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= The_Return_of_the_Native =
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Introduction
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'The Return of the Native' is the sixth published novel by English
author Thomas Hardy. It first appeared in the magazine 'Belgravia', a
publication known for its sensationalism, and was presented in twelve
monthly instalments from 9 January to 19 December 1878. Because of the
novel's controversial themes, Hardy had some difficulty finding a
publisher; reviews, however, though somewhat mixed, were generally
positive. In the twentieth century, 'The Return of the Native' became
one of Hardy's most popular and highly regarded novels.
Book First: The Three Women
=============================
The novel takes place entirely in the environs of Egdon Heath, and,
with the exception of the epilogue, 'Aftercourses', covers exactly a
year and a day. The narrative begins on the evening of Guy Fawkes
Night as Diggory Venn is slowly crossing the heath with his van, which
is being drawn by ponies. In his van is a passenger. When darkness
falls, the country folk light bonfires on the surrounding hills,
emphasising the pagan spirit of the heath and its denizens.
Venn is a reddleman; he travels the country supplying farmers with a
red mineral called reddle (dialect term for red ochre) that farmers
use to mark their sheep. Although his trade has stained him red from
head to foot, underneath his devilish colouring he is a handsome,
shrewd, well-meaning young man. His passenger is a young woman named
Thomasin Yeobright, whom Venn is taking home. Earlier that day,
Thomasin had planned to marry Damon Wildeve, a local innkeeper known
for his fickleness; however, an inconsistency in the marriage licence
delayed the marriage. Thomasin, in distress, ran after the reddleman's
van and asked him to take her home. Venn himself is in love with
Thomasin, and unsuccessfully wooed her two years before. Now, although
he believes Wildeve is unworthy of her love, he is so devoted to her
that he is willing to help her secure the man of her choice.
At length, Venn reaches Bloom's End, the home of Thomasin's aunt, Mrs.
Yeobright. She is a good woman, if somewhat proud and inflexible, and
she wants the best for Thomasin. In former months she opposed her
niece's choice of husband, and publicly forbade the banns; now, since
Thomasin has compromised herself by leaving town with Wildeve and
returning unmarried, the best outcome Mrs. Yeobright can envision is
for the postponed marriage to be duly solemnised as soon as possible.
She and Venn both begin working on Wildeve to make sure he keeps his
promise to Thomasin.
Wildeve, however, is still preoccupied with Eustacia Vye, an
exotically beautiful young woman living with her grandfather in a
lonely house on Egdon Heath. Eustacia is a black-haired, queenly
woman, whose Italian father came from Corfu, and who grew up in
Budmouth, a fashionable seaside resort. She holds herself aloof from
most of the heathfolk; they, in turn, consider her an oddity, and some
even think she is a witch. She is nothing like Thomasin, who is
sweet-natured. She loathes the heath, yet roams it constantly,
carrying a spyglass and an hourglass. The previous year, she and
Wildeve were lovers; however, even during the height of her passion
for him, she knew she only loved him because there was no better
object available. When Wildeve broke off the relationship to court
Thomasin, Eustacia's interest in him briefly returned. The two meet on
Guy Fawkes night, and Wildeve asks her to run off to America with him.
She demurs.
Book Second: The Arrival
==========================
Eustacia drops Wildeve when Mrs. Yeobright's son Clym, a successful
diamond merchant, returns from Paris to his native Egdon Heath.
Although he has no plans to return to Paris or the diamond trade and
is, in fact, planning to become a schoolmaster for the rural poor,
Eustacia sees him as a way to escape the hated heath and begin a
grander, richer existence in a glamorous new location. With some
difficulty, she arranges to meet Clym, and the two soon fall in love.
When Mrs. Yeobright objects, Clym quarrels with her; later, she
quarrels with Eustacia as well.
"Unconscious of her presence, he still went on singing." Eustacia
watches Clym cut furze in this illustration by Arthur Hopkins for the
original 'Belgravia' edition (Plate 8, July 1878).
When he sees that Eustacia is lost to him, Wildeve marries Thomasin,
who gives birth to a daughter the next summer. Clym and Eustacia also
marry and move to a small cottage five miles away, where they enjoy a
brief period of happiness. The seeds of rancour soon begin to
germinate, however: Clym studies night and day to prepare for his new
career as a schoolmaster while Eustacia clings to the hope that he'll
give up the idea and take her abroad. Instead, he nearly blinds
himself with too much reading, then further mortifies his wife by
deciding to eke out a living, at least temporarily, as a furze-cutter.
Eustacia, her dreams blasted, finds herself living in a hut on the
heath, chained by marriage to a lowly labouring man.
Book Third: The Fascination
=============================
At this point, Wildeve reappears; he has unexpectedly inherited a
large sum of money, and is now in a better position to fulfill
Eustacia's hopes. He comes calling on the Yeobrights in the middle of
one hot August day and, although Clym is at home, he is fast asleep on
the hearth after a gruelling session of furze-cutting. While Eustacia
and Wildeve are talking, Mrs. Yeobright knocks on the door; she has
decided to pay a courtesy call in the hopes of healing the
estrangement between herself and her son. Eustacia looks out at her
and then, in some alarm, ushers her visitor out at the back door. She
hears Clym calling to his mother and, thinking his mother's knocking
has awakened him, remains in the garden for a few moments. When
Eustacia goes back inside, she finds Clym still asleep and his mother
gone. Clym, she now realises, merely cried out his mother's name in
his sleep.
Book Four: The Closed Door
============================
Mrs Yeobright, it turns out, saw Eustacia looking out the window at
her; she also saw Clym's gear by the door, and so knew they were both
at home. Now, thinking she has been deliberately barred from her son's
home, she miserably begins the long, hot walk home. Later that
evening, Clym, unaware of her attempted visit, heads for Bloom's End
and on the way finds her crumpled beside the path, dying from an
adder's bite. When she expires that night from the combined effects of
snake venom and heat exhaustion, Clym's grief and remorse make him
physically ill for several weeks. Eustacia, racked with guilt, dares
not tell him of her role in the tragedy; when he eventually finds out
from a neighbour's child about his mother's visit--and Wildeve's--he
rushes home to accuse his wife of murder and adultery. Eustacia
refuses to explain her actions; instead, she tells him 'You are no
blessing, my husband' and reproaches him for his cruelty. She then
moves back to her grandfather's house, where she struggles with her
despair while she awaits some word from Clym.
Book Fifth: The Discovery
===========================
Wildeve visits Eustacia again on Guy Fawkes night, and offers to help
her get to Paris. Eustacia realises that if she lets Wildeve help her,
she'll be obliged to become his mistress. She tells him she will send
him a signal by night if she decides to accept. Clym's anger,
meanwhile, has cooled and he sends Eustacia a letter the next day
offering reconciliation. The letter arrives a few minutes too late; by
the time her grandfather tries to give it to her, she has already
signalled to Wildeve and set off through wind and rain to meet him.
She walks along weeping, however, knowing she is about to break her
marriage vows for a man who is unworthy of her.
Wildeve readies a horse and gig and waits for Eustacia in the dark.
Thomasin, guessing his plans, sends Clym to intercept him; she also,
by chance, encounters Diggory Venn as she dashes across the heath
herself in pursuit of her husband. Eustacia does not appear; instead,
she falls or throws herself into nearby Shadwater Weir. Clym and
Wildeve hear the splash and hurry to investigate. Wildeve plunges
recklessly after Eustacia without bothering to remove his coat, while
Clym, proceeding more cautiously, nevertheless is also soon at the
mercy of the raging waters. Venn arrives in time to save Clym, but is
too late for the others. When Clym revives, he accuses himself of
murdering his wife and mother.
Book Sixth: The Aftercourses
==============================
In the epilogue, Venn gives up being a reddleman to become a dairy
farmer. Two years later, Thomasin marries him and they settle down
happily together. Clym, now a sad, solitary figure, eventually takes
up preaching.
Alternative ending
====================
In a footnote towards the end of the novel in some compendium
editions, Hardy writes:
Discussion
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With its deeply flawed heroine and its (for the time) open
acknowledgement of illicit sexual relationships, 'The Return of the
Native' raised some eyebrows when it first appeared as a serial in
Victorian Britain. Although he intended to structure the novel into
five books, thus mirroring the classical tragic format, Hardy
submitted to the tastes of the serial-reading public sufficiently to
tack on a happy ending for Diggory Venn and Thomasin in a sixth book,
'Aftercourses'. In Hardy's original conception, Venn retains his weird
reddleman's character, while Thomasin lives out her days as a widow.
Hardy's choice of themes--sexual politics, thwarted desire, and the
conflicting demands of nature and society--makes this a truly modern
novel. Underlying these modern themes, however, is a classical sense
of tragedy: Hardy scrupulously observes the three unities of time,
place, and action and suggests that the struggles of those trying to
escape their destinies will only hasten their destruction. To
emphasise this main part he uses as setting an ancient heath steeped
in pre-Christian history and supplies a Chorus consisting of Grandfer
Cantle, Timothy Fairway, and the rest of the heathfolk. Eustacia, who
manipulates fate in hopes of leaving Egdon Heath for a larger
existence in Paris, instead becomes an eternal resident when she
drowns in Shadwater Weir; Wildeve shares not only Eustacia's dream of
escape, but also her fate; and Clym, the would-be educational
reformer, survives the Weir but lives on as a lonely, remorseful man.
Some critics--notably D. H. Lawrence--see the novel as a study of the
way communities control their misfits. In Egdon Heath, most people
(particularly the women) look askance at the proud, unconventional
Eustacia. Mrs. Yeobright considers her too odd and unreliable to be a
suitable bride for her son, and Susan Nunsuch, who frankly believes
her to be a witch, tries to protect her children from Eustacia's
supposedly baleful influence by stabbing her with a stocking pin and
later burning her in effigy. Clym at first laughs at such
superstitions, but later embraces the majority opinion when he rejects
his wife as a murderer and adulteress. In this view, Eustacia dies
because she has internalised the community's values to the extent
that, unable to escape Egdon without confirming her status as a fallen
woman, she chooses suicide. She thereby ends her sorrows while at the
same time--by drowning in the weir like any woman instead of floating,
witchlike--she proves her essential innocence to the community.
Character list
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* Clement (Clym) Yeobright--A man of about thirty who gives up a
business career in Paris to return to his native Egdon Heath to become
a "schoolmaster to the poor and ignorant" (Hardy himself gave up a
successful career as a London architect and returned to his native
Dorchester to become a writer). "The beauty here visible would in no
time be ruthlessly overrun by its parasite, thought." Clym is the
"native" to which the book's title refers.
* Eustacia Vye--A raven-haired young beauty who chafes against her
life on the heath and longs to escape it to lead the more
adventure-filled life of the world. Some of the heathfolk think she is
a witch. Hardy describes her as "the raw material of a divinity" whose
"celestial imperiousness, love, wrath, and fervour had proved to be
somewhat thrown away on netherward Egdon."
* Mrs. Yeobright--Clym’s mother, a widow of inflexible standards.
Thomasin has lived with her for many years, but Clym is her only
child. She strongly disapproves of Eustacia.
* Thomasin (Tamsin) Yeobright--Clym’s cousin and Mrs. Yeobright's
niece, a young girl of gentle ways and conventional expectations. In
Hardy's original manuscript, Wildeve tricks her with a false marriage
to seduce her. "Mrs Yeobright saw a little figure...undefended except
by the power of her own hope."
* Damon Wildeve--Eustacia's former lover and Thomasin's first husband.
He is an ex-engineer who has failed in his profession and who now
keeps an inn, "The Quiet Woman"--so-called because its sign depicts a
decapitated woman carrying her own head. He has a wandering eye and an
appetite for women. "A lady killing career."
* Diggory Venn--A resourceful man of twenty-four and a reddleman (a
travelling seller of reddle, red chalk used for marking sheep). He
selflessly protects Thomasin throughout the novel despite the fact
that she refused to marry him two years before. He keeps a watchful
eye on Eustacia to make sure Wildeve doesn't go back to her. At the
end, he renounces his trade to become a dairy farmer like his father,
and in doing so loses the red skin. He is then seen as a suitable
husband for Thomasin. Venn's red coloration and frequent narrative
references to his 'Mephistophelean' or diabolical character are
symbolic and important. In one particularly significant chapter ("The
Morning and Evening of an Eventful Day"), Venn displays an
increasingly unlikely string of good luck, repeatedly rolling dice and
defeating a rival. This event makes Venn something of a 'deus ex
machina', as well as a quasi-magical figure. While Hardy abandons
these aspects of Venn's character by the end of the novel, during his
'reddleman' phase, Venn lends elements of magical realism and what
modern readers would understand to be superheroic elements to the
novel.
* Captain Drew--Eustacia’s grandfather and a former naval officer
(renamed Captain Vye in later editions).
* Timothy Fairway--A sententious man of middle age who is greatly
respected by the other heathfolk.
* Grandfer Cantle--A somewhat senile and always lively ex-soldier of
about sixty-nine.
* Christian Cantle--Grandfer Cantle's fearful and timid
thirty-one-year-old son.
* Humphrey--Clym's eventual colleague, a furze cutter (furze is a low,
prickly shrub more commonly called gorse).
* Susan Nunsuch--Eustacia's nearest neighbour and bitterest enemy who
convinces herself that Eustacia's witchery has caused her son's
sickliness. In a memorable scene, Susan tries to protect him by making
a wax effigy of Eustacia, sticking it full of pins, and melting it in
her fireplace while uttering the Lord's Prayer backward. Eustacia
drowns later that night.
* Johnny Nunsuch--Susan’s son, a young boy. He encounters Mrs.
Yeobright during her fatal walk home and, in obedience to her wishes,
reports her last words to Clym: 'I am a broken-hearted woman cast off
by my son.'
* Charley--A sixteen-year-old boy who works for Captain Drew and who
admires Eustacia, largely from afar.
* Egdon Heath--The setting for all the novel's events; considered by
some critics to be the leading character as well. It is profoundly
ancient, the scene of intense but long-forgotten pagan lives. As its
tumuli attest, it is also a graveyard that has swallowed countless
generations of inhabitants without changing much itself. To Thomasin,
Clym, and Diggory, it is a benign, natural place; in Eustacia's eyes,
it becomes a malevolent presence intent on destroying her.
Adaptations
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'The Return of the Native' was filmed for 'Hallmark Hall of Fame' and
broadcast on television in 1994. It was filmed in Exmoor National
Park. The film stars Catherine Zeta Jones as Eustacia Vye, Clive Owen
as Damon Wildeve, Ray Stevenson as Clym Yeobright, and Joan Plowright
as Mrs. Yeobright. Jack Gold directed.
In 2010 an Americanised film adaptation of 'The Return of the Native'
was directed by Ben Westbrook. It is set in the Appalachian Mountains
in the 1930s during The Great Depression.
In 1956, a Bengali film starring Uttam Kumar and Mala Sinha titled
'Putrabadhu' (trans:Daughter-in-Law) was released. The plot was based
roughly on Hardy's novel, albeit with a happy ending.
The novel has also been adapted for the stage several times. 'Dance on
a Country Grave' is a musical stage adaptation by Kelly Hamilton.
On 15 June 1948 a radio adaptation featuring Michael Redgrave aired on
CBS's 'Studio One'.
In popular culture
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* Monty Python's 1973 record, ' Matching Tie and Handkerchief',
includes a piece called "Novel Writing". In the sketch, a crowd
gathers to watch Thomas Hardy begin his latest novel while
enthusiastic sports announcers provide a running commentary. The novel
is 'The Return of the Native.'
* In the early 1970s, Granada Television produced a half-hour
documentary in its "Parade" art series entitled 'Egdon Heath' in which
an actor portraying Gustav Holst walks across the barren heath while
the music from his tone poem 'Egdon Heath' is playing, and sees scenes
and characters from the novel which inspired the music.
* In J. D. Salinger's 1951 novel 'The Catcher in the Rye' this novel
is mentioned by Holden Caulfield. Caulfield singles out the character,
Eustacia Vye, a wild-spirited and confident woman, who is portrayed as
an outsider in the community. Holden indicates that he likes a book
that makes you feel as if the author is a friend that you could call.
He adds that he’d like to call Thomas Hardy, and also that he likes
"that Eustacia Vye". Later he wonders what a nun would think of her.
* In 1993, the English traditional singer Johnny Collins recorded
'Diggery Venn the Raddle Man' (sic) on his album 'Pedlar of Songs'.
* In 1994, the Seattle band Thrones released a single entitled
"Reddleman".
* Kansas band The Rainmakers released a song called "Reddleman
Coming".
* The indie band Nightmare of You's 2009 CD 'Infomaniac' contains a
song called "Eustacia Vye".
* Musician Patrick Wolf's song "House" references the novel.
* The novel is referenced in the 2014 dark thriller 'Kill Your
Darlings'.
* English fast punk band [
https://www.flatbackfourband.co.uk/ Flat
Back Four] have a song called "The Return of the Native", based on the
novel.
External links
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* (text)
*
*
[
https://web.archive.org/web/20110505105026/http://www.roguecinema.com/article2452.html
Review of 'The Return of the Native' 2010] by Jason Lockard, Rogue
Cinema magazine
*
[
https://web.archive.org/web/20110719181830/http://coyote.csusm.edu/pipermail/hardy-l/2010-December/003244.html]
article on the 2010 adaptation of 'The Return of the Native' by Betty
Cortus, Thomas Hardy Forum
*[
https://dx.doi.org/10.7925/drs1.ucdlib_30001 'The Return of the
Native': original holograph manuscript.] A UCD Digital Library
Collection.
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