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The end of tragic art is to produce the kind of emotional effect proper and peculiar to tragedy as a particular art form. This is clearly stated in Aristotle’s definition of tragedy as an imitation of an action, which being serious and complete, will arouse the emotions of pity and fear and in doing so accomplish the proper purgation of these emotions. Despite all the differences in understanding and explaining the Aristotelian definition of tragedy, pity and fear have been generally became the ideal effect that tragedy produces on l readers. Pity is nothing but sympathy in pain felt by those who are caught in a helpless situation. Fear results naturally from a sense of danger. In contemplating a great tragedy we are confronted with a phenomenon as powerful as a terrifying storm, and the tremendous power which give us a sense of our own feebleness and insignificance. We feel a thrill of fear because our destiny seems to be manipulated by something we could neither resist nor comprehend. However, tragedy, thanks to its fearful nature, also inspires in us a feeling of wonder and grandness by calling forth an extraordinary amount of vital energy to cope with a difficult situation. The sublimity of the tragic power forces “its way into the imagination and emotions, distends or uplifts them to its own dimensions. We burst our own limits, go out to the sublime thing, identify ourselves ideally with it, and share its immense greatness”(Bradley 38).
Furthermore, tragedy also awakens in us a sense of human worthiness and people feel greatly encouraged—we admire the force, the courage with which the hero heroic reaction against fate we see a ray of hope for the future of mankind. Therefore, in contemplating tragedy, we experience not only pity and fear but also an intense feeling of vitality, of human nobility, of the hope of a bright future.
My focus in this paper is to define the tragic effect of Hardy’s novel as a typical specimen of modem tragedy, through an inquiry into their forms and contents. I shall here confine my discussion to one of Hardy’s major novels, namely, The Return of the Native, which is novel of great significance because it is Hardy’s first tragic novel and carries Thomas Hardy from melodrama to tragedy, from the cheerful and idyllic tone to tragic keynote.
II. Thomas Hardy’s Works
2.1 The Creation Background
Thomas Hardy (1840–1928) is considered one of the greatest novelists in English literature. As a son of an architect, he was born and raised in a small thatched cottage in the little hamlet of Higher Bockhampton, three miles from Dorchester. It was a picturesque place. The cottage is still standing, and is used as a Hardy museum. His father, also named Thomas, was in a small way of business as a mason and builder, an employer of other men and thus raised socially a little above the laborers who worked for wages. The family was poor enough, but Hardy grew up with the sense of hierarchy which was strong in the rural community. The distinction between the workfolk and those who had any kind of property or trade of their own would often have been scarcely visible to an observer from the outside world, but it was real enough for those whom it concerned and was to play its part in the relationships in Hardy’s novels. His mother was more conscious of status than his father and was anxious that her son should do well in life. Thomas was the first child, to be followed by a brother and two sisters: Henry Marry, Katharine. When he was eight, Hardy was sent to the National School which had been built at Bockhampton. While his formal education was being thus developed, his mind was being formed in many other ways. He was an outstanding pupil, won a prize for Latin, and also learned advanced mathematics and French. But he shunned the other schoolboys. He’s loved being alone and he was already showing signs of the extreme sensitiveness which was to be a torment to him in later life. On leaving school in 1856, he was articled to John Hicks, a Dorchester architect. The study and practice of architecture was to occupy him for many years. His novels and poetry would have much to say of church design and restoration.