The Return of the Native

Thomas Hardy’s novel The Return of the Native was published serially in Belgravia magazine in 1878. Its setting, the formidable and unforgiving Egdon Heath, is based on the Wessex region of England where Hardy was born. Hardy provides a map that gives the locations that his love- and grief-driven characters visit as the story unfolds. The novel explores the themes of class, chance, fate, superstition, and social upheaval. This guide references the 2008 Oxford World’s Classics edition.

Plot Summary

Diggory Venn, rejected as a suitor to Thomasin Yeobright because of his low social status, is a reddleman who sells reddle, red ochre, to sheep farmers. A red man in a horse-driven red van, he encounters Captain Drew on the road through Egdon Heath. His van carries Thomasin, asleep, on her way home from a delayed marriage ceremony to Damon Wildeve, keeper of the Quiet Woman inn. (The delay was due to a mistake in the wedding certificate, which readers soon learn Wildeve planned.) The captain, surmising Thomasin’s predicament, shares it with his granddaughter, Eustacia, who has a prior romantic relationship with Wildeve. Mrs. Yeobright, Thomasin’s aunt, eager to salvage Thomasin’s reputation, urges Wildeve to go forward with the marriage, even though her objections prompted the couple’s elopement. It is November 5, Guy Fawkes Day, when the residents of the heath celebrate the rebellion with the burning of bonfires, marking the descent into winter. Eustacia’s bonfire burns longer and brighter than the rest, and Wildeve, drawn there by its light, sees her there.

Word spreads through the heath that Mrs. Yeobright’s son, Clym, will visit from Paris at Christmas, and she will celebrate his return with a party. Eustacia, considered a witch by some of the locals, is carried away by the idea of a husband who can offer her a new and gay city life and conspires to attend the party disguised as a man. At the party, Clym encounters her, recognizes her as a woman, and is intrigued. Eustacia now has a substitute for Wildeve, a man who will take her to Paris. Clym, however, has decided to leave Paris and return home to become a schoolmaster.

Although both he and Eustacia speak frankly about their expectations, each ignores the other’s words, and they decide to marry, despite Mrs. Yeobright’s opposition. Clym pursues his study to become a schoolmaster, partially loses his eyesight, and becomes a heath cropper both to stave off monotony and earn money while he heals. Eustacia, devastated by her disappointing marriage, reignites her relationship with Wildeve, who has inherited a fortune. One day Wildeve comes to visit, and Mrs. Yeobright soon follows. Eustacia sees Clym’s mother from the window but doesn’t answer the knocks as she escorts Wildeve out the back. Mrs. Yeobright, heartbroken by the rejection, is stung by an adder and dies on the way home. Clym, enraged over his mother’s death and Eustacia’s role in it, encourages her to return to her grandfather, Captain Drew.

A year later, on November 5, Eustacia’s enamored stable boy, Johnny, builds her bonfire. Wildeve, now a father, sees the fire beckoning and goes to Eustacia. He agrees to facilitate her escape to Budmouth Harbor. On the night of November 6, Eustacia goes to meet him in a storm. She slips, falls into the weir, and drowns; Wildeve plunges in after her and also drowns. Thomasin, now a wealthy widow, moves back into her aunt’s house at Blooms-End. Clym has returned there as well, his sight partially regained, and studies to be a preacher. Venn, no longer a reddleman and now the owner of 80 dairy cows, comes to court Thomasin and marries her. Clym succeeds as a preacher, less for his message than for his story.