In his work, Jude the Obscure, Thomas Hardy tells the tale of two people hopelessly in love, fighting against both internal and external conflicts to pursue that love and have some semblance of a normal life together. Set in England in the late...

In her book Towards a Recognition of Androgyny, Carolyn Heilbrum defines androgyny as "a condition under which the characteristics of the sexes, and the human impulses expressed by men and women, are not rigidly assigned (Heilbrum 10). In Thomas...

Intrigue, murder, and suicide -- by all accounts, Thomas Hardy's Jude the Obscure was a complete and terrible shock to the religiously conservative readers of the late nineteenth century, and this is exactly what he intended. These were, after...

In Far from the Madding Crowd, Thomas Hardy uses nature to influence the actions of his shepherd and shepherdess protagonists, Bathsheba Everdene and Gabriel Oak, in two separate episodes involving rain storms. The conflict of Hardy’s Far from the...

Cormac McCarthy, the author of No Country for Old Men, said about the purpose of human existence, “The point is there ain’t no point.” This nihilistic outlook on life became common long before McCarthy's time. The highly industrial and...

In Thomas Hardy's The Mayor of Casterbridge, Susan Henchard’s innate dependence on men displays itself in multiple ways and instances. However, the most notable is when Susan reunites with Michael Henchard in Casterbridge after 18 years of...

In Far from the Madding Crowd, Thomas Hardy uses nature to influence the actions of his shepherd and shepherdess protagonists, Bathsheba Everdene and Gabriel Oak, in two separate episodes involving rain storms. The conflict of Hardy’s Far from the...

The question of fate is one that has been posed by human beings throughout the ages. Are our lives determined by that which is “bound” to happen, or is it simply by random chance? Thomas Hardy addresses this question in his poem “Hap,” which...

Death has been a prominent theme across literature, with its countless interpretations showcasing the diverse ways it has influenced different authors. Thomas Hardy's novel The Mayor of Casterbridge is described by Hardy as "The life and death of...

Early in The Mayor of Casterbridge, Thomas Hardy provides a lucid examination of some of the personal weaknesses of his protagonist, and of the sad ironies that these failings yield. Michael Henchard’s use of alcohol to escape the reality of his...

The Return of the Native, by Thomas Hardy, begins with personification of a majestic heath, the setting for this novel: "The face of the heath by its mere complexion added half an hour to evening; it could... retard the dawn, sadden noon,...

The Victorian novel often focuses on prominent, relevant issues of the time during which it is written. These issues can range from class, ambition, and gender to love, sexuality, and desire. Authors of the Victorian era delivered insight on these...

In his novel The Return of the Native, Thomas Hardy creates an unreliable world of misconceptions and coincidences by paralleling the setting of Egdon Heath to reality, as perceived through human nature, to convey his theme. Throughout the novel,...

John Gardner once said that there are only two types of stories: someone leaving home or a stranger coming into town; The Return of the Native meets both of these in a way. Eustacia wishes to leave, while Clym returns, but seems to be almost a...

"Hardy summons into us a graphic dimension, and then, apparently without realizing the danger in doing so, he allows another Eustacia to enter his novel. This Eustacia emerges, through a consistent patter of speech and action as a creature unfit...

In Thomas Hardy’s The Return of the Native, the heath is essentially treated as a character, albeit an extremely powerful one. Like the other characters, it loves possessively and without regard to the feelings of others. It competes with Ms....

In Thomas Hardy’s The Return of the Native, the main character Clym Yeobright seems to disappoint everyone he loves upon his arrival home to Egdon Heath from Paris. His refusal to continue to lead the life he had previously been living in Paris is...

Throughout the Victorian era people began to question societal norms. This time period is well known for its patriarchal society and the oppression of women through political, economic, social, and religious constructs. However, the role and...

The theme of ‘otherness’ is prominent throughout the opening chapters of Wuthering Heights by Emily Brontë. Otherness can be interpreted as the exclusion of one party or the act of being dissimilar. This being the case, the opposite to this would...

In Thomas Hardy’s novel Tess of the d'Urbervilles, past events in Tess’s life affect how she views herself and her world, Hardy uses motifs and foreshadowing to express how one’s life is merely a product of fate. Therefore Tess’s experiences are...

"All works of fiction tell a story but what sets them apart is the particular way in which the story is told". Discuss the narrative technique of Hardy in Tess of the D'Urbervilles and what this method enables hardy to achieve.

The narrative...

When wilt thou awake, O Mother, wake and see

As one who, held in trance, has laboured long

By vacant rote and prepossession strong

The coils that thou hast wrought unwittingly;

Wherein have place, unrealized by thee,

Fair growths, foul cankers, right...

In his novel Tess of the d'Ubervilles, as well as much of his poetry, Thomas Hardy expresses his dissatisfaction, weariness, and an overwhelming sense of injustice at the cruelty of our universal Fate disappointment and disillusionment. Hardy...

Thomas Hardy, in Tess of the D'Urbervilles, takes great pains to relate the characters to their surroundings, especially in the parallelism between Tess' emotional disposition and her physical environment. It is not surprising, therefore, that the...