The Reddleman

The character of the reddleman in Thomas Hardy’s The Return of the Native has fascinated me for years, and even more so since I started focusing on the ochre family of pigments. Why did Hardy choose to stain a character in this way—what does the reddleman symbolise?

The landscape of Egdon Heath carries a protagonist role in the novel, the opening chapter reads like a psychoanalysis. It is an in depth description of its wild, savage nature, along with metaphors and similes that personify Egdon Heath, casting the most ominous presence over the characters and course of the narrative. 

Late one night, alone, appears the mysterious reddleman, Diggory Venn, he is the first figure to be introduced in the story and at this moment in the novel he is transporting the unconscious Thomasina in his cart, who is heartbroken from a failed wedding day…

‘Reddle’ in the context of the novel is a red ochre pigment used to stain sheep, Diggory travels around the country selling the ochre to farmers. Working with this pigment day after day has stained the reddleman, ‘it permeated him’ to the extent that he is perceived as other worldly. Children are afraid of him and women don’t want to marry him. He is a ‘blood coloured figure’, ‘the devil’, a ‘red ghost’. When asked by an innocent, but fearful, child “was you born a reddleman?”, Diggory responds “tis grow’d into my skin and won’t wash out.” Diggory’s life is somewhat defined by the red stain of the ochre, it has indeed become a part of him, externally and internally and has brought him great loneliness. As ochre is found in rocks and soil, I believe Hardy is suggesting that the reddleman is a part of the landscape, in the same way that Egdon Heath, the novel’s setting also performs as a character. 

Red, yellow, and brown ochre pigments created the world’s first paint thousands of years ago, such as is shown in the Cueva de las Manos in Argentina, which date back to around 5.000 BC. Today, ochre is still used in tribal rituals and ceremonies as body decoration that symbolise life, feundity and blood. It is also has powerful anti-bacterial properties and serves as effective sun protection. Many anthropologists believe that early tribes were in favour of the deeper red shades, even when the lighter, and yellow, pigments were readily available to them. These deeper red shades are believed to have held supernatural powers.

The reddleman’s function throughout the novel is much like that of an observer, always watching, like the landscape itself. The narrator asserts ‘the reddleman spreads its lively hues over everything it lights on’, implying his influence and ability to inspire change between the relationships on the Heath. Is Hardy perhaps referring back to the idea of power, even super power here? Once compared to a ‘mephistopholeian visitant’ otherwise known as Satan’s messenger, he continues to be perceived as a negative force. Whatever ‘it’ truly is, the narrator too sees Diggory as other worldy.

When we fast forward to the tragic climax of the novel, Diggory retrieves the drowned bodies of lovers Eustacia and Wildeve from the whirlpool, and miraculously ‘he is no longer a reddleman’. The water has literally and metaphorically cleansed him of the ochre and the stigma of his profession. He is transformed, metaphorically reborn, baptised…and eventually he marries his sweetheart Thomasina.

I will always wonder what inspired Hardy to create a character of ochre for this novel, ochre as a substance contains thousands of years of storytelling and symbolism rooted in the daily lives and rituals of people. Here, in this stunning novel, it is a symbol of fear, loneliness and change. 

Hardy, Thomas, The Return of the Native (United Kingdom: Belgravia 1878)