heath.
Wildeve, although he has since become a married man, has by no means abandoned his attachment to Eustacia. When he calls on her at her home, while Clym is asleep and therefore unaware of his presence, there is a knock at the door. It is Clym’s mother, who has decided to seek reconciliation with her son. But Clym does not awaken and Eustacia chooses not to answer the door, even though she is aware who is there. On the way home, Mrs Yeobright is bitten by an adder and dies, but before she does so, she tells a small boy, Johnny Nunsuch, That she is ‘a broken-hearted woman, cast off by her son’.
Eustacia tries to conceal the whole occurrence from Clym but he discovers the truth;whereupon she returns to her grandfather. After a period of time, Clym writes a letter to Eustacia proposing that they reunite, but it arrives too late: Eustacia has already fled with Wildeve.
Wildeve is drowned, however, while trying to rescue Eustacia from a stream near a weir, while Clym and Venn – both of whom are also involved in the attempted rescue – survive. Finally, the now-widowed Thomasin marries Venn, the faithful reddleman, who has watched and waited patiently as events have unfolded. Says she, ‘he has been kinder to me than anybody else’, and therefore, ‘I must marry him if I marry anybody’. And this she does, notwithstanding the fact that, in her words, Venn was not quite ‘gentleman enough’.
The Return of the Native contains descriptions of local topography and customs, both of which were dear to Hardy, including the ancient tumulus of Rainbarrow; a chorus of rustic musicians; and the ‘mummers’ (play actors), who from time immemorial had re-enacted epic plays like St George , featuring such characters as The Turkish Knight, The Doctor and The Valiant Soldier for the amusement of the local populace. There were also allusions to witchcraft, as when Eustacia was stabbed with a needle by Susan Nunsuch on the occasion of Thomasin’s wedding.
A criticism made of The Return of the Native was that the primary aim in life of its heroine, Eustacia, appeared to be to gratify her sensual passions. True, she did, and her attempt to achieve such gratification is a fundamental part of the story.
In the character of Venn (as with that of Gabriel Oak in Far from the Madding Crowd ), Hardy reaffirms his belief that in the battle to win a prospective partner, qualities such as loyalty, steadfastness and kindness deserve to prevail.
Mrs Yeobright describes Eustacia as one who is ‘lazy and dissatisfied’ and in no way a suitable partner for her son Clym. And he, for his part, bitterly regrets the pain which he has caused his mother by marrying her. ‘If my mother were reconciled to me and to you I should, I think, be happy quite,’ says Clym to Eustacia. ‘Something must be done to heal up this ghastly breach between my dear mother and myself.’ Hardy subsequently refers to the ‘chasm in their lives which Clym’s love for Eustacia had caused’. 16 This, of course, begs the question: was Hardy’s mother Jemima similarly pained by her son’s marriage to Emma, and did Hardy himself feel regret or even guilt on this account? And did he, like Clym Yeobright, long for reconciliation with his mother before it was too late? If so, then perhaps this reconciliation came when Hardy and Emma spent the Christmas of 1876 with his parents at their home at Bockhampton.
In the novel, Clym finally finds ‘his vocation in the career of an itinerant open-air preacher and lecturer on morally unimpeachable subjects’. In fact, the word preacher is misleading, for it was said of him that: ‘He left alone creeds and systems of philosophy, finding enough and more than enough to occupy his tongue in the opinions and actions common to all good men.’ Here, Hardy gives an intimation of his own disenchantment with the Christian faith.
By early 1878, Hardy had reluctantly come to the conclusion that in order to succeed as a writer,
Wildeve, although he has since become a married man, has by no means abandoned his attachment to Eustacia. When he calls on her at her home, while Clym is asleep and therefore unaware of his presence, there is a knock at the door. It is Clym’s mother, who has decided to seek reconciliation with her son. But Clym does not awaken and Eustacia chooses not to answer the door, even though she is aware who is there. On the way home, Mrs Yeobright is bitten by an adder and dies, but before she does so, she tells a small boy, Johnny Nunsuch, That she is ‘a broken-hearted woman, cast off by her son’.
Eustacia tries to conceal the whole occurrence from Clym but he discovers the truth;whereupon she returns to her grandfather. After a period of time, Clym writes a letter to Eustacia proposing that they reunite, but it arrives too late: Eustacia has already fled with Wildeve.
Wildeve is drowned, however, while trying to rescue Eustacia from a stream near a weir, while Clym and Venn – both of whom are also involved in the attempted rescue – survive. Finally, the now-widowed Thomasin marries Venn, the faithful reddleman, who has watched and waited patiently as events have unfolded. Says she, ‘he has been kinder to me than anybody else’, and therefore, ‘I must marry him if I marry anybody’. And this she does, notwithstanding the fact that, in her words, Venn was not quite ‘gentleman enough’.
The Return of the Native contains descriptions of local topography and customs, both of which were dear to Hardy, including the ancient tumulus of Rainbarrow; a chorus of rustic musicians; and the ‘mummers’ (play actors), who from time immemorial had re-enacted epic plays like St George , featuring such characters as The Turkish Knight, The Doctor and The Valiant Soldier for the amusement of the local populace. There were also allusions to witchcraft, as when Eustacia was stabbed with a needle by Susan Nunsuch on the occasion of Thomasin’s wedding.
A criticism made of The Return of the Native was that the primary aim in life of its heroine, Eustacia, appeared to be to gratify her sensual passions. True, she did, and her attempt to achieve such gratification is a fundamental part of the story.
In the character of Venn (as with that of Gabriel Oak in Far from the Madding Crowd ), Hardy reaffirms his belief that in the battle to win a prospective partner, qualities such as loyalty, steadfastness and kindness deserve to prevail.
Mrs Yeobright describes Eustacia as one who is ‘lazy and dissatisfied’ and in no way a suitable partner for her son Clym. And he, for his part, bitterly regrets the pain which he has caused his mother by marrying her. ‘If my mother were reconciled to me and to you I should, I think, be happy quite,’ says Clym to Eustacia. ‘Something must be done to heal up this ghastly breach between my dear mother and myself.’ Hardy subsequently refers to the ‘chasm in their lives which Clym’s love for Eustacia had caused’. 16 This, of course, begs the question: was Hardy’s mother Jemima similarly pained by her son’s marriage to Emma, and did Hardy himself feel regret or even guilt on this account? And did he, like Clym Yeobright, long for reconciliation with his mother before it was too late? If so, then perhaps this reconciliation came when Hardy and Emma spent the Christmas of 1876 with his parents at their home at Bockhampton.
In the novel, Clym finally finds ‘his vocation in the career of an itinerant open-air preacher and lecturer on morally unimpeachable subjects’. In fact, the word preacher is misleading, for it was said of him that: ‘He left alone creeds and systems of philosophy, finding enough and more than enough to occupy his tongue in the opinions and actions common to all good men.’ Here, Hardy gives an intimation of his own disenchantment with the Christian faith.
By early 1878, Hardy had reluctantly come to the conclusion that in order to succeed as a writer,
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