The Return of the Native by Thomas Hardy

The Return of the Native

Thomas Hardy

Published 1878

English Novel

The Well-Educated Mind Novels

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I. Grammar Stage Inquiry 

What is the most important event?

Since the most important event is suppose to drastically change the main character, I believe it is when an adder bites Mrs. Yeobright and she dies on the Heath.  Afterward, Clym learns that his mother felt rejected by him, and he carries the burden of guilt of her death.  This causes him to withdraw from people and become bedridden.  And it snowballs from there.

When, after several weeks he recovers his strength, he tends to his duties to prepare his mother’s home; however, he hears additional information from others about her final days, and he investigates further only to learn that Eustacia did not tell him what she knew.  This causes him to rightly lash out at his wife, and even to feel violently toward her.  She leaves him.

Days later, when he feels regretful of how he treated her, he writes a love letter asking her to return to him.  But it is too late.  When she drowns in the weir, he feels responsible for another woman’s death.  He withdraws to himself again, and somewhat trades places with Diggory, who now settles down with Thomasin, while Clym is left to wander the Heath as a preacher just as Diggory did as a reddleman.  I don’t know if he will ever be capable of love again.

As for Eustacia, who is considered another main character, the only thing she wants to do is leave the Heath, which is why she marries Clym; but after his mother’s death, everything changed.  Later, she knows Wildeve has money to help her, but if she has to rely on him, he is not good enough for her.  It is possible she felt like she had no recourse, and that would support why she jumped into the weir to drown.  

II. Logic Stage Inquiry

What in the world does the main character want?

Clym gives up his lucrative career as a diamond merchant in Paris to return to the Heath.  In his mind, he is one with the Heath.  “If any one knew the heath well it was Clym.  He was permeated with its scenes, with its substance, and with its odours.  He might be said to be its product.”  

And because he is not in his right mind, he wants to open a school for the poor in the community.  “…I want to do some worthy thing before I die.  As a schoolmaster I think to do it – a schoolmaster to the poor and ignorant, to teach them what nobody else will.”  Clym “did not care much about social failure.” 

For Eustacia, her greatest desire is “to be loved to madness.  Love was to her the one cordial which could drive away the eating loneliness of her days.   And she seemed to long for the abstraction called passionate love more than any particular lover.”  She doesn’t care for marriage, and she is disconnected from the heath.  She wants a way out of the heath.  

So, what is the problem?

Clym must study to become a schoolmaster, but in the process, he takes a wife, Eustacia, who wants the complete opposite of what he wants.  Then, when too much studying injures his eyesight, he takes a labor job on the Heath because he cannot remain idle, and he cannot study again until his eyesight improves.  However, before that happens, his mother dies, which changes everything.  

Eustacia’s problem is that she plays games.  First, she idealizes Wildeve, but he is pursuing Thomasin.  After Wildeve marries Thomasin, Eustacia marries Clym because she thought she could use him to escape the Heath; but her “love lost all of its power” when he injures his sight and becomes a furze-cutter.  

Finally, when she thinks Wildeve can rescue her, she re-evaluates her situation, and decides, “He is not great enough for me.  He does not suffice for my desire!”  Then she ends with: “How I have tried and tried to be a splendid woman, and how destiny has been against me!...I do not deserve my lot!”  Either she cannot selfishly control others to get what she wants, or others are just not good enough for her.  She is doomed! 

III. Rhetoric-Stage Inquiry 

What argument is the author making, and do you agree?

My favorite argument is that it is self-destructive to make assumptions and suppositions without good communication.  How often the plot thickens because a character thinks he or she has all of the facts or knows what someone’s true intention is. 

For example, Mrs. Yeobright never believed that her son wanted to leave his lucrative career in Paris to live permanently on the Heath to become a lousy schoolmaster on his own.  It was that witch, Eustacia, who convinced him to stay behind and do such a foolish job as run a school for poor kids.  But, if Mrs. Y. only knew that Eustacia would rather have lived in Paris with a successful husband, maybe their relationship would not have gotten off to such a bad start.

Another example involves Mrs. Yeobright’s inheritance money that was gambled away to Wildeve by Christian who was supposed to deliver half to Clym and the other half to Thomasin.  Diggory recovers all of it, but without knowledge that half went to Clym, he gave all of it to Thomasin.  Meanwhile, Mrs. Y only hears Christian’s account of it being lost to Wildeve, and she quickly accuses Wildeve of giving it privately to Eustacia, his old love.  This causes a major confrontation between the two women.

And let’s not forget that on the day Mrs. Yeobright seeks reconciliation with Clym and Eustacia, she is quick to think Eustacia has convinced her son to ignore her knock at the door, especially given that she saw Clym enter the house and Eustacia peer through the window; but Eustacia assumed Clym would wake up and let his mother in.  Neither happened, and Mrs. Y went away dejected.

Of course, I have to agree with this because it is commonplace.  Humans have a tendency to jump to conclusions causing more grief than if they would have better communicated or investigated deeper before drawing an understanding or opinion of someone’s intentions.  It is advantageous to give others the benefit of the doubt before singlehandedly judging his heart without consultation.