The Siginificance Of The Openi

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be discussed later), this early arrival of darkness is well in tune with the overall atmosphere of tragedy. Dominance of darkness is clearly ominous and Hardy also says of the heath that it could 'retard the dawn, sadden noon…and intensify the opacity of a moonless midnight to a cause of shaking and dread'. The images conjured are explicitly ominous and suggesting tragedy. It is also inferred that the Heath itself creates the darkness - 'the heath exhaling darkness as rapidly as the heavens precipitated it'. This description of the Heath gives it a human like, in fact, monster like quality. We see an image of a giant creature of darkness breathing out darkness. The atmosphere or tone created here is verging on evilness. Moreover, we can perhaps go so far as to say that the Heath is contending with heaven, in its 'exhaling of darkness'. Earlier, there is inferred a distinct division between the Heath and heaven: 'The heaven being spread with this pallid screen and the ...

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of the tragedy is reached, as Eustacia commits suicide (or does she?) amid the ferocity of the storm. In the opening chapter may be read a forewarning of this, as we learn of the Heath that 'the storm was its lover and the wind its friend'. The atmosphere of hostility is perhaps not confined to the Heath alone, certainly, there are moments of hostility between the characters as well. The strife between Eustacia and Mrs.Yeobright is one, and the hostility that most of the other Egdonites (especially Susan Nunsuch) show towards Eustacia is another.

As has been mentioned before, it is appropriate to describe the Heath as 'indifferent'. There is a feeling of helplessness that runs ...

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