HARDY'S USE OF NATURE IN HIS NOVELS
by ZOE VEATER
This essay was the First Prize winner in our
Schools Essay
Competition, 1999.
Thomas Hardy has long been renowned for his unique descriptive style
when recreating landscape. The natural world is not only seen to
reflect
the characters' emotions, it becomes an integral part of them. It is
a
changeable yet eternal force, simultaneously appearing both beautiful
and terrifying, mirroring the lives of those whom it influences.
Hardy
also uses his work to show the banishment of the trusted farming
practices in the light of new technology, often to the detriment of
the
natural world.
In Tess of the d'Urbervilles, the heroine is introduced as an
innocent
in her natural setting, "a mere vessel of emotion untinctured by
experience", though this is soon destroyed. Hardy deliberately
makes
setting of the incident in the wood ambiguous. The thick fog and
impenetrable darkness blur boundaries and confuse Tess' s feelings.
Her
true passionate nature surfaces, the non-judgemental natural world
appearing only as an uncritical bystander. The "webs of vapour"
that
surround Tess suggest entrapment, an innocent insect caught in fate's
web, and aid the metamorphoses from a living woman to "nothing
but
a pale nebulousness", a spirit of the landscape itself.
Christianity is depicted as foreign and accusatory rather than
forgiving, (the Bible's "staring vermilion words shone forth")
showing
the same sympathy to the landscape as the new machines of the
agricultural revolution. Hardy seems to feel that the pagan religion
of
nature worship was more apt than that which is presently dominant.
"One could feel that a saner religion had never prevailed under
the sky.
The luminary was a golden-haired, beaming, mild-eyed, God-like
creature, gazing down in the vigour and intentness of youth upon an
earth that was brimming with interest for him". Hardy remarks
that
"women whose chief companions are the forms and forces of
outdoor
nature retain in their souls far more of the pagan fantasy of their
remote
forefathers than of the systematised religion taught their race at a
later
date".
Tess's "pilgrimage" to Blackmoor Vale is one of new
beginnings,
occurring in spring, a time of new life and growth. The air is
described as "clear, bracing, ethereal" and in comparison
to the "heavy"
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atmosphere of her home. The natural world physically represents her
inner feelings, the brighter surroundings lifting the weight on her
heart.
Hardy uses the vastness of nature to emphasise how small and
unimportant Tess actually is. She is, when standing in an expanse of
meadow, "a fly on a billiard table of indefinite length and of
no more
consequence to the surroundings than that fly", emphasising how
all
creations are equally lifted bodily like the lid of a pot, letting in
at the
earth's edge the coming day".
The stones echo the earlier forest even down to their "glistening
gray-
green" appearance. The old respect for the temple is still
evident in the
behaviour of the men who have come for her, when they "saw where
she lay, . . . they showed no objection" to letting her sleep.
The tableau
created by their stillness mimics that of the stones and even
surrounded
with people she remains at ease. Lying on the sacrificial altar she
is
presented in the image of a goddess of nature and therefore it seems
fitting that it is the sun that wakes her. "A ray shone upon her
unconscious form, peering under her eyelids and waking her", the
"gesture" seeming gentle and caring. The final image is of
a single ray
illuminating an ill-fated child amongst the shadows cast by the
humans
and ancient stones alike. This grandiose setting is the ideal
resolution
for the pathetic heroine of such a tragic story and the temple
finally has
its pagan sacrifice.
In the last chapter, Christianity reasserts itself, just as
technology
replaces manual labour. "The sun's rays smiled on pitilessly",
appearing
harsh and unyielding in stark contrast to its earlier depictions. The
final
thought is that "Justice" was done and the President of the
Immortals,
in Aeschylean phrase, had ended his sport with Tess. This questioned
justice betrays Hardy's true feelings towards his heroine yet again,
reiterating the sentiment of natural law behind the novels
alternative title:
"A Pure Woman".
The Woodlanders depicts a community whose livelihoods revolve
around the natural world and its products. The woodland is described
in the terms of a living being: "skirted trunks with spreading
roots whose
mossed rinds made them like hands wearing green gloves" and "on
older
trees still than these huge lobes of fungi grew like lungs". The
area is
likened to the "depraved crowds of a city slum", with the
same basic
qualities being found in each community.
The scene in which Hardy details Giles planting trees, with Marty
aiding him, creates a window into their lives. More is learnt about
Giles,
for example he is said to have "a marvellous power of making
trees
grow", finding "delight" in his occupation.
"Winterbourne's fingers were
endowed with a gentle conjuror's touch in spreading the roots of each
little tree, resulting in a sort of caress under which the delicate
fibres
all laid themselves out in their proper directions for growth".
His talent
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for the work displays an instinctive knowledge and for a moment he
and the sapling become one entity. There is a "sympathy"
between them
and the process becomes a symbiosis.
The trees are gifted with consciousness and their personification is
reinforced by "the soft musical breathing", which begins as
soon as they
are introduced to the earth, not to cease "night or day till the
grown
tree should be felled". This suggests a constant stability found
in nature
and the transient quality of human life in comparison. John South' s
obsession with a particular elm is virtually that of a devoted and
worshipping disciple and it is revealed to be the force that is
sustaining
him.
One of the most atmospheric scenes in the novel is that of Grace
observing Giles at the cider making in the courtyard of the "Earl
of
Wessex". The apple mill and press create the illusion that the
orchard
has been transported into the yard and everywhere one is confronted
with autumn's abundance. Language such as "grinding",
"wringing" and
"gushed forth", suggests strength and vitality, reflected
in the activity
of the characters in the courtyard. The picture is an extension of
the
harvest, a meeting of nature and humanity.
Giles epitomises both nature and masculinity. It is suggested that
the
fruit and its juice become an integral part of him, "fragments
of apple-
rind had alighted upon the brim of his hat . . . while brown pips of
the
same fruit were sticking among the down upon his fine round arms and
in his beard".
The smell of the apples so fills the air that it becomes
almost oppressive: "the blue stagnant air of autumn which hung
over
everything was heavy with a sweet cidery smell". It has the same
heady
quality of abundance and warmth as the scene in Tess , yet in this
image
the environment is much more controlled. When she arrives, Grace
cannot distinguish between the varieties of apple trees, but when
looking
out of her window she recognises "specimens of mixed dates,
including
the mellow countenances of streaked-jacks, codlins, costards,
stubbords,
ratherripes and other well-known friends of her ravenous youth".
When Grace and Giles next meet, he is described in both visual and
olfactory terms, "he looked and smelt like Autumn's very
brother".
"Autumn's very brother" suggests a closeness, more obvious
than that
previously implied. There are reflections of nature's creations in
his
whole being; his face is "wheat-colour" and "his eyes
are blue as corn-
flowers". Again his garments and skin are covered in the juice
and pips
of apples, which seem to have pervaded everything he possesses.
"Everywhere about him that atmosphere of cider which at its
first return
each season has such an indescribable fascination for those who have
been born and bred among the orchards".
Grace sees Giles as a gift to her from nature, a being "impersonating
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chivalrous and undiluted manliness . . . arisen out of the earth
ready to
her hand" and thus seen as nature's own progeny. "Arisen
out of the
earth" suggests the personification of nature as a divine being
and later
Giles is thought of as "the fruit-god and wood-god in
alternation".
Hardy's novels also often reflect the destructive power in nature.
"Sometimes a bough from an adjoining tree was swayed so low as
to
smite the roof in the manner of a gigantic hand smiting the mouth of
an adversary to be followed by a trickle of rain, as blood from the
wound". These images conjure images of a physical fight, for
they have
the same violence and intensity. The trees after the storm are "close
together, wrestling for existence, their branches disfigured with
wounds
resulting from their mutual rubbings and blows".
The opening of The Return of the Native is dominated by Hardy's
image of Egdon Heath. It focuses entirely on the landscape, a "vast
tract
of unenclosed wild" and humans are seen as nothing more than a
diversion from it. It is said that "the face of the heath by its
mere
complexion added half-an-hour to eve" and night appears as a
"near
relation" to it. Again, the natural surroundings are
personified: "the
sombre stretch of rounds and hollows seemed to rise and meet the
evening gloom in pure sympathy, the heath exhaling darkness as
rapidly
as the heavens precipitated it".
It is linked more to "winter darkness, tempests and mists"
than summer
days and the use of the phrase "Egdon was aroused to
reciprocity" conveys
the idea that it actually contributes to these storms. Though seen as
a
face, it is inscrutable to mere humans, remaining unchanging through
generations. This serves to remind the reader of the transient
quality of
human life, when compared to the constants found in the natural
world.
It is suggested that the passing of time has little effect on the
heath,
not because it exists outside time, but because it simply pays little
attention to it. Hardy states that both the Domesday Book and Leland
mention this area, "the scene seemed to belong to the ancient
world of
the Carboniferous period". It seems to reject virtually all
attempts to
cultivate it, Clym finds satisfaction in observing "that in some
of the
attempts at reclamation from the waste, tillage, after holding on for
a
year or two, had receded again in despair the ferns and furze tufts
stubbornly reasserting themselves".
Eustacia is from the first presented as an enigma. The image of her
standing at the summit of the barrow introduces only her silhouette
and
she seems to be "the only obvious justification of their
outline", it
"amounted only to unity". Unconsciously she is in harmony
with her
surroundings, she understands the ways of the heath and is not
frightened
by its horrors, "her heedlessness of night, betokened among
other things
an utter absence of fear".
Eustacia fights a conscious battle with nature and thus she is forced
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to wage war on her subconscious being. She states she hates nature
and
that "the heath is a cruel taskmaster" to her, whereas
Clym, in contrast,
is seen as its "product", "permeated with its scenes,
with its substance
and with its odours". He is able to adopt his new life as a
furze cutter
so completely that "he appeared as a mere parasite of the heath
. . .
having no knowledge of anything in the world but fern, furze, heath,
lichens and moss".
Hardy describes a plantation of trees after a storm and they
immediately seem as foreign interlopers on such a place as the heath.
As in The Woodlanders , these trees are anthropomorphised, though in
contrast they are growing in an environment that is totally
unfamiliar
to them. The scene is depicted as especially violent; "the wet
young
beeches were undergoing amputations, bruises, cripplings and harsh
lacerations from which the wasting sap would bleed for many a day to
come". This image is reminiscent of the carnage usually reported
in a
war zone, here the battle rages between the plantation and the
elements.
The heath almost appears in league against the alien species; while
"at
every onset of the gale convulsive sounds came from the branches, as
if pain were felt", "those gusts which tore the trees
merely waved the
furze and heather in a light caress".
When Eustacia enters the night for the final time, its gloom is
described as "funeral"; "all nature seemed clothed in
crape". Common
and naturally occurring objects of the heath are suddenly seen as
threatening, "oozing lumps of fleshy fungi ... lay scattered
about the
heath like the rotting liver and lungs of some collossal animal".
Even
the moon and stars have temporarily been vanquished, "closed up
by
rain and cloud to the degree of extinction". The raindrops
appear as
"glistening darts" in the candlelight, being in one instant
both beautiful
and dangerous and "individual drops" sting like "arrows".
The scene is
set perfectly to accommodate Eustacia' s death and Hardy writes
"never
was harmony more perfect that that between the chaos of her mind and
the chaos of the world without".
Only very rarely is Eustacia mentioned in conjunction with light and
it is only in death that she becomes radiant. She becomes a copy of
the
moon "who as she lay there still in death eclipsed all her
living phases.
Pallor did not include all the quality of the complexion, which
seemed
more than whiteness; it was almost light".
The final book reinstates light and the closing image of Clym
standing
on the barrow is calmer, yet it lacks so many of the dramatic and
atmospheric qualities that make the earlier scene of Eustacia so
emotive.
The environment moulded itself to reflect the passion and inner
struggle
that Eustacia experienced and without her presence nature becomes
"but
a fraction of a thing".
Simply by looking at three of Hardy's texts, it is possible to
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Bark and Scream by Tim Veater
(In fond memory of A F and J S)
The dog fox 'barks', the vixen 'screams'
Across the dark December night,
From far-off fields, the eirie sound of
'Four-legs' searching for a mate.
Not pain but plaintive sigh, as nature plays its game,
A yearning, searching, cry; primitive and slight.
The book she borrowed, lent,
Yielded up some long-forgotten images
A moment frozen twenty years before.
Three people laugh one Christmas
Long ago, but now the two, no more.
As foxes know too well, you cannot cheat the hunt.
Or memories of death's dark door.
Your fate is fixed by nature's cruel might
And love is but a faltering flicker
Of the candle, when the power is out.
For we can only scream like foxes in the night,
Bark like a Dog or like a Vixen call.
Wiltshire
Street by Tim Veater
Because I can't write music, I have to settle for this verse,
My requiem in hollow words, quite unequal to the task.
The obeisance of the living to the selfless dead.
It's like an empty casket, in a shiny silent hearse,
Drawn by a four-plumed charger, gliding down a nightmare street,
Avenued by people transfixed by clack of horses feet.
So very few related - except by common blood,
Which in a far-off desert land ran premature
From youthful bodies hot and red, leaving its rusty stain.
Cut short by fate and metal - a careless indifference
To oh such vulnerable flesh, or feelings of parents for their children
Or lovers for their loves.
Here just petals strew the way, washed by the tears of pain,
Burning their own sweet furrow, down cheeks that lips have kissed.
Yet but another passing; yet by another name.
That has travelled on a journey, to where a man was slain.
A monument to timeless strife.
A battle of ideals and incompetence.
These are our boys but what of those?
For do they not feel the same?
Is their loss not just as great?
What festival can recompense? What ritual can restore?
The incendiary seeds of hate which buried,
Grow for evermore?
At Christmas when the lights flash red,
When children's faith is pure,
When beneath all joy and all thanksgiving,
The distant sound of hammering nails in wood is heard
And mothers, fathers, sisters, brothers, weeping,
Here, there, and everywhere.
Strawberry (2011) by Tim Veater
Amidst the barrenness of winter
I picked a wild strawberry on Christmas day
It was pale from lack of light
A tiny fruit hiding under the leaves
But for sure it tasted strawberry.
Its pink body melted on my tongue
Its seed-dotted-exterior
Fused with its flesh in an orgasm of flavour
Out of time Out of place,
A flash-back to summer
And larger more gaudy fruit.
