Return of the Native

From Lauren Walsh's Introduction toThe Return of the Native Who is Eustacia Vye? The question is more loaded than it seems at first, for Hardy changed his vision of her partway through creation of the novel. Although the distinctions between the 1878, 1895, and 1912 editions were minor at best, Hardy did significantly rework the course of the narrative in 1877 (at which point in time fifteen to sixteen chapters had been written), after an initial submission toCornhill Magazineprovoked a letter from Leslie Stephen, the magazine's editor. Stephen "feared that the relations between Eustacia, Wildeve, and Thomasin might develop into something 'dangerous' for a family magazine"2 (Maitland,The Life and Letters of Leslie Stephen, p. 276). Eustacia began as a character named Avice (easy to read as "a vice"), who was sinister to the utmost. She was, in fact, indisputably witch-like, if not a witch outright. John Paterson in his excellent piece, "The Making ofThe Return of the Native," explores in detail this transformation of Eustacia, comparing the original manuscript to the version submitted for print. "In her initial appearance, indeed," he writes, "she was to have suggested a satanic creature supernatural in origin" (p. 17). This is a far cry from the romantic individual one meets in any ofThe Return's published versions. Yet while the overt diabolical tendencies have fallen away, there still remain ominous attributes and allusions. Indeed, Eustacia's most striking epithet in the novel might be the reference to her as the "Queen of Night." She both walks the nighttime heath and metaphorically embodies a "darkness" that predates the Christian culture of the Egdon peasantry. She appears initially as a regal silhouette standing upon the barrow as twilight sets along the heath. This fuses her from the first with a Celtic pagan history and with associations of death, the barrow being an ancient burial site. Behind those "Pagan eyes, full of nocturnal mysteries" lies a soul with a sometimes demoniacal nature. She is, of course, rumored by Susan Nunsuch to be a witch, but that charge never rises much above petty gossip. Yet as much as Hardy discredits Susan, he craftily presents to us a witch-like Eustacia nonetheless. On the opening night of the novel, she "conjures" Wildeve, metaphorically transforming him from a frog into a man. She beckons him to her fire, comparing herself to the Witch of Endor: "'I determined you should come; and you have come! I have shown my power'." This scene, it should be noted, presages its later, more fatalistically determined repetition: Wildeve, signaling to Eustacia, releases a moth, which incinerates itself in her candle flame. Such uncanny, occult recurrences are woven throughout the text, never overt enough to convict Eustacia of witchery nor ever rationalized enough to render her innocent. This beauty who possesses a "true Tartarean dignity," whose flowing hair "a whole winter did not contain darkness enough to form its shadow," is shrouded in language of opacity, not only in her remnant diabolical associations, but also in her unreadability. As a being of contradiction, her "night-side of sentiment" speaks as much to the "witchly" as to the pitiable. Indeed, her associations with the mournful night and with elements of morbidity are also clear indications of her role as a tragic figure. She is helplessly and hopelessly trapped on Egdon Heath, and referring to her inability to tolerate this land, she naively utters her own ominous fate when she states, "I cannotHardy, Thomas is the author of 'Return of the Native ' with ISBN 9781593082208 and ISBN 1593082207.