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Book 1, Chapter 7
Explanation and Analysis—Eustacia and Thomasin:
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.
Related Themes:
Book 2, Chapter 8
Explanation and Analysis—Eustacia and Thomasin:
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:
Unlock with LitCharts A+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.
Related Themes:
