THOMAS HARDY'S VIEW OF LIFE

Abstract

.... We were but Fortune's sport, Things true, things lovely, things of good report We neither shunned nor sought·…We see our bourne, And seeing it we mourn. No other writer could concentrate all elements of novel to his view of life so completely and effectively as Hardy did in his works. It has the unity of a drama rather than of a novel. For example, as we have seen in his most successful novel, The Return of the Native, the nature is not merely the setting or background of the novel but the most important character who defines the destiny of all characters. Moreover, it is the most significant symbol of his God. The characters are the products of the Nature and they involve the tragedy from the first because of their temperament. As the result, the more repellent calls for the more disastrous end. Reading this novel one feels that the people who are living surrounded by such nature cannot help but to be tragic figures and such people cannot help but end their affairs in tragedy. Even the suggested marriage between Thomasin and Venn was not the original conception of the author. The note at the end of the Chapter Ⅲ. Book Sixth shows his dissatisfaction.