In Eden Phillpotts’s Widecombe Fair, the treatment of “place” is a magnificent blend of landscape and topography with the social network of the community.  They are inseparable; one cannot be described without the other because the connection the characters have with the land is so profound.  The physical and the social aspects of “place” in the novel function in harmony because of their constant interaction with each other, which in turn is due to the agrarian nature of the society in Widecombe.  Phillpotts layers this “social-scape” of the novel, if I may coin a term, on top of his richly detailed landscape, enhancing both of these facets of “place.” 

Along with these two predominant functions of “place” in Widecombe Fair, the themes of isolation and community are also relevant.  The most evident form of isolation is the fact that Widecombe is isolated from the other villages of Dartmoor as well as the surrounding cities.  In addition, the farms of Widecombe are also isolated from each other, according to Mr. Blatchford, the lawyer’s clerk from Exeter.  “‘Such a sparse population is most depressing…One shivers; it makes the mind cold, Miss Harvey, to look into this place and to realize that it is the isolated abode of one’s fellow-creatures’” (Widecombe 397).  At the same time, there is also a great sense of community present in the novel, which, somewhat ironically, is most likely a direct result of the village’s isolation from the outlying area of Devon.  As with any small community, the same groups of people are constantly together, at the local pubs, at town meetings, and also at work.  Thus, this regular social interaction of the same men and women over time has cemented the bonds of community within their little hamlet.  Furthermore, the relationships within the community are necessarily stronger because there is so little interaction with the outside world; this is not to say that there is no interaction with the outside world, as witnessed in the first chapter of the novel, Tryphena Harvey is an outsider.  However, it is certain that there would have been only limited contact at this point in time with places like Exeter; more likely would be the contacts with other small communities out on the moor.  It is this limited contact with outside influences of the material world that provides Phillpotts with the perfect setting to examine the uncomplicated psyches of his characters in relation to the brutal nature of the landscape.

The passages from chapters one and three set a precedent for the way that Phillpotts simultaneously treats landscape and “social-scape” in the novel.  There is no way to keep these two functions of “place” from merging into each other; their fusion envelops the entire novel where even the characters play an active role in the description of the topography of the Vale.  An example from early in the novel occurs when Miss Thirza Tapper gives Mr. Blatchford and Tryphena directions to Southcombe Farm: “You proceed through Widecombe, and, about three hundred yards farther on, will observe a steep lane extending up the hill on your right.  If followed it will take you to Southcombe Farm, the residence of the Coaker family” (5).  Phillpotts indicates here that the characters are as attached to--and knowledgeable of--their environment as they are to any of their other occupations.  For them, the immediate landscape is so much a part of their daily lives that informal discourse of it is a regular occurrence.  However, it is clearly the narrator who takes the most pleasure in describing in loving detail, the landscape of Widecombe Vale, as noted by the first few paragraphs of the novel. 

Across the brightness of the afternoon sunshine, a west wind blew bannerets of smoke from the brows of many hills.  These vans of vapour were purple in earth’s shadow, but grey under the delicate shade of the clouds above them; and where the low sunshine burnt upon their streamers, they shone a dazzling silver.

It was February; swaling had begun, and Dartmoor’s annual cleansing by fire liberated this splendid mass of matter, to fill the lower chambers of the air.  With many aerial arches, rolling waves, and glimmering crests, the smoke spanned the depth beneath, where spread the Vale of Widecombe, within its granite cincture of great hills—a dimple on the face of the earth, a cradle under a many-coloured quilt of little fields.

Over the shoulders of Hameldon, the sunshine came slanting amid great shadows, that fell, wine-coloured, from the hills.  Light began to ascend and wing out of this deep cup, until only the pinnacles of the church still flamed and flashed rosily above the gathering gloom. (1)

This “landscape painting” creates for the reader a sweeping, general survey of what the Vale looks like and serves as the basis from which the rest of the description of the landscape develops.

As already noted, the characters also play an important role in merging the functions of landscape and “social-scape” in the novel.  In chapter three, the extended conversation between three of Widecombe’s residents about the physical and social layout of the valley is a perfect blend of the two:

‘I’ll run ’em over,’ said Pancras Widecombe, ‘and you’ll see I shan’t leave out one among ’em.  First there’s Southcombe yonder from t’other side.  Bill Coaker, his wife, Grace Coaker; his son, my friend, Elias; and the two men—they brothers Webber…Then there’s Kingshead where Widow Windeatt bides to, with her three men; and Woodhayes, where you and your father live, Harry, and his wife and your wife… (18-19)

By involving the characters again in the description of the landscape and naming the various farmsteads dotting the Vale, Phillpotts is able to stitch together seamlessly these two functions of “place,” and the social and physical can be discussed at the same time.

The themes of isolation and community are also introduced early in the novel.  In chapter one, Mr. Blatchford remarks on the apparent bleakness of the Vale: “A desolate, uninhabited sort of a spot…This is what they call a rural district, Tryphena.  I hope you won’t find it very dull and dismal after the bustle and stir of Exeter…But the loneliness Tryphena!  How strange it must be to live in a house a mile away from everybody else!” (2).  To a city-man like Mr. Blatchford, Widecombe seems like a prison of isolation; he cannot imagine living anywhere as remote as Widecombe.  In regards to Tryphena, Blatchford may see Widecombe as a stagnant place for a young woman to grow up, offering very few educational or social opportunities as befitting a young lady of her class (it is revealed later on in the novel that Tryphena has inherited a substantial amount of money, which catapults her out of the rural social class she has been living in for the past couple years). 

Pancras Widecombe’s views on the isolation of the village offer an interesting juxtaposition to Blatchford’s original argument: for Pancras, Widecombe’s isolation has bored him.  As he says to Young Harry Hawke and Birkett Johnson, “I reckon I shall be shamed to bide in such a little hole much longer…I’ve sucked Widecombe so dry as an empty egg-shell” (17, 18).  It seems from his words here that Pancras longs to get out of the confining atmosphere of the community and see some of Mr. Blatchford’s city life.  Pancras views Widecombe’s tight-knit community as a handicap; he knows everything and everyone in town and now longs for excitement that Widecombe can no longer provide. 

The other side of this argument is that of community through isolation.  Tryphena Harvey sees the Vale as beautiful and charming: “‘Oh, the pretty birds!’ cried the girl.  ‘And how happy they are!  And so they ought to be in such a place’” (2).  While Pancras’s companions see the Vale as the center of their world and are content to keep it so: “‘Size be nought,’ declared Birkett Johnson regarding the Vale.  ‘ ’Tis a busy, bustling place, and, for my part, I always feel glad that my lot fell in a church town, where there is such a deal doing’” (18).  Tryphena’s early optimistic views of the Vale foreshadow the fact that she will eventually feel the same way about Widecombe that Birkett Johnson does.

Clearly, the situation of the Vale is determined individually.  Outsiders like Mr. Blatchford see the Vale as an isolated and desolate non-entity, while inhabitants see it as a close knit community of families where everyone knows each other.  Since the action of the novel takes place within such a tight-knit community, the reader can assume that Phillpotts held centrally important the idea of community and social interaction among community members, evidenced by the many episodes that take place in the two local pubs, and the village square.  To be sure, even though the natural descriptions in the novel give a sense of great space, the characters never appear to be too far from each other because there is constant interaction between them, either in town, or at their respective farms.

As the key to Phillpotts’s novel, description is what ultimately connects the different functions of “place” and moves the reader through the events of the novel.  The characters' emotions are reflected in the landscape that they must constantly work with and against suggesting that the landscape itself is not a passive backdrop, but also a part of the active “social-scape,” further complicating the separate functions of “place” in the novel.  However, this immersion also demonstrates the skill Phillpotts employs in the complete integration of all his themes within the novel, creating a tightly woven fabric, reflective of the community, which he so intimately describes.