I believe that pessimism pervades Hardy's novel, The Return of the Native. There is much evidence to support this view, as basically the whole novel is full of pessimistic acts of fate, pessimistic thoughts and pessimistic actions. The main shows of pessimism include; the setting, Egdon Heath, one of the main characters, Eustacia Vye, the presence of a deterministic universe and the acts of fate during the plot that are always against the characters who live on Egdon Heath. Egdon Heath is wild, desolate, foreboding with its moods and it is the `higher power' or thing that controls the fate of the people, Eustacia Vye is a head strong beauty who desperately wants to leave the heath and is so pessimistic in love and her own existence and the deterministic universe in place in this...