Thomas Hardy was one of the most important figures during VictorianAge as a poet and novelist. For the extraordinary and unique features in hisworks, Hardy received both praises and criticism during that time, and thediscussion about him and his works has continued till now. This paper, taking ageneral view on the specific social background in the Victorian Age , aims tofigure out the characteristics of Hardy’s works by analyzing The Return of the Native and dig out thereasons for Hardy to turn to tragedy writing. By the analysis of this novel andcomparative study of the ideological transition reflected in his differentbooks, this paper hopes to make it clear what is the internal relationshipbetween the particular society and Hardy’s thoughts ,which played the vitalrole in his works.

For Hardy’s greatness and his huge influence on both literacy andother famous writers such as D.H Lawrence, John Cowper Powys and so on, thestudy of Hardy himself and his works has always been the concentration forvarious scholars. During his time, there appeared numerous books and articles aboutHardy’s life and works. Hardy himself wrote two biographies which he wanted tocame out privately after his death. But later his wife published The Life of Thomas Hardy 1840-1928 ,which was regarded as the official biography of Hardy. But other scholars were stilleager to get more details about Hardy: what his real life was like , why hetook a different view on woman’s image and how he employed such thoughts intohis works. Douglas Brown(1954) in his ThomasHardy made a clear presentation of Hardy’s life and works. He stated thatthere was a common model in Hardy’s fictions: the protagonists, usually beingstrong and tough from village, would fall in love with someone outside village.The contrast between different lifestyles of village and city was thought to bethe major theme in Hardy’s fiction. For the distinctive characters in hisclassic works, scholars are even more enthusiastic to make their owninterpretations of the themes and symbols from various aspects. Naveen K Mehta(2013)made a closer analysis of the heroine Eustacia in The Return of the Native. The author pointed out that under thesuperficial judge of the poor girl who made troubles for herself, the uncontrollableforce beyond human determined people’s life—the soul tragedy. With these analysisand attention on Hardy and his works, the influence of him as a giant master inliteracy is self-evident.

Not only do foreign litterateurs have great admiration for Hardy,but also domestic scholars and learners try to get more close to him throughthe study of his works. Since Hardy’s works were introduced into China, somewriters were impressed by Hardy. Xu Zhimo once regarded Hardy as a greatnational talent like William Shakespeare. He claimed that under the tragicdescription of life was the thought to find out a real way for those torturedhuman. Womanism, as an important element related to Hardy’s works, has gained alot of attention. Ma Xian explored the image presented in those works from theview of womanism. She declared that the new images of woman, as a deviation oftradition with distinctive personalities, was a real reflection of theturbulence of society and people’s spirit.

Even though the present studies of Thomas Hardy count numerously,the author believe that the less mentioned work of Hardy deserve a deeper explorationand the intrinsic relationship between the age and his works need to bepresented clearly.

2. 研究的基本内容与方案

This paper will respectively analyze the current society of Victorianage and the whole life of Thomas Hardy, thus the author will hold a generalview of the social influence on Hardy and the change of his view on society. Thenthrough the analysis of different works, there will be a comparison of hisstyle and thoughts. A specific look will be taken on The Return of the Native in order to make an in-depth explorationof its theme, style, meaning and the typical characters. At last, there will bea summary of the characteristics of Hardy’ work and the interconnection of theVictorian Age society and his work will be made explicit.

In the course of the study,research approaches such as literature research method and comparative analysisare mainly adopted. This paper requires reading and summarizing a lot ofliterature materials. During this process, the author has to refer to variousarticles so as to extract the valuable ideas and make original comments. Thecomparative analysis is employed when studying different works of Thomas Hardyin order to find out common points and differences in The Return of the Native. With such methods, the author can baseher idea on the reliable previous studies and represent a distinctive result.