house over the palings, across the grass margin of the heath, and far up the vale, where the chimney outlines and those of the surrounding tree-tops stretched forth in long dark prongs.
The imagery of the winter sun casting long, cold shadows across the landscape underscores the notion of an impending change in Clym's life. The scenery of his childhood, once familiar and comforting, is now transformed into something sinister and foreboding. The house's shadow is thrown “over the palings” and into the heath. This reflects the influence of Eustacia on his perception of the world around him and also invokes the heath’s aura of danger and darkness. This change in Clym's landscape foreshadows the difficulties and challenges that his marriage will bring.
The visual and tactile imagery of the contrast between the "cold" light of the sun and the dark, menacing "prongs" of the trees and chimneys adds to the ominous atmosphere. The metaphor Hardy uses here aligns with his previous description of Egdon in Book 1 as Eustacia’s “Hades.” Now that Clym is associated with her, his childhood home also takes on the visual imagery of horns and pitchforks. Furthermore, the use of the word "prongs" suggests danger and sharpness, further emphasizing the harm that's approaching because of Clym and Eustacia's impending marriage. Now she's in his life, even Clym's home is "cold," "dark," and unsafe.
In the following passage from Book 1, Chapter 7, Hardy establishes the motif of darkness, which becomes a regular occurrence in The Return of the Native. The narrator employs dark visual imagery and several metaphors and similes referencing darkness to underscore Eustacia Vye's inner turmoil:
Egdon was her Hades, and since coming there she had imbibed much of what was dark in its tone, though inwardly and eternally unreconciled thereto. Her appearance accorded well with this smouldering rebelliousness, and the shady splendour of her beauty was the real surface of the sad and stifled warmth within her.
In this passage, Hardy utilizes the metaphor of Hades—the underworld in Greek mythology—to depict Egdon Heath as a hellish place for Eustacia. The dark imagery used to describe Egdon Heath reflects its effect on Eustacia, as she is "stifled" and "shady" within it. The dark "tone" of the place, which she has "imbibed," refers to the drama, secrets, and danger associated with the heath. The "shady splendour" of Eustacia's beauty likens her visually to the moorland, which is both beautiful and frightening in its darkness.
The motif of darkness also appears in Book 1, Chapter 8. Hardy's narrator further explores the link between darkness and the moor's menacing aspects as Johnny Nunsuch walks home alone at night:
The thorn-bushes which arose in his path from time to time were less satisfactory, for they whistled gloomily, and had a ghastly habit after dark of putting on the shapes of jumping madmen, sprawling giants, and hideous cripples.
In this passage, the tactile and auditory imagery of the heath being filled with "thorn-bushes" and "whistling gloomily" serves to illustrate its eerie, perilous nature. Darkness is linked to the theme of mixed communications and deception in this novel: things not being as they seem in the night is a physical manifestation of this. This sensory language of darkness emanating from the heath itself is also consistent with its effect on Eustacia. There's a sense that the heath is a bad influence on some of those who live on it, "darkening" their lives.
Finally, in Book 4, Chapter 1, Hardy extends the motif of darkness to the cycles of natural life on the moor. He uses a simile to liken the cycles of the year on Egdon Heath to the periods within a day:
It was the one season of the year, and the one weather of the season, in which the heath was gorgeous. This flowering period represented the second or noontide division in the cycle of those superficial changes which alone were possible here; it followed the green or young-fern period, representing the morn, and preceded the brown period, when the heath-bells and ferns would wear the russet tinges of evening; to be in turn displaced by the dark hue of the winter period, representing night.
Here, the "dark hue" of winter refers to both the "dark" season of the year and the darkening of each evening. Hardy describes the natural cycles of life on the moor through visual imagery of blooming and rotting. This makes the moor seem as if it is the central, controlling aspect of life for Hardy's characters, both their clock and their calendar. The moor's darkness is never far away. Even in the "flowering period" of summer, any move away from darkness is "superficial" and temporary.
In this passage from Book 4, Chapter 2, Eustacia and Clym have a candid conversation about the deterioration of their marriage, foreshadowing its demise. Hardy employs a metaphor of temperature change and a related idiom to convey the shifting dynamics between these characters:
‘[..] How cold you seem this afternoon! and yet I used to think there never was a warmer heart than yours.’
‘Yes, I fear we are cooling—I see it as well as you,’ she sighed mournfully.
‘And how madly we loved two months ago! You were never tired of contemplating me, nor I of contemplating you. [...]
The metaphor Hardy uses here revolves around the imagery of warmth and coolness. Eustacia remarks on Clym's apparent coldness toward her, stating, "How cold you seem this afternoon! and yet I used to think there never was a warmer heart than yours." The metaphorical use of "warm" signifies the affectionate and passionate feelings Eustacia and Clym used to share, while "cool" refers to his apparent loss of interest. This metaphor of “cooling” is doubly significant in Eustacia’s case, as she’s often aligned with burning and fire in The Return of the Native. Given this, her love “cooling” is more of a drastic change than it would be for others. Eustacia's admission of "cooling" foreshadows the fast descent that follows this encounter.
The use of the word “cooling” also has an idiomatic meaning in this passage. It situates the interaction in its 19th-century moment. In Victorian English, "cooling" was a commonly used euphemism to indicate the waning of physical desire between lovers. Eustacia and Clym's emotional intimacy has clearly diminished, but this idiom also implies that their sexual chemistry has also begun to falter and fade away.
In Book 5, Chapter 7 of The Return of the Native, Thomas Hardy explores Eustacia's inner turmoil about being unable to flee from Egdon. This turmoil is dramatized in the novel using a self-pitying monologue that employs hyperbolic language and metaphors of crushing weight to portray her sense of frustration and despair:
"I must drag on next year as I have dragged on this year, and the year after that as before. How I have tried and tried to be a splendid woman, and how destiny has been against me!… I do not deserve my lot!’ she cried in a frenzy of bitter revolt. ‘O the cruelty of putting me into this imperfect, ill-conceived world! [...] I have been injured and blighted and crushed by things beyond my control! O how hard it is of Heaven to devise such tortures for me, who have done no harm to Heaven at all!’"
The metaphors in Eustacia's outburst—being "injured," "blighted," and "crushed"—make her internal struggles to be a “splendid woman” feel more tangible. They are like physical weights she must carry. It's as if her disappointments and thwarted ambitions are concrete burdens, dragging her down and holding her back. Fate seems to be dragging her backward rather than pushing her forward: “destiny” is “against her.”
Eustacia's dissatisfaction with her life in Egdon Heath, her distrust of Damon Wildeve’s real intentions, and her thwarted aspirations all highlight the tension between her desires and the reality of her situation. Although some aspects of her plight are made to seem sympathetic to the reader, the hyperbolic language in this speech also reflects her penchant for dramatics. Eustacia sees herself as a tragic and “torture[d]” figure, and she cannot fathom that her situation has anything to do with her own moral choices. Hardy’s use of hyperbole here reinforces Eustacia’s short-sightedness and her sense of self-importance.
