Q: DISCUSS ROLE OF CHANCES AND COINCIDENCES IN THE RETURN

OF THE NATIVE
Chances and coincidences play a vital role in all the novels of Hardy. Chances and coincidences do
not exercise such a great influence on the flow of events in the work of any other novelist. The
unexpected often happens and always it is the undesirable and unwanted. Such chance events are
heavily faced by Hardy's protagonists and they send them to their doom. While a character is
certainly responsible of his doom to a large extent, chances and coincidences often operate as the
deciding factor. Hardy believed that there is some fatal power that controls the universe, and which
is out to ruin and defeat men in their plans. It is especially hostile to them who try to assert
themselves and have their own way. He couldnt believe in a benevolent care. Events were too
plainly ironical so they must have been planned by a supernatural power. He found it difficult to
accept 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 shows a continual and bitter thought with the sorrow of life. We certainly cannot deny the
littleness and baseness of human life. The Return of the Native shows man as the helpless plaything
of invisible powers, ruthless and indifferent. The characters have no such thing as free will. The
whole plot of The Return of the Native is coloured with fateful incidents and accidents.
Johnny has overheard the conversation between Eustacia and Wildeve. Johnny then meets the
reddleman Diggory Venn purely by chance. The reddleman learns from the boy the emotional
attachment of Eustacia with Wildeve. The reddleman decides to serve Thomasins interests by
discouraging Eustacia from Wildeve. But he is scolded by her. He feels dejected and failed.He goes
to Mrs. Yeobright to renew his offer of marriage to Thomasin. Mrs. Yeobright uses this offer to
threaten Wildeve to marry Thomasin. This whole series of events are caused by chance and fate
only started by Johnny. Just as Eustacias affection for Wildeve begins to decline, an exciting hope,
Clym Yeobright who was diamond merchant in Paris, returns to Egdon. His visit motivates Eustacia
to facilitate a meeting between them, which eventually results in a mutual attraction. Eustacia
shows her disinterest to Wildeve who finally marries Thomasin. Eustacia is disappointed to discover
that Clym has rejected his sophisticated lifestyle. However, she was hopeful that she can change
his mind and agrees to marry him. Mrs. Yeobright disapproves both these marriages.
By a sheer accident, Christian Cantle who is carrying Mrs. Yeobrights money meets a group of
village folk who take him to a raffle where, by a sheer stroke of luck, he wins a prize and
encouraged by his good fortune plays a game of dice with Wildeve. Cantle first loses his own money
and later put at risk Mrs. Yeobrights and loses the entire amount. The reddleman appears and
invites Wildeve for another turn. This time luck favors the reddleman and he wins all the money
from Wildeve. He delivers the whole money to Thomasin. He was unaware of the fact, that half the
money was to be handed to Clym. Mrs. Yeobright fails to receive any acknowledgement from Clym
and becomes dejected.
Clym becomes semi-blind when he was hoping to launch his educational project. It is a sheer
accident which leads to disastrous results. Clym is compelled to become a furze-cutter. The humble
occupation chosen by Clym is regarded by Eustacia as humiliating. When Wildeve asks her if her
marriage has proved a misfortune for her, her reply is The marriage is not a misfortune in
itself. It is simply the accident which has happened since that has been the cause of my
ruin.
When Eustacia goes to a village festival in order to relieve the boredom of her life, she meets
Wildeve purely by chance and this leads to their dancing together. She scornfully describes herself
as a furze cutters wife. Later he escorts her on her homeward journey, but slips away at the sight
of Clym. Again it is purely by chance that Wildeve visits Eustacia at home exactly at the moment
Mrs. Yeobright knocks at the door; she has come hoping for a reconciliation with the couple.
Eustacia, however, in her confusion and fear at being discovered with Wildeve, does not allow Mrs.
Yeobright to enter the house. heart-broken and feeling rejected by her son, Mrs. Yeobright yields to
heat and snakebite on the walk home, and dies.
It is by sheer chance that Wildeve becomes the recipient of a legacy which makes him rich, and this
leads to the renewal of Eustacias love for him. It is just a chance that Johnny repeats the dying
words of Mrs. Yeobright, exactly at the moment that Clym reaches the cottage. Thus he comes to
know the role played by Eustacia in Mrs Yeobrights death. This leads to the separation of Clym and
Eustacia after a violent quarrel. It is just a chance that Clym's letter of reconciliation does not reach
Eustacia in time. It is by chance the Charley, in order to please the hopeless Eustacia, thinks of
lighting a bonfire. She had nothing to do with bonfire. Wildeve seeing the fire comes to Eustacia and
she plans to fly away from the Heath.

Finally, it so happens that on the night of Eustacias escape, the weather assumes a threatening
aspect. The night becomes dreadful because of rain and storm. Eustacia seems to drown herself
and Wildeve dies in the rescue attempt. Thus Eustacia laments over her fortune in the words:
How I have tried and tried to be a splendid woman, and how destiny has been
against me. I do not deserve my lotI have been injured and blighted [destroyed] and
crushed by things beyond my control.
Hardy certainly makes his story incredible by his excessive use of chance and coincidence. The
Return of the Native is certainly polluted by an excessive use of this device. Rightly does a critic
say,
The plot of the novel lacks the terrific [intense] and terrifying logic of cause and effect
that marks the plots of the greatest tragedies.