The words: 'pits', 'cavernous', and 'ravines', are used to depict the aged, wrinkled faces of some of the revellers around the Rainbarrow fire. In a parallel characterisation which highlights the connection between the heath folk and their environment, the faces of certain individuals are portrayed in terms of the landscape. This technique removes the sense of authority from human hands, placing humans within the natural world rather than ruling above it.įor example, in The Return of the Native (1878), Egdon Heath is personified in the narrator's description: 'the face of the heath'. Hardy's narrative voice depicts the natural world in the same way the appearance of different individuals are described, and vice versa. Hardy establishes a reciprocal relationship between environment and character an interaction which serves to demonstrate the changing position of humans in the post-Darwinian Victorian period.

However, in Hardy's fiction, the natural world is often described in great detail, rendering it more significant than a mere setting against which the narrative unfolds. Map of locations in the 'Wessex' of Thomas Hardy's novels, via Wikimedia CommonsCharacter and Environment Hardy's intense study and accurate portrayal of nineteenth-century rural society in Dorset and surrounds - the 'Wessex' of his novels - presents a microcosm of human life through which Hardy intended to comment on the universal condition of human existence. The specific sense of place detailed in Hardy's fiction is very important as it provides a realistic, countrified backdrop against which his many characters live out their lives and struggle against their circumstances. The reader can easily identify the scenery and towns described in the narrative located within the southwest of England, which incorporates Dorset and the surrounding counties. His novels are set within the semi-fictitious landscape of 'Wessex'. The local customs and specific geography typical to this part of England are woven into Hardy's narratives, and form an integral part of his work. Thomas Hardy was born in Upper Bockhampton, Dorset and lived within the county for much of his adult life.

The return of the thomas hardy novel