英语论文网

fe, he believed that he was merely "treating matters of life just as they were" (Elliot 13). In attempting to represent reality as he saw it, he wrote novels whose plots were heavily influenced by factors of chance and change, often leading to a negative co nclusion. Hardy did not enjoy witnessing the suffering in the world around him, and "felt sympathy for almost all of his characters; the 'villain' has almost no place in his works" (Richards, Part Two,24) because to him all of humanity is guided by an outside agency and so have little responsibility for the painful outcomes that occur. There is a "tight linking of incidents toward doom" (Elliot 62) and, although The Return of the Native concludes with the happier Sixth Book, the overall tone of the text is an ironic and tragic one. In The Return of the Native, Hardy proves a dismal view of life in which coincidence and accident conspire to produce the worst of circumstance due to the indifference of the Will to issues of equity and justice. Examples of the workings of this agency abound in The Return of the Native, but I have selected two major episodes from the novel to demonstrate the workings of chance and change upon Hardy's characters. The first is the adventures of Mrs. Yeobright's guineas, and the s eco nd her journey across the heath to reunite with her son. A key episode in the novel that hinges upon the element of chance begins with Mrs. Yeobright's decision to send a gift of guineas. Her son, Clym, is marrying Eustacia against her wishes, and she hopes that, by offering this gift, she and her son can repair their relationship. The other half of the money is to go to her niece, Thomasin, who has recently married Damon Wildeve, Eustacia's former lover. Unfortunately, Mrs. Yeobright selects as her messenger the inept Christian Cantle, the village simpleton. This ill-considered decision has major ramifications, and ultimately deepens the rift between herself and her son instead of bridging it. Instead of hurrying to the wedding party, Christian attends a raffle with his fellow heath men and happens to win. To the simple man, this occurrence is evidence of newly discovered, infallible luck. He declares: "To think that I should have been born so lucky as this, and not have found it out until now!" (Hardy 175). The naive fellow is so sure of his mastery over chanc e t hat he agrees to gamble with Damon Wildeve using Mrs. Yeobright's guineas. However, nobody can antipate the actions of Hardy's ironic deity; here, its henchmen Chance and Change work against Christian's supposed "luck." He loses the guineas intended for Thomasin and recklessly continues the game, betting Clym's share in a desperate bid to regain his earlier "luck." He moans, "'I don't care--I don't care!' . . . 'The devil will toss me into the flame on his three-pronged fork for this night's work, I know! But perhaps I shall win yet" (Hardy 179). Instead of withdrawing after losing only Thomasin's money to her husband, the chance of Christian's earlier win at the raffle which goaded him into enter the game prods him to believe that he may yet prevail. The element of coincidence at work in this scene is clear to the reader as the two men are playing with dice, symbols of chance and luck. Accord ing to the laws of probability, each man has an equal chance of winning with each fresh roll of the die, but chanc e f avours Damon and he wins all of Mrs. Yeobright's p