How we cite our quotes: Citations follow this format: (Book.Chapter.Paragraph)
Quote #13
"Diggory, if we, who remain alive, were only allowed to hold conversation with the dead – just once, a bare minute, even though a screen of iron bars, as with persons in prison – what might we learn!" (5.2.67)
Clym raises a really fascinating point and this seems like a major thematic idea. This is one of the few places where communing with the dead pops up, but the book does have an alternative thematic take on this: communing with the past. Clym wishes to speak to an individual deceased person, but the heath itself is practically "alive" with past, dead voices (in the wind, mostly). So the heath is perhaps trying to "teach" the living. The link Clym establishes between death to prison is also really intriguing, though he may have it backwards given how claustrophobic life on the heath can be for people.
Quote #14
"Never! I'll hold my tongue to the very death that I don't mind meeting, even though I can clear myself of half you believe by speaking." (5.3.32)
While Clym uses words as a weapon against Eustacia during their fight, Eustacia turns right around and uses stubborn, defiant silence as a weapon against him. The communication wars continue.
Quote #15
The story of the deaths of Eustacia and Wildeve was told throughout Egdon, and far beyond, for many weeks and months. All the known incidents of their love were enlarged, distorted, touched up, and modified, till the original reality bore slight resemblance to the counterfeit presentation by surrounding tongues. (6.1.1)
Stylistically, this passage departs some from the rest of the novel in that it talks about our major characters and the plot in distant, generalized terms, considering how society at large would discuss them and perceive them. The tendency of stories to grow more elaborate and outlandish in the telling is a major point here, and is also a humorous, winking, reference to the melodramatic nature of the novel itself.