From Heaven To Hell

Thomas Hardy sets his most famous novels in the rustic and apparently timelessworld that he calls Wessex, where he lives and writes many decades of historicalchange and ferment which are reflected in his work, especially, perhaps, in The Returnof the Native. As Thomas Hardy’s first mature novel and his most representative, TheReturn of the Native is famous for its description of Egdon Heath. Egdon Heath is notonly the natural background for the characters, but also the social background forthem. It is more a silent but powerful character of the novel than only a setting. All ofthe activities in the novel take place within the boundary of Egdon Heath, and all ofthe characters are closely linked with it. The Return of the Native has drawn theattention of researchers at home and abroad by its fascinating features and the studiesof this novel have been deep and productive. However, most of the researches areabout the fate of main characters, Hardy’s ecological thought, the mythologicalallusions on the prototype of characters, the root of the tragedy, etc.. Seldom doresearches concentrate on Egdon Heath. And most of these researches are confinedwithin the scope of literature from the angle of pure literary critics.Thus this thesis tries to analyze The Return of the Native in the light ofConceptual Metaphor Theory from cognitive linguistics. The conceptual metaphorsabout Egdon Heath show that Egdon Heath has multiple metaphorical characteristic.Belonging to cognitive linguistics, conceptual metaphor is a way of cognition. Theway of cognition, or cognitive style, refers to the individual differences showedthrough information and experience processing. It is a kind of attitude or methodadopted by individuals in the process of perception, recall and thinking. It has subjectdifferences. Character’s experience, knowledge, temperament with objective factstogether determine that for the same Egdon Heath, it is mapped onto different sourcedomains. In Clym and Thomasin’s cognition, the characteristics of home and friendare mapped on Egdon Heath, thus, in their cognitive model, EGDON HEATH ISHOME and EGDON HEATH IS FRIEND. Due to these conceptual metaphors in their cognition, Clym and Thomasin love Egdon Heath and want to live on it forever. InEustacia and Wildeve’s cognition, the characteristics of prison and enemy are mappedon Egdon Heath, therefore, in their cognitive model, EGDON HEATH IS PRISONand EGDON HEATH IS ENEMY. Because of these conceptual metaphors in theircognition, Eustacia and Wildeve hate Egdon Heath and want to escape.According to Conceptual Metaphor Theory, metaphor is about language as wellas thinking. As a way of thinking and cognition method, it has subject differences. InThe Return of the Native, the character’s cognitive differences determine that todifferent characters, the same target domain EGDON HEATH would have differentcorresponding source domains. Thus the multiple metaphorical characteristic ofEgdon Heath comes into being.