It is significant that Hardy devotes the entire first chapter of his novel to a description of Egdon Heath; even more significant is the way he described it. It is said to be eternally waiting and "unmoved" in its "ancient permanence." The "storm [is] its lover, and the wind its friend." "It [has] a lonely face, suggesting tragical possibilities"; and its characteristic vegetation gives it an "antique brown dress." Hardy gives animation and a personality to Egdon. Some critics have gone so far as to speak of the heath as one of the main characters in the novel, and in this light other critics suggest that this landscape becomes the personification of the area's ancient, pagan past, making it small wonder that one of the locals will later accuse one of the main characters, Eustacia Vye, of being a witch.
It helps our reading of the novel to think of Egdon Heath as a symbol. Hardy himself suggests that such a "gaunt waste" with its "chastened sublimity" may come to represent a new ideal of beauty for modern man. But this is, of course, an indirect way of commenting on modern people and their views of the universe. No beings appear in the novel until the second chapter and even then they are not named. At the very least, Egdon is shown to be inhospitable to man, even as it is almost untouched by him.
When human figures do finally appear, they seem insignificant against the backdrop of the indifferent, if not hostile, Egdon. Many times during the course of the story, for instance, Clym will be shown to appear like a tiny insect moving across the face of nature. These elements — the heath as a setting and a symbol, and the way the first people to appear are shown in relation to their surroundings — demonstrate Hardy's theme: Man lives his life in a universe that is at least indifferent to him and may be hostile.
