Semantic Evolution And Functional Reconfiguration Of Natural Imagery In The Literary Works Of Thomas Hardy And Khurshid Dustmuhammad
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.62480/tjpch.2026.vol59.pp1-8Keywords:
natural imagery, semantic evolution, functional reconfigurationAbstract
This article examines the semantic evolution and functional reconfiguration of natural imagery in the prose of Thomas Hardy and Khurshid Dustmuhammad from a comparative-literary perspective. Rather than treating nature as a static background, the study approaches natural images as mobile semantic units whose functions change according to narrative position, character psychology, cultural code, and the ethical structure of the text. The analysis focuses on Hardy’s The Return of the Native, Tess of the d’Urbervilles, Far from the Madding Crowd and The Woodlanders, and on Dustmuhammad’s Bozor, Jajman, Nigoh, So‘roq and Chayongul. Comparative-typological, semantic-semiotic, hermeneutic, narratological and ecocritical methods are combined to identify recurrent transformations of landscape, season, animal imagery, weather, soil, vegetation and spatial motifs. The novelty of the study lies in tracing not merely the presence or symbolism of nature but the process by which a natural image changes function across the narrative system
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