The Return of the Native became one of Hardy's most famous and
recognised novels. It was published in 1878. The story is set on Egdon
Heath, a fictitious sterile couple in Wessex in southwestern England.
The local of the title is Clym Yeobright, who has come back to the area
to become a schoolmaster after a successful career as a jeweller in
Paris. He and his cousin Thomasin illustrate the conventional way of
life, while Thomasin's husband, Damon Wildeve, and Clym's wife, Eustacia
Vye, long for the adventure of city life. After a chain of
co-occurances, Eustacia approaches to admit that she is liable for the
death of Clym's mother. Assured that destiny has fated her to cause
others pain, Eustacia runs and is sunk. Damon engulfs trying to save
her. It describes the tragic prospects of romantic delusion and how its
supporters fall to accept their opportunities to control their own
fates. It is a novel that conveys a modern picture of a passing way of
life although expressing a tale of the weaknesses of human struggle, but
also finds space for the short happiness to be taken along the way. 'The
Return of the Native' focuses on two young lovers confined in an unhappy
marriage because they wed for the wrong reasons. The book features the
difficulty with romantic dignity, and how we often end up in jails of
our own making.
