FREE ESSAY ON WUTHERING HEIGHTS

WUTHERING HEIGHTS

The Power of Fate
Fate, a term which seems to appear every so often in the everyday world, can be a
powerful force when dealing with the predetermination of events. Whether in the past,
present or future, fate can change how things were, or are supposed to be. As William
Jennings Byran, a famous military colonel, once said, "Destiny is not a matter of chance,
it is not a matter of choice; it is not a thing to be waited for, it is a thing which is
to happen." Fate cannot be altered and is something which must happen to everyone and
everything. 
As is the case with Thomas Hardy's novel, Return of the Native. Without the element of
fate, the plot of Return of the Native would have drastically changed because most of the
events included in the plot would not have taken place. Every happening in the novel was
important in adding to the plot and having its own significance, which made the novel the
great story which it was and still is. Whether it was the deaths of Mrs. Yoebright,
Eustacia, and Damon, or the other significant parts included in the plot, fate was reason
for every one of them occurring.
The plot to the novel begins about the time Eustacia discovers that Clym Yoebright is
returning to the countryside. Since Clym was a diamond merchant, Eustacia believed that
he could get her out of the Heath, Eustacia's home and the very place she wants to flee.
Believing that Damon, the man she is having a relationship with, would not be able to
accomplish this task for her, she turns to Clym. The person who can very well be her
ticket out of her homeland. Since this was meant to happen for Eustacia, it was her fate
for Clym to return to the moors. By this happening, it creates the conflict between Mrs.
Yoebright and her son Clym. When Clym begins to spend most of his time with Eustacia, his
mother gets jealous and gives him an ultimatum of choosing between her and Eustacia. With
him not making a decision, Mrs. Yoebright tells her son to cease living in the same
household as her. With fate starting this conflict, when Clym came back home to the
Moors, the same reason was to blame for the separation between the two characters. The
reason being is that none of the characters could have prevented this from happening,
simply because it was meant to be. With all these things happening, they set the fate for
the three characters which die because of the unalterable events which cause them to
occur.
Firstly, the death of Mrs. Yoebright was a direct result of Fate because of how it came
to Mrs. Yoebright attempting the walk to her son's home to make amends with him. Before
this could happen, there had to be a string of events which made it her fate that she
dies. These events began with the gambling of the inheritance money that Mrs. Yoebright
gave to Christien to deliver to Clym and his cousin. The reason for her doing that was to
try to get Clym to forgive her for throwing him out of her home, but of course, as the
saying goes, "what might go wrong, can and will." On the way to deliver the money,
Christien runs into a group bound for gambling, where he enters a lottery and wins. This
encourages Christien to bet the inheritance with Damon Wildeve, since he believes that he
will go on a lucky winning streak. After winning the money from Christien, Damon is
challenged by Diggory Venn, who in turn, wins the money from Wildeve. Fate takes a hold
of Mrs. Yoebright, when she doesn't hear from her son after believing that he had
received the money. The reason for her going to visit Clym. But when nobody answers the
door and she leaves disappointed to make the long walk back home, when she faints and
dies of an Adder bite. Mrs. Yoebright could not have done anything to change what
happened to her, because it just was supposed to happen the way it did. With the death of
Mrs. Yoebright, it was Eustacia and Damon's turns to be engulfed by Fate, causing both of
their deaths. This occurs from the point of when Eustacia is upset at herself for most
likelihood, causing the death of Mrs. Yoebright by not allowing her in the house, because
she had Damon over.
To try to console herself, Eustacia decides to go to a dance where she meets up with
Damon and finds out about his newly acquired wealth. This rekindles Eustacia's interest
in Wildeve and she believes that he can now get her out of her homeland by asking him to
take her to Paris. At this point their fates are already set, for they both have no idea
of what awaits them from this decision. When they attempt to runaway together the next
night, Clym and Damon's wife, Thomasin, try to locate them among the Heath. But when Clym
finds Damon waiting for Eustacia, the finales to their fates occur when Eustacia falls
into the river, because it is when the climax to the novel occurs as well. When Clym and
Damon jump into the water to save Eustacia from drowning, Damon dies along with Eustacia
in the rescue effort. Luckily for Clym, Fate had it that Diggory Venn was around when
they jumped, because if he wasn't, Clym would have not been rescued by him and most
likely would have perished along with Eustacia and Damon. From the beginning of the
novel, Eustacia and Damon were bound to either live or die together, but since both of
those things cannot coincide with each other, only one could prevail in the presence of
Fate. Since death was their final outcome, it left a few more things to be decided by
Fate, such as the marriage of Thomasin and Diggory, which would not have occurred had
Damon survived the jump into the river. 
With Damon gone, and Thomasin left alone, Diggory takes the chance to restart the
relationship with her, which they once had in the past. With both of them at one time
having a relationship with one another, and then parting ways for a long time, it was
only the work of Fate that brought them back together once again. Author Henry Miller
once said, every man has his own destiny: the only imperative is to follow it, to accept
it, no matter where it leads him. A good interpretation of what happened with the
characters of Thomasin and Damon, because even though they believed that their time
together had ended, Fate proved them wrong by reuniting them in the end. 
As the most famous playwright of all time, William Shakespeare said, it is not in the
stars to hold our destiny, but in ourselves. Destiny, or Fate, is something which is
predetermined and cannot and will not ever, by any person or thing. As for the characters
in Return of the Native, their fates were something that they had no control over, and
even though some of them benefited, and others didn't, it was the only way which things
could have happened for each and every one of them. It is evident that the plot would not
have taken place the same without the presence of Fate, since the entire story is based
on events which occurred because of this strange force.