Muirmaiden's Corner

 Continuing on my Thomas Hardy kick, his 1878 novel The Return Of The Native , while not considered his best by many, is a very interesting commentary on the role of fate in life, choices that lead individuals down questionable paths, and ultimately, how a person's refusal to live by the standards of society find themselves outcasts and the subjects of gossip and superstition.  Debated among readers, the native of the title is Clym Yeobright, certainly one of the dullest central characters to be featured so prominently in a novel, his idealism seemingly the forefront trait of his colorless personality. But it is that very idealism that draws in Eustacia Vye, the beautiful, willful and unconventional young woman who had come to Egdon Heath (another part of Hardy's fictional Wessex) to live with her former seafaring grandfather. Eustacia is looked down on by the townspeople, referred to as a witch because of the young men of the community being smitten with her - one such man ...

The classic 19th-century novel by Thomas Hardy has been adapted for the screen a few times (but the early versions before 1979 are considered lost), and twice for television, and the surviving three are the subject of this post.  The book was very controversial upon is original publication in 1891, because it dared to portray the Victorian society of the time as hypocritical, showed how innocence can be stolen and how those who didn't fit in were shunned and fall into hardship. However, Tess Of The D'Urbervilles was hugely successful, despite Hardy's struggle to publish his original version rather than the sanitized and somewhat implausible variation of the story that first appeared in general serial magazine form.  Perhaps because of the controversy, Tess was well-received by the public, and that may have been due to Hardy's sympathetic presentation of the main character, Tess Durbeyfield, a lovely young girl from a poor family who is violated and wronged by the high...