The Return of the Female Native: Understanding Grace Melbury in Thomas Hardy’s The Woodlanders

Abstract

The Woodlanders is one of Thomas Hardy’s underrated tragedies. At its centre is the story of the return of Grace Melbury to her native village of Hintock, after an education in the city. In many aspects, her story recalls Clym Yeobright’s journey through The Return of the Native: yet Grace is often found to be more limited and inhibited than Clym. Read in the context of the norms that governed a woman’s life in the nineteenth century, The Woodlanders redefines the tragedy of Grace Melbury as the tragedy of a woman who cannot express herself freely until it is too late. This study attempts to understand how Grace Melbury’s free will and desires are often compromised by the weight of expectations bequeathed on her gender by the prevailing norms in the nineteenth century, and attempts to trace her evolution into a person in her own right.