The Character of Eustacia Vye in the Return of the Native by Thomas Hardy Analyse Hardy’s presentation of Eustacia Vye in Book One in the light of this comment. In “Return of the Native” we first come across the character of Eustacia Vye in Chapter 7. In this chapter Hardy gives us an in depth description of the character, for example we learn that she “was the raw material of a divinity”. Here Hardy is comparing her to a godlike figure which immediately gives us an impression of a character that is above the rest of the characters of the heath. Further divine imagery is used throughout this chapter, other examples are, “On Olympus she would have done well with a little preparation”, “In …show more content…

Hardy also uses other characters interacting with Eustacia to give the audience a further insight into her character, this is particularly apparent in the Wildeve-Eustacia relationship. By looking at the dialogue between these characters we can begin to see an almost regal power struggle, a common theme in many books such as the Stanley-Blanche relationship in “a streetcar named desire”. The line which in my opinion signifies the power struggle is in the line “Three miles in the dark for me. Have I not shown my power?” In the meeting between the characters of Eustacia and Wildeve at the bonfire Hardy shows the audience her past love with Wildeve and also about her attitude to love, which seems to be that she is not in love with any man, but instead in love with the idea of love. In this way Hardy is presenting Eustacia as an idealist, but in my opinion no man could live up to her ideals. This is apparent in the line “Damon you are not worthy of me; I see it, and yet I love you”. Hardy also uses the dialogue to establish her personality, which in my opinion is a very vain character, I came to this conclusion after the line “Have you ever seen anything more majestic