Hardy's Philosophy of Life

Hardy's Philosophy or Tragic Vision of Life

Hardy, the novelist,  was essentially  a poet and an artist rather than  a philosopher. Hardy was  primarily a story-teller and should be viewed more as chronicler of moods and deeds than  a philosopher. He repeatedly affirmed that the 'Views' expressed in his novels were not his convictions or beliefs; they were simply "impressions" of the moment. In The Return of the Native, Hardy proves a dismal view of life in which coincidence and accident conspire to produce the worst of circumstance due to the indifference of the Will.

    In order to understand  Hady’s philosophy, we should have a fair idea of Hardy’s biography. Hardy lived in an age of transition. The industrial revolution was in the process of destroying the agricultural life, and the subsequent shifting of population caused a disintegration of rural customs and traditions. It was a period when fundamental beliefs — religious, social, scientific, and political — were shaken to their core and brought in their stead the "ache of modernism." The new philosophies failed to satisfy the emotional needs of many people. As a young man, Hardy read Darwin's Origin of the Species and Essays and Reviews (the manifesto of some radical clergymen), both of which influenced Hardy’s attitude toward religion profoundly. He found it difficult, if not impossible, to reconcile the idea of a beneficent and benevolent, omnipotent, and omniscient deity with the fact of omnipresent evil and the persistent tendency of circumstances toward unhappiness.

          Hardy's novels can be best understood in the light of the author's fatalistic outlook on life, for Hardy fluctuates between fatalism and determinism. Fatalism is a view of life which acknowledges that there is some malignant power that controls the universe, and which is out to thwart and defeat men in their plans. It is especially hostile to them who try to assert themselves and have their own way. Determinism, on the other hand, acknowledges that man's struggle against fate is futile and man is but  puppet in the hands of destiny. In Tess of D’urbervilles, we are told that,

    “Justice was done, and President of Immortals(in Aeschylean phrase) had ended his sport with Tess.”

In The Return of the Native, Hardy again reminds us that,

           “What a sport for Heaven this woman Eustacia was!”

In Hardy's novels, then, Fate appears in the form of  chance and coincidence, nature, time and woman. None is Fate itself, but rather all of these are manifestations of the Immanent Will. Fateful incidents are the forces working against  men in their efforts to control their destinies. In addition, Fate appears in the form of nature as a powerful agent, that affects the lives of the characters. Those who are most in harmony with their environment can find some solace, but those who are indignant and rebellious,  it destroys all their happiness.Eustacia suffers in The Return of the Native, because of her direct confrontation with Edgon Heath, which symbolizes nature. In the end Eustacia laments:

       “How I have tried and tried to be a splendid woman, and how destiny has been against me. I do not deserve my lot…I have been injured and blighted and crushed by things beyond my control.”

Hardy remarks:

      “ What of Immanent Will and its designs? It works unconsciously as heretofore, Eternal artistries in circumstance.”   

In Hardy's considered view, all life is suffering. Man suffers from the moment of his birth upto his death. Happiness is only occasional, it is never the general rule:

 "Happiness is but an occasional episode in a general drama of pain".

There is none who gets more than he deserves but there are many who get much less than what they deserve. Not only man suffers, but all life suffers. Suffering is writ large on the face of nature. A ruthless, brutal struggle for existence is waged everywhere in nature. All nature is red in tooth and claw and life lives upon life. Thus all life, including human life, is subject to this law of suffering and none can escape the operation of this law.

Hardy’s characters are also a prey to irony of circumstance. Right things never happen at the right time : they happen either not at all, or too late, when their happening brings nothing but misery and suffering in their train. The heroines of Hardy, like Tess and Eustacia, as well as his male characters, like Clym, Henchard, Angel, Alec are all the victims of the irony of circumstance. In ill-conceived scheme of things there is nothing but “strange oschestra of victim shriek and pain.” Almost all of the Hardy’s characters are susceptible to this omnipresent evil power.

In The Return of the Native, Hardy suggests the philosophy of Rustic Resignation. Man must be resigned to one’s lot. It is useless to complain or resist for nothing can refom “ill-conceived scheme of things.” If he is rash, hot-headed and obstinate, like Henchard or Eustacia, he can bring about his own downfall. On the other hand, if he is contended ang resigned to his own lot like Thomasin, he can make much of his limited opportunities.

Summing up, Hardy’s philosophy in The Return of the Native is certainly ‘twilight’ and gloomy one but it is not too much pessimistic or nihilistic, for nihilism implies negation of life, a wish not to have been born at all. It is only in his last novel “Jude of Obscure” that some cynicism enters, and Hardy becomes pessimistic otherwise he is an acute realist. “My practical philosophy”, says Hardy, “is distinctively meliorist”, an honest facing of human suffering.

“If a way to the better there be, it implies good look at the worst.”

    Hardy is a humanist, a poet who wants men to turn from nature to their own kind for

                              “There at least discourse trills around                                                                                                  There at least smells abound                                                                                                                 There same-time are found