( Book I ) In Egdon Heath, Captain Vye meets reddleman Diggory on the road who is bringing Thomasin back after her vain attempt to marry Wildeve. Mrs. Yeobright in past had forbidden the marriage but then allowed. Reddleman meets
Mrs. Yeobright and tells her about her niece. Then both ladies go to Wildeve who explains that the marriage license was made for Budmouth but they mistakenly went to Anglebury and assures them that he will marry soon. Rustics come to
Wildeve for celebration. Wildeve sees bonfire lit by Eustacia and goes to her. She tries to entice him. Reddleman, who himself is a rejected suitor of Thomasin, comes to know their secret relation through the little boy. Reddleman meets
Eustacia but fails to convince her to leave Wildeve. Then he goes to Mrs. Yeobright with offer to marry Thomasin. Mrs.
Thomasin informs Wildeve about another suitor. ( Book II ) Mrs. Yeobright and Thomasin decide not to tell homecoming Clym about the marriage. Eustacia becomes curious about Clym. She hardly sees him on the way and starts dreaming. She visits his house in male disguise as a murmur. Clym becomes interested in her. Reddleman carries a rejecting letter form Eustacia to Wildeve. Disappointed Wildeve marries Thomasin. ( Book III ) Clym plans to leave Paris and start school at Egdon but his mother opposes. Clym leaves his mother alone, marries Eustacia and goes to
Alderworth. Mrs. Yeobright sends her money to Thomasin and Clym but Christian Cantle gambles the money with
Wildeve and loses all. Then reddleman wins the money and handovers all to Thomasin. ( Book IV ) Mrs. Yeobright’s question regarding receiving any money from Wildeve initiates a quarrel with Eustacia. Clym becomes semi-blind and becomes a furze-cutter. Eustacia accidentally meets Wildeve and old passion returns in Wildeve. Diggory tries to keep them apart. Wildeve visits Eustacia and at the same time Mrs. Yeobright comes to her son. Eustacia is unable to open the door for lady and in desperate condition old lady returns. On her way, she is bitten by snake and dies. Wildeve gets a fortune by an Uncle from Canada. ( Book V ) A girl is born to Thomasin. Reddleman tells Clym that his mother was coming for reconciliation. Clym also comes to know that the door of his house was not opened to his mother. He quarrels with Eustacia and she leaves his house. She thinks about suicide. Bonfire lighted by Charley invites Wildeve and he plans to elope with Eustacia. Clym sends a letter to Eustacia but it does not reach her. Thomasin goes to Clym and tells her about the absence of Wildeve. Eustacia fells in water and Clym and Wildeve also jumps in to save her. Eustacia and
Wildeve are dead. ( Book VI ) Clym half-heartedly decides to marry Thomasin but she marries to Diggory and Clym becomes a preacher.
Author: The sea changed, the fields changed, the rivers, the villages, and the people changed, yet Egdon remained.
Wildeve asks Eustacia if he should marry Thomasin; he declares, "I wish Tamsie were not such a confoundedly good little woman so that I could be faithful to you without injuring a worthy person.
Eustacia: I will not be beaten down by an inferior woman like her.
But I lose all self-respect in talking to you.
Refers to Thomasin
To reddleman
Author: Her presence brought memories of such things as Bourbon roses, rubies…
She was as unconcerned at that contingency as a goddess at a lack of linen.
Eustacia’s rashness
If any one knew the heath well, it was Clym
Clym's stay in Egdon has made him realize that his business in Paris is the "idlest, vainest, most effeminate business that a man could be put to.
Eustacia:
Clym:
Eustacia:
She had loved him partly because he was exceptional in this scene, partly because she had determined to love him, chiefly because she was in desperate need of loving somebody after wearying of Wildeve.
I have not much love for my fellow-creatures. Sometimes I quite hate them.
It is my curse, my shame, and will be my death.
"Do you mean Nature? I hate her already.
She is excellently education, and would make a good matron in a boarding-school
I do love you--past all compass and description. I love you to oppressiveness teaching proposal
About Egdon
To Eustacia
I think there is not that in Eustacia Vye which will make a good homespun wife. To Clym
To be your wife and live in Paris would be heaven to me; but I would rather live with you in a hermitage here than not be yours at all.
Mrs. Yeobright: Don't you see that by the very fact of your choosing her you prove that you do not
Author: know what is best for you?
To be yearning for the difficult, to be weary of that offered; to care for the remote, to dislike the near; it was Wildeve's nature always. This is the true mark of the man of sentiment.
Mrs. Yeobright: Have you received a gift from Thomasin's husband? … I mean money!
Eustacia: You injured me before my marriage, and you have now suspected me of secretly
To Eustacia

The Return of the Native – Thomas Hardy favouring another man for money!
Mrs. Yeobright: Don't rage at me, madam! ... I am only a poor old woman who has lost a son. you will find that though he is as gentle as a child with you now, he can be as hard as steel!
Author:
Eustacia:
Author: broken-hearted woman cast off by her son instead of blaming herself for the issue she laid the fault upon the shoulders of some indistinct, colossal Prince of the World
I am to blame for this. There is evil in store for me.
Clym believes that he has done an unforgivable deed and his regret is that, "... for what I have done no man or law can punish me."
Beach:
David Cecil:
Fleishman:
G. W. Sherman:
Geoffrey Thurley:
J. W. Cunliffe:
Eustacia’s reaction on old lady’s death

It is her stifled longing for spiritual expansion which leads her to play with the love of Wildeve

[Hardy's] creative power shows itself most continuously and most characteristically in its capacity to embody its inspiration in visible form. Before he does anything else, Hardy wants to make you see with your mind's eye the action of the tale he is telling. Indeed, his creative impulse seems to have instinctively expressed itself in picture.
 this book uses the setting as a character, a living presence, and not just as a buffer to linger over in between scenes.
 it (Egdon Heath) is a stage grand enough to bear the weight of gods and heroes

Eustacia Vye despises the heath and the workfolk... [she] embodies the decadence of the bourgeoisie, who, for want of anything better, glorify the individual.

...in spite of the fact that the agonies endured by Hardy's characters are not arbitrarily inflicted by the gods or Fate or the President of the Immortals, but organically derive from their being the kind of people they are, still, Hardy intimates, there is immense sorrow in the fact that things are as they are.... Life is painful, existence is an agony to be endured- to deny that Hardy felt this is to misread him, perversely or wrongheadedly.

It is the force of circumstance- the malignant power of Egdon Heath to dwarf and thwart the aspiring soul- that drives Eustacia Vye to irretrievable disaster. It is circumstance too that involves her husband in the same calamity, for he can hardly be held more fortunate in escaping with his
Katherine Anne
Porter:
Novalis:
Samuel Chew:
Webster: life. His mother falls beneath a stroke of fortune utterly undeserved.

He wrote and wrote again, and he never found it easy. He lacked elegance, he never learned the trick of the whip-lash phrase, the complicated lariat twirling of the professed stylists....

Character is fate

In both his novels and his poetry Hardy's thoughts revolve frequently around the comic or tragic irony of the mischances of the marital relation.... At the root of his polemics are his sense of the injustice of imposing a permanent bond as the penalty for a passing desire and his knowledge of the numberless instances in which love has been stifled by obligation.
 The Return of the Native is the most pessimistic of Hardy’s early novels

Clym Yeobright

Eustacia Vye

Diggory Venn

Susan Nunsuch

Mrs. Yeobright

Captain Vye

Charley

Grandfer Cantle

Thomasin Yeobright

Damon Wildeve

Johnny Nunsuch

Christian Cantle
2 Compiled by: Zia Ullah Khan

The Return of the Native – Thomas Hardy

A few categories

Simple, primal natures

Description of physical appearance

The rustic group

As a part of background

Source of humour

As Chorus

Vital role of chance and coincidence

Game of dice
 Eustacia’s chance meeting with Wildeve

A legacy for Wildeve
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Change in weather condition
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Symbolical of Hardy’s philosophy
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Function – to emphasis the real circumstances of life
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The rustics – a part of heath
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Clym and heath
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Influence on plot

Symmetry and unity

Development in story

Dramatic Scenes
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Interpolations
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Persons, Causes, emotional reaction & affect, author?

Clash of human will and purpose

Hostility of nature

Hardy – not a cynic

Comic Relief

Convincing characters

Emotional states exactly rendered

Contrasted portraits

Information about major characters

Contribution to plot
 Reddleman’s meeting with boy Johnny
 The accident of Clym’s semi-blindness

Closed door

The bonfire

Not just a background

The permanence of heath

Eustacia and heath
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Influence on other characters

A moral wilderness
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Essentials – Dramatic Opening

Role of Egdon Heath

Role of Rustic Characters

Faults

Democratic choice of characters
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Fate – A determinist instead of fatalist

Emotional impact

Inner and outer conflict

Conclusion – A matter of opinion
Compiled by: Zia Ullah Khan 3