So what’s so great about this novel? Well, it's worth
reading because it actually shows readers how intertwined the Man vs. Wild
survival guide and the romantic advice column really are. In this novel, human
relationships aren't divorced from the realities of the natural world. We often
ignore nature and the wider world around us, but Hardy makes us acutely aware
of how things like nature, history, and communities have a direct impact on
individuals.
Yet, some readers feel differently and many criticisms have
been given regarding the novel.
In John Patersons’ modern criticism of Return of the Native, Paterson makes the claim that the book,
overall, can be seen as an anti-Christian document. He argues that Eustacia Vye’s character is
beyond the typical classifications of good and evil and her “high gods are
William the Conqueror, Strafford, and Napoleon…she sides with the philistines
and admires Pontius Pilate” (Hardy 65).
Paterson goes on further to assert that “The antichristian bias of the
novel is first of all apparent in its celebration of Eustacia Vye. For as a symbolic character, Eustacia belongs
to a world that has not yet been touched by the spectral hand of Christianty” (Hardy
441). So is there more to this
survivalist/love story like Paterson believes?
I believe there is. I mean, at
the end of the novel, Clym Yeobright becomes a preacher, and earlier in the
novel, Hardy refers to this character as, “a John the Baptist who took
ennoblement rather than repentance for his text” (Hardy 147). The character of Christian Cantle openly
condemns Christianity and as Paterson writes, “Christian constitutes, as his
name would suggest, the caricature of the Christian man…Christian functions
most clearly as a satire on Christianity” (Hardy 452). Was Hardy merely using this book and his
fictional characters to voice his own opinions and beliefs? Considering the author left his Christian
roots and devoted himself to some Unconscious Will, I definitely think Paterson
is accurate in his assertions.
D. H. Lawrence wrote a modern criticism on “The Study of
Thomas Hardy” and in it, declared that in The Return of the Native, “none
of the heroes and heroines care very much for money, or immediate
self-preservation, and all of them are struggling hard to come into being. What exactly the struggle into being consists
in, is the question…the first and chiefest factor is the struggle into love and
the struggle with love…” (Hardy 418). I’d
have to agree with Lawrence that money isn’t a fixated about topic in the
novel, but I would add that Eustacia (and maybe throw in Wildeve) are probably
the characters who are most concerned about money, for they have high
expectations and clearly want the best for they feel they deserve no less
(which is why they should’ve just stayed together and spared everyone else
their problems). One of Lawrence’s
remarks I find to be interesting, when states that, “The via media to being,
for man or woman, is love, and love alone.
Having achieved and accomplished love, then the man passes into the
unknown” (Hardy 418). I’m not sure if
Lawrence is talking about both in real life and the novel, or just the novel,
but in either case, I don’t fully agree.
Yes, the characters in the novel are striving to be loved and that is what
caused all the ‘love triangles’ between Clym, Eustacia, Wildeve, and Thomasin,
but is it true that once a man has achieved loved, he just ‘disappears?’ Here, I think Lawrence is emphasizing that
love is the ultimate attainment, which is especially true for the characters in
the novel. “The tale is about becoming
complete, or about the failure to become complete,” Lawrence writes (Hardy 418). And isn’t that what The Return of the
Native is about? Love, and the
search for it? That is what makes the
novel timeless and relatable even to readers today. All of the petty quarrels and constant alterations
of the heart by the characters are realistic, even though we readers may find
them to be absurd; we understand them to be the truth. Love is confusing, time-consuming,
mind-absorbing, satisfying, disappointing, bitterness, happiness…love is work.
So what is The Return of the Native really
about? Is it functioning as a survival
guide and love editorial? Is it meant to
be an Anti-Christian novel? Is it
expressing that love is the “ultimateness” of everyone? Or, could it be all three? Hardy was an accomplished novelist for his
time and I believe it to be very well possible that he wrote The Return of
the Native with more than just love in mind. Like most writers, he wrote from personal
experiences, beliefs, ideals, and that has come across in this novel. A modern and honest novel of chance and
choice, faith and infidelities, this dark story asks ‘what is free will?’ and ‘what
is fate? What is the true nature of nature, and how do we fit together? Can we
fit together?
