Lecturer Maria Munir

Novel The Return of the Native

Clym Yeobright:
The "Native" of the novel's title, Clym is the son of Mrs. Yeobright and the cousin of Thomasin
Yeobright. He goes abroad to work as a diamond merchant in Paris but comes home when he
realizes that his ambition is not towards material wealth. He is pursued by Eustacia Vye and
eventually marries her but their marriage turns sour when her ambition to move to Paris conflicts
with his plan to stay on Egdon Heath and teach school. Clym is intelligent, cultured and deeply
introspective. He is patient and generous but also deeply determined and fierce when angered:

It is this determination that leads to his eventual split with his mother, and separation from
Eustacia. At the end of the novel, weakened by a degenerative eye condition and by the trauma of
losing his mother and Eustacia--for whose deaths he blames himself, he becomes an
itinerant(touring) preacher later on, sermonizing about simple moral topics.

Clym, the native who returns to his birthplace on Egdon Heath, is an instance of a precocious
(mature), highly regarded child and boy who, when a man, leaves his provincial background to
make his way in the world. He then gives up worldly success for what he thinks of as a more
important calling on his native ground. In short, Hardy's protagonist is a character who, though
still admired locally, is bound to be misunderstood when he chooses to forgo(give up) conventional
ideas of vocation and success. Eustacia can't understand why a man who has lived in Paris, the
center to her, of all that is desirable, should chose to return to Egdon. On the basis of Clym's desire
to serve his native Egdon lies a general and idealistic view of his fellow human beings:

"Yeobright loved his kindness. He had a conviction that the want of most men was a sort of
knowledge which brings wisdom rather than affluence(wealth). He wished to raise the class
at the expense of individuals rather than individuals at the expense of the class. What was
more, he was ready at once to be the first unit sacrificed."

At the end of the novel, his eyesight still subnormal, his mother and his wife dead. Clym still
persists in the same view of mankind, will not complain of the injustice of his lot(load) in life. He
is as Spartan(hard) in his style of life as a Thoreau; at the least, this makes him hard to get along
with, not merely for his wife but for any other human being. It is ironical that in this aspect of his
personality he is so much like his mother, who is inflexible in her attitude towards her son. Almost
the only person in the novel with whom Clym is shown to be content is Humphrey, when the two
of them cut furze together.
However admirable Clym's personality may be, certain sides of him are unattractive but this is a
tribute to Hardy's ability to create life-like characters. Clym is given to self-pity and he has in him
a curious unwillingness(slowness) to act. His delay in trying to establish contact with his mother
after his marriage is repeated in his hesitating to ask Eustacia to come back to him. His inability to
act enables Hardy to show him at the mercy of events or circumstances or chance, is a
demonstration of the theme of novel. He is meant to be, in other words, a modern man:

“Who is able to understand but unable to act decisively”.

Eustacia Vye:

Born in the busy port town of Budmouth and transplanted to Egdon Heath to live with her
grandfather. Eustacia despises the heath and searches for a way to escape. Her grandfather's house
is isolated physically and she keeps herself apart from the heath dwellers by her walks alone and
her frequent nightly excursions to the summit of Rainbarrow (views). However, even as she hates
the heath, Eustacia seems in her deep, brooding passion, to be a part of its wild nature. She has an
amorous (lustful) relationship with Damon Wildeve but enters into a tragic marriage with Clym
Yeobright when she realizes that he is the more interesting, and urbane, of the two men.

They, in turn, look upon her as unfriendly and too proud; Mrs. Yeobright tells Clym she is idle and
probably wanton. Susan Nunsuch even thinks of her as a witch. Unlike Clym, whom the heath folk
can at least fathom in part, Eustacia is beyond their comprehension. Only Charley has really had
any opportunity to get to know her. Her view of life is as foreign to the heath as her person: "
Eustacia's brain was juxtaposed the strangest assortment(mixture) of ideas, from old time and from
new. There was no middle distance in her perspective:

romantic recollections of sunny afternoons on a long, open area, with military bands, officers, and
gallants around, stood like gilded letters upon the dark tablet of surrounding Egdon." She is a
hedonist (a pleasure-seeker) for whom, love as an end in itself is the greatest pleasure: "To
be loved to madness — such was her great desire."

In any case, it is clear that she is not an easy person to live with or be around. Hardy says of her:
"She had the passions and instincts which make a model goddess, that is, those [passions and
instincts] which make not quite a model woman." Though she is beautiful in an exotic way, she
often acts very much like a spoiled child.

Vocal in her condemnation of Destiny, Eustacia is an active demonstration of Hardy's theme in the
novel. Yet, there is something unattractive about her readiness to shift the blame for everything
that happens to her. It is difficult to accept whatever rationalization she makes for doing away with
herself. It seems somehow unnecessary for a young woman of twenty, to throw herself in a stream
because she cannot find the ideal mate.
It is a real question in the novel as to, who is the main character. Hardy intended Clym to be, but
Eustacia succeeds in upstaging him most of the time. Judged on the basis of the most widespread
effects on the lives of the other characters in the novel, Eustacia clearly is more important.

Mrs. Yeobright:

Clym Yeobright's mother, and Thomasin Yeobright's aunt and guardian. A proper, class-
conscious, proud woman. Mrs.Yeobright objects to the marriage of both her charges; as it turns
out, she is entirely correct. She dies when exhausted, she is bitten by an adder on the heath,
believing that Clym has utterly rejected her. The daughter of a parson, Mrs. Yeobright considers
herself--and is considered--of a higher class than the local laborers.

Clym's mother is "a well-known and respected widow of the neighborhood, of a standing which
can only be expressed by the word genteel [polite]." The fact that "though her husband was a small
farmer she herself is a curate's daughter" sets her apart from the heath folk and causes them to
respect her presence. She is conventional(ordinary) in her views, looking upon material success.
For instance, as a mark of a man's worth in life. Not being a woman of means(manner), she can't
understand how her son can give up his position in Paris and entertain such a foolish idea as
teaching the poor on the heath. When Clym thinks of setting up a school in Budmouth, she
immediately takes it as a sign of his coming to his senses.

Her repeated concern over the slight to Thomasin's character and the possible offense to her family
because of the delay in Thomasin's marriage to Wildeve says much about her as a person.
Appearances and reputation are important to her; she is shocked, for example, by the sight of her
son, dressed as a furze cutter. She had thought it was only a diversion or hobby for him. Her
relationship to Clym and her niece Thomasin is rather austere; she habitually reacts to them by
giving advice.

The very thing which has sustained her in her widowhood turns out finally to undo her: her
inflexibility of judgment. If not for this, she wouldn't have been on the heath at all on the fateful
August day. Chance, perhaps, operates to bring Wildeve into Clym's house before her and as a
result she is overly exhausted by the time. Ironically, she is as hard on herself, often needlessly, as
her son is on himself; the very way in which they are alike keeps them apart too long.

Thomasin Yeobright:

Clym Yeobright's cousin and Mrs. Yeobright's niece and ward. Thomasin is an innocent and
goodhearted. If somewhat vacuous, woman who seems genuinely to care for Damon Wildeve--
who, however, is merely using her to make Eustacia Vye jealous. She eventually marries Wildeve,
over the objections of her aunt and has a child, which she names Eustacia. At the end of the novel,
she marries Diggory Venn, who has long loved her.
The gentle Thomasin is the young innocent who through no lack of goodwill and right intentions
on her part, is treated roughly by circumstances or in Hardy's view, by the sort of world she lives
in. She is so normal and conventional in her views and her personality that it is easy to forget that
she takes any part in the story. She wants to do right by everybody, is equitably and kindly treated
by everyone but her husband, and by the end of the novel is conveniently disposed of for a happy
future.

It is possible to suppose that Hardy added the sixth book only to make things come out right for
her; at least, his readers seemed to have demanded it.

Her only fault, from her aunt's point of view, is that she persists in wanting to marry Wildeve
even after she has not been well treated. But from the reader's point of view, this is a fault only in
the sense that she is too generous in her attitude toward others, too willing to do the right thing as
she understands it. So, in the novel, the innocent suffer too, though not irreparably.

Damon Wildeve:

A local innkeeper, Damon is described as a "lady-killer." At the start of the novel, he puts off his
marriage to Thomasin Yeobright in order to pursue a relationship with the woman he truly wants,
Eustacia Vye. When he is jilted by Eustacia, however, he marries Thomasin, and has a daughter
with her. He drowns at the end of the novel just before making an escape with Eustacia. He is
interested throughout in possession rather than love.

Wildeve is seen by others as a man who made a good start in life but has come down. The former
engineer is now the keeper of the Quiet Woman Inn, an occupation which, in many ways, suits
him perfectly. Compared with Mrs. Yeobright or Clym, he is considered to be a person of little
consequence. Like Eustacia, he is a hedonist, happier in the company of a woman than he is,
perhaps, among men at his inn. Hardy speaks of him as the typical "man of sentiment" always
longing for the remote, " the Rousseau of Egdon."

Wildeve himself sometimes complains about his "curse of inflammability" in relation to women,
but his personality is impossible to define in isolation. He finds nothing amiss in professing to love
both Thomasin and Eustacia at the same time, for different reasons, of course. Unlike Eustacia's,
his feelings are never deep, only easily aroused. Although he is attractive to women, the elements
in his personality and appearance that make him so, do not work with men. His lifestyle is
impulsive, from his quickly responding to Eustacia's signal fire in the beginning of the novel to his
unhesitating leap into the stream with all his clothes on to try to rescue Eustacia. His death when
he attempts to rescue Eustacia does not seem like a very great loss.

Diggory Venn:

Throughout most of the novel, Venn works as a semi-nomadic "reddleman": he travels throughout
the region selling the dye that farmers use to mark their sheep. As a consequence of his exposure
to the dye, his entire body and everything he owns are dyed red.
Entirely red, camping out on the heath in his wagon and emerging mysteriously from time to time,
Venn functions as an image of the heath incarnated(physical). He watches over Thomasin
Yeobright's interests throughout the novel but also preserves his own interests: he has long been
in love with her and at the end of the novel they marry. Venn is very clever and insightful, and can
be a devious(unfair) schemer.

Since the reddleman is used by Hardy as the connector in developing the plot of the novel, he is
hardly a character at all in the usual sense. True enough, he is persistent, resourceful, hard-working,
and prudent, but he is so little a character in the book that it is something of a surprise to see him
appear as Thomasin's suitor in Book Sixth. For all of his appearances in the story, the reader knows
less about him really than about any other character. Not even his
marrying Thomasin lessens(reduce) the mystery. Though, Hardy implies in a comment about the
novel that it will. Perhaps Hardy decided to marry him off to Thomasin as a reward for plot services
rendered.

Christian Cantle:
An awkward, superstitious young man, who works for Mrs. Yeobright. Christian provides comic
relief throughout the novel with his sorrowful over-certainty that he will never marry and his
petty(minor) phobias. He fails in his mission to bring Thomasin her inheritance, thus contributing
to the degeneration of the family relationships.

Captain Vye:
Eustacia's grandfather and guardian, a former captain in the British navy. A reclusive and silent
man.

Johnny Nunsuch:
The son of Susan Nunsuch. The boy has the knack(gift) of being in the right place at the right
time: he reports Eustacia and Damon Wildeve's tryst(agreement) to Diggory Venn, and is also the
one who tells Clym Yeobright of his mother's damning last words.

Charley:
A local youth who works for the Vyes, and who falls hopelessly in love with Eustacia.

Local laborers:
Local laborers whose simple dialect and observance of local customs form the cultural backdrop
for the novel.