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1. Thomas Hardy was born in June 2 1840 in Higher Bockhampton, Dorset, England, and
died in January 11 1928, Dorchester, Dorset. He grew up in an isolated cottage on the edge of
open heathland. His early experience of rural life was fundamental to much of his later
writing. He spent a year at the village school at age eight and then moved on to a school in
Dorchester, where he received a good grounding in mathematics and Latin. In 1856 he was
an apprentice to an important architect and shortly after he moved to London and became a
draftsman. Poor health forced him to return to his native region in 1867. In the mid-1860s
lack of funds and declining religious faith forced him to abandon his early ambition of a
university education and his habits of intensive private study were then redirected toward
poetry and writing. In 1872, He decided to devote his time to his literary career.
Hardy was interested in focusing on depicting the native region as a setting, transforming the
real world into a fictional one. In the return of the native, he gives a fictional name to its
region; namely Wessex which is well known all over the world, and which is based on the
rural area reflecting its geographical details, culture, and socio-economic situation as well,
where Hardy was born and raced up. Another aspect to be pointed out is that as well as
Yeobright, Hardy is motivated to return to the native region because of his love of his birth
place.
2. The return of the native uses Naturalism very effectively when presenting new
characters or environments for the reader. Egdon Heath was described once as “a place
whose dark soil was strong and crude and organic as the body of a beast.”
The novel illustrates how the characters are somewhat bound to the natural landscape. As the
heath powerfully influences the lives of its inhabitants, begins to take on human
“But celestial imperiousness, love, wrath, and fervour had proven to be somewhat thrown
away on netherward Egdon. Her power was limited, and the consciousness of this limitation
had biassed her development. Egdon was her Hades” (Thomas Hardy, 1912: 54).
"Do you mean Nature? I hate her already. But I shall be glad to hear your scheme at any
time." (Thomas Hardy, 1912:135). This quotation shows the contrast between human nature
3. The title of the novel is poetical and highly suggestive. The word "return" has a lot of
meanings in this work and it is always surrounded by questions of longevity and intent. This
title conveys one of the major themes of the novel: choice. All returns are a result of a choice
Since the title of this novel explores more than one kind of "return” we may suggest that the
it refers not only to Clym’s homecoming, but to his truly return as a native, what really
entails this action and all the consequences it may have, and actually had. He was a native in
the Heath, then he left his home to succeed in Paris but later he returns to his birthplace,
leaving behind the luxury and extravagance of such a city. He decides to leave modernity and
to return to this primitive land, this place that still embraces a life of simplicity. Clym’s return
causes much sorrow and pain to a lot of people. Diggory Venn is another native who is
returning to the story all the time, He seems to be a key character since he appears just in the
https://neoenglish.wordpress.com/2010/12/11/the-title-of-the-novel-its-significance-in-the-
return-of-the-native/
https://www.shmoop.com/
4. HEROES
ClymYeobright is one of the heroes of the novel. He ties all the other characters together
and it is his story drives the narrative. Clym is considered to be a hero because of his
generosity, chivalry, refinement and determination. He is considered to be the local man who
left and did not return. People in the Heath admired him because he left his native place to
Diggory is one of the most prominent characters in the novel and it is also considered to be
another hero. Diggory is generous and kind. He is the wisest character in the novel, which
sees through all others, and is able to manipulate them, not for his own good, but for the good
of his beloved, Thomasin. Venn’s selfless regard of the Heath suggests the altruism of the
community. He is one of those characters who succeed in life, and achieves happiness in the
end.
VILLAINS
bringing unhappiness to Thomasin, and is also responsible for leading Eustacia to her ruin.
He's continually described as "careless" in his attitude and his behaviour. Wildeve may be
inconsiderate and offensive, but he isn't evil though his selfishness ensures that he often does
SYMPATHETIC CHARACTER
"reddleman" and he becomes an outcast, taking on a lonely role. Diggory is the spirit of the
Heath. He knows every mood of Egdon Heath and all its aspects. Because of his desire to
help Thomasin, Diggory adopts the role as the novel's primary meddler. For someone who is
such a loner, he really gets into everyone else's business. Venn actually plays a big role in
moving the novel's plot along. He is even considered to be the wisest character in the novel.
Diggory’s generosity, kindness and intelligence make the reader feel sympathetic towards
5. Thomas Hardy seems to have a pessimistic philosophy of life and defines life as misery.
His vision is that men are puppets in the hands of God and thus everything is dependent on
luck. The author mixes the modern and ancient form of tragedies. His tragedies are realistic
but he portrays the pathos of humans. Hardy’s tragedy can be concluded in these ingredients:
events, chances, coincidences and fate. In The Return of the Native we can clearly perceive
that Hardy’s characters are governed by fate, all of them have little or no control over their
lives. In the novel the author shows man as the helpless plaything of invisible powers,
ruthless and indifferent. He embodies the idea that man lives in an indifference of universe.
http://www.askliterature.com/novel/hardys-tragic-vision/
6) The interplay between inevitable social change and traditional ways of life.
One of the most attractive points of the novel is the way in which it records the dying
customs because the inhabitants don’t obey and follow the traditions and customs. They put
One of the major conflicts in the novel is that Dorset cannot change his attitudes and
traditions while the social change is in front of his eyes. Harry’s work highlights the
traditions of his age, and there are too many customs that play a central role to the narrative.
Hardy explains that repeated traditions can make us forget the real sentimental value of them.
The most important tradition is the celebrations of May Day because they finally reunite to
As regards traditional ways of life, in the return of the native we see people failing to
performing their expected "roles" in this book, and we witness the ramifications of not
playing by the rules and norms of such a traditional society: Mrs. Yeobright embarrasses
herself and her family when she publicly refuses to support Thomasin's engagement; Eustacia
The lad was in good spirits that day, for the fifth of November had again come around. For
two successive years his mistress had seemed to take pleasure in lighting a bonfire. (Thomas
The characters feel a sense of boredom on passionate personalities because they do not fall in
love because of the gratitude of the characters. They do not feel in love, their love is a
fantasy. They idealize the characters according to their tastes and conveniences, so they get
The characters do not have romantic conflicts because they are not in love to each other. For
example, Damon and Eustacia seem bored by the idea of happy, conflict-free love.
“Fidelity in love for fidelity's sake had less attraction for her that for most women: fidelity
"I do, and I do not," said he mischievously. "That is, I have my times and my
Gentility: This theme refers to the gentility that has Clym. He is chivalry and kind. Clym is
intelligent, cultured and deeply introspective. He is patient and generous, but also deeply
determined. He is kind with all the characters except with his mother. He is the vivid
representation of gentility.
“No sooner had Clym given her his arm and led her off the scene than the reddleman turned
back from the beaten track towards East Egdon, whither he had been strolling merely to
accompany Clym in his walk, Diggory’s van being again in the neighbourhood” (Thomas
Romance: In the return of the native, love is a fantasy for many of the characters. Characters
fell in love based on their romanticized vision of another person. The most affected character
was Eustacia, she was desperate to discover the passion of romantic love. Her necessity to
discover the passion of romantic love makes her blind and cannot see that Wildeve mostly
repulses her.
"Don't mistake me, Clym: though I should like Paris, I love you for yourself alone. To be your
wife and live in Paris would be heaven for me; but I would rather live with you in a
hermitage here than not be yours at all. It is gain to me either way, very great gain. There's
1) Edgdon Heath: The first chapter of the novel is dedicated to that description of the heath
because it proves physically and psychologically important throughout the novel. This
description transforms the heath into a principal character, identifying it as a man like-figure.
The setting of this novel is playing a great role by its effect on the characters themselves. The
place is the heath which was very close to the writer's birthplace in Dorset. The characters
can be divided according to their love or hatred toward the heath and their destinies are to be
defined according to this relationship. The heath may be considered as a symbol of faith, in a
sense it controls the destinies of its inhabitants; this tragic feature proves true at the end of the
2) Bonfire and Rainbarrow: Bonfire is used for commemorations especially religious and
pagan. The bonfire marks the contrast with the darkness of the heath. The imagery of light
and darkness serves symbolically the theme of knowledge and ignorance throughout the
novel. Rainbarrow is the highest place in the heath, the centre of the locals' festivities, and the
place of the lovers' meetings. The writer uses fire to denote the rebelliousness of some of his
characters against nature embodied by the heath. The writer describes Eustacia’s soul to be
3) The moon: According to a superstitious saying of the heath folk, the moon symbolizes the
relationship between the moon and mans-birth to define his personality. It is believed that the
perfect man might be born when the moon was full. The scene of the eclipsed moon, in which
Eustacia agrees to marry Clym, symbolizing the disapproval of fortune to this marriage. The
failure of this marriage at last proves that this conclusion is correct. The writer uses the
metaphor of the eclipsed moon to denote Eustacia tragic death; the eclipse of moon means the
eclipse of herself.
4) Paris:
Paris represents everything Eustacia wants out of life: luxury, adventure, culture, and
romance. It greatly contrasts to the heath, which is why she longs for it so deeply, for
5) Gambling:
coincidence, adventure, and fate. The Writer presents Wildeve as someone who is always
gambling with life. Eustacia gambles with her life in the heath with Clym to adventure with
Wildeve to live in a modern city essentially found in her imagination. Clym gambles with
easy and comfortable life in Paris to endure cruel life in the heath.
In the scene of gambling, Wildeve proves loser as his role in life, while Diggory Venn, the
in three ways:
1- Clym blindness is interpreted as his return from the city of modernism (Paris) to the Heath
as a symbol of ignorance.
2- The second one is interpreted as the intellectual blindness. Any character who comes from
the civilization
3- The third interpretation may be concluded as the reconciliation between the two previous
contradicting points of view. The writer is with certain kinds of knowledge that save the
human being and is against other kinds which may destroy him.
7) Wind, storm and rain: The writer describes a special relationship between Egdon Heath
and the wind and storm. The storm is his lover and the wind is his friend. The queer wind is
accompanied by the fairy mood haunted the heath.The wind expresses Eustacia's emotional
The role of the weather in the novel is directed in such a way that it changes according to the
mood and situation. The parallelism between the setting and the inner feelings of the
8) Water: Water, like many of the symbols in this novel, has both positive and negative
aspects attached to it. Water is life-giving and healing, but also deadly and dangerous. So it's
fitting that such a complex symbol would be attached to a complicated theme like choices,
especially to Eustacia's choices. Given how closely water is tied to Eustacia and her decisions
makes sense that water would also be the scene of Eustacia's mysterious death. Water also
9) Death: The death of Eustacia and Wildeve may be interpreted that the heath hates these
two characters and it kills everyone who resembles an enemy. It also suggests the hostile
nature of the heath which revenges itself for the hatred shown it by these two. It seems that
the characters cannot escape Egdon: you either come to terms with it or it destroys you. The
symbolic meaning of their death is the death of their direction or attitude. Their attitude is
against the writer's idea of anti – modernism; really the false appearances of modernism
which are embodied by the behaviours and ambitions of Eustacia and Wildeve.
8. Hardy delivers his views on desire and romantic love with a unique spin. He explores
the ideas of desire for social status and possession versus romantic desire through the various
relationships in the novel; in doing so, he examines the implications of modernity within
these relationships.
In the novel love is a fantasy for many of its characters since they fall in love based on their
romanticized vision of another person, not on reality. There return of the native is a love story
and in it there is not merely a love triangle, but a rhomboid with a tail. The love triangle may
be represented as follows:
Eustacia - Clym
Both Clym and Wildeve love Eustacia and both Wildeve and Venn love Thomasin. Thus
there is a double love story, the path of the lovers cross, and the result is much sorrow and
suffering, and ultimately tragedy. In the novel love is a source of tragedy rather than of
happiness
9. The narrative style of the novel is different to that of the traditional writing because
Thomas Hardy uses different narrative mechanisms in making attractive to his readers. The
point of view in “the return of the native” is a third person or omniscient. This means that
events can be viewed through the eyes of whatever character at the moment suits the author's
purposes. Usually, though not always, such a person is one of the main characters. Such a
point of view is normally confusing to the reader only when it is shifted frequently in a short
space.
The narrator of the novel makes an aesthetic judgement rather than a moral one since he uses
different narrative mechanisms in order to make his writing attractive to his readers.
10. In our opinion the most consistent and credible ending to the novel is the tragic one.
This is because the happy ending is not credible or convincing after all the tragic events that
took place in the novel. There is no consistency between the tragic plot and the happy ending.
Moreover, it is not credible since the Heath and its inhabitants seem to be destined to suffer
Biographical citations:
Book:
Hardy, Thomas (1912). The return of the native. Ware, Hertfordshire: Wordsworth Edition.
Hardy, Thomas (1912). The figure against the sky. Ware, Hertfordshire: Wordsworth Edition.
Hardy, Thomas (1912). A conjuncture and its result upon the Pedestrian. Ware,
Hertfordshire: Wordsworth Edition.
Hardy, Thomas (1912). Queen of night. Ware, Hertfordshire: Wordsworth Edition.
Hardy, Thomas (1912). Love leads a shrewd Man into Strategy. Ware, Hertfordshire:
Wordsworth Edition.
Hardy, Thomas (1912). My mind to Me a Kingdom is. Ware, Hertfordshire: Wordsworth
Edition.