In Book 1, Chapter 2, Thomas Hardy employs both a simile and several instances of sensory language to depict Captain Vye, Eustacia's grandfather, walking along the road to Egdon:
Along the road walked an old man. He was white-headed as a mountain, bowed in the shoulders, and faded in general aspect. He wore a glazed hat, an ancient boat-cloak, and shoes; his brass buttons bearing an anchor upon their face. In his hand was a silver-headed walking-stick, which he used as a veritable third leg, perseveringly dotting the ground with its point at every few inches interval.
Hardy's use of simile in this passage aligns the Captain with the natural world. Although he's an elderly man of average size, Hardy describes him as being as "white-headed as a mountain." This visual imagery of snow and cragginess suggests not just his advanced years, but his enduring presence. He is old and has had many experiences that have "bowed" and bent him.
What's more, the Captain's walking stick serves as a "veritable third leg," further emphasizing his old age. The visual imagery of the scene conjures an image of the man as a collection of old, worn, but still functional things. He is "perseverin[g]" in all aspects. The implied auditory imagery of the stick tapping—"dotting" the ground—adds a subtly rhythmic quality to the scene, capturing the Captain's slow, steady pace.
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.
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 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 5, Chapter 1, Hardy employs hyperbolic language, tactile imagery, and a simile of disease to convey Eustacia's profound guilt and shame at keeping secrets from Clym:
There escaped from Eustacia one of those shivering sighs which used to shake her like a pestilent blast. She had not yet told.
In the aftermath of Mrs. Yeobright's death, Eustacia grapples with overwhelming guilt and the weight of untold truths. The tactile imagery of the "shivering sigh" that Hardy uses here evokes a chilly breeze for the reader. This sensory language highlights the emotional impact that keeping secrets has had on Eustacia. Instead of telling Clym the truth, she can only "shiver" and "sigh." The “pestilence” in the sigh also signifies the deep-rooted remorse that Eustacia lives with. Using a simile to compare the sigh to a "pestilent blast" invokes the idea of disease (since the word "pestilence" refers to fatal and widespread diseases like the bubonic plague), suggesting that Eustacia's guilt has infected her and can't be cured until she has "told."
The exaggerated imagery and similes emphasize the magnitude of her emotional burden: guilt is not actually a disease, but to her it feels like one. Hardy employs this hyperbolic language to underline the depth of Eustacia's guilt and shame. In this passage, she feels a sense of overwhelming remorse that weighs heavily upon her and “shivers” through her.
In this piece of dialogue from Book 5, Chapter 2, Hardy conveys the heartbreaking dramatic irony of Clym Yeobright's confusion and grief about his mother. He does so using visual imagery, pathos, and a simile of imprisonment:
‘If there was one thing wanting to bewilder me it was this incomprehensible thing!… Diggory, if we, who remain alive, were only allowed to hold conversation with the dead—just once, a bare minute, even through a screen of iron bars, as with persons in prison—what we might learn! How many who now ride smiling would hide their heads!
In this scene, Clym is talking to Diggory Venn about his longing to communicate with his deceased mother. He is hurt and confused about his situation due to conflicting evidence and misinformation. Dramatic irony plays a significant role in this passage, as the reader is aware that Clym would not be pleased with the truth if he were to uncover it. This irony adds depth to Clym's desire to communicate with his mother and to get to the bottom of things. It's also another reference to the theme of Clym's failing "sight," as he can't see the whole of the situation no matter what he tries.
Hardy employs the visual language of imprisonment when Clym describes a "screen of iron bars" separating the living from the dead. This vivid image emphasizes the stark physical separation between the two realms. However, it also signals the imagined possibility of messages passing between the living and the dead “through” the bars. With this image, Hardy also refers to the emotional and spiritual boundaries that prevent Clym from achieving the connections he seeks.
Hardy also uses a simile to strengthen the sense of separation between the living and the dead, comparing the dead to "persons in prison." This comparison heightens the emotional impact of the passage, emphasizing how trapped Clym feels by his circumstances. The author appeals strongly to the readers’ sense of pathos in this scene, as Clym's yearning to communicate with his mother—and Mrs Yeobright's recent, unhappy demise itself—makes them feel pity and regret.
