How we cite our quotes: Citations follow this format: (Book.Chapter.Paragraph)
Quote #7
As day after day passed by, and he got no better, her mind ran more and more in this mournful groove, and she would go away from him into the garden and weep despairing tears. (4.2.37)
This image of Eustacia parallels the earlier image of Mrs. Yeobright wandering around in her lonely garden, wondering about her son. The distinction here is that Eustacia is focused internally, with her mind stuck in a "mournful" rut, while Mrs. Yeobright was focused externally, imagining her son.
Quote #8
In front of her a colony of ants had established a thoroughfare across the way, where they toiled a never-ending and heavy-laden throng. To look down upon them was like observing a city street from the top of a tower. (4.6.107)
The image here gives us a strong sense of isolation – it's literally lonely at the top for Mrs. Yeobright as she looks down on the ant colony. The comparison of this colony of ants to a city is very interesting, too. Is Hardy saying that cities are as inconsequential as a hill of ants or that ants (and nature) are as important as, say, Paris? Maybe a bit of both.
Quote #9
"Two months and a half, Thomasin, the last of her life, did my poor mother live alone, distracted and mourning because of me; yet she was unvisited by me, though I was living only six miles off. Two and a half months – seventy-five days did the sun rise and set upon her in that deserted state which a dog didn't deserve!" (5.1.31)
The link of time and loneliness makes this passage even sadder and is a good rhetorical trick that Clym uses to hammer his point home to Thomasin. We get a strong sense here of how Mrs. Yeobright was isolated and distanced from others – in terms of physical distance (miles), in terms of time (months), and in terms of endless, repeated days where the sun kept rising and setting. The final comparison of her state to that of an abused "dog" is quite jarring.