What is the Significance of the Heath in Return of the Native? :: English Literature

What is the Significance of the Heath in Return of the native-born?It is evident right from the beginning that the heath plays anintegral part in the novel Return of the Native, this is because theopening chapter is exclusively ab out the heath.The heath assists in creating the feelings of both central charactersand the background heath folk, the first chapter is highborn A Face onwhich Time makes but little model, meaning that Egdon Heath istimeless and everybody on it has little significance.The reader gains an taste of the novel and its genre through thefirst chapter, It had a lonely face, suggesting tragicpossibilities. This aids the reader in identifying that there isgoing to be something tragical in the novel. Hardy is also usingpersonification, which brings the heath to life.In contuse of this, the first chapter also does what every other firstchapter in a novel does, it sets the scene. Egdon Heath, as far as thenovel is concerned and the characters privileged it, is the valet de chambre. Theonly time that the novel ever abandons the heath is only shortly amid pages 253-257 which is the part when Wildeve and Eustacia areat the dance together in Budmouth. It is comprehensible that the heathfolk consider Egdon Heath to be everything when they take to task about Parisas if it were a million miles away, like a Kings Palace as far asdiments go is the description they use when describing Clyms shop.Hardy also uses the heath as a metaphor for how the central charactersare feeling. On page 206, when Clym moves out of his mothers house,the fir and beech trees are described to be suffering more damagethan during the highest winds of winter the wasting sap would bleedfor many years to come. We also get an insight to the way Eustacia isfeeling through the storm on the heath on page 345-346, Never was consistency more perfect than that between the chaos of her mind and thechaos of the world without. The brief flowering in the summer time onEgdon heath represents the love between Eustacia and Clym, when itflowered it was beautiful and colourful and sweet, but it curtlydrooped, dried out and finally died.When Wildeve and Diggory Venn are playing dice on the heath, thecontrast is prominent between human behaviour and nature, Theincongruity between the mens deeds and their environment wasstriking. Hardy is devising a comment on human nature and its trothagainst nature. The behaviour of the two men is described as almost