The Return of the NativeTempestuous Eustacia Vye passes her days dreaming of passionate love and the escape it may bring from the small community of Egdon Heath. Hearing that Clym Yeobright is to return from Paris, she sets her heart on marrying him, believing that through him she can leave rural life and find fulfilment elsewhere. But she is to be disappointed, for Clym has dreams of his own, and they have little in common with Eustacia's. Their unhappy marriage causes havoc in the lives of those close to them, in particular Damon Wildeve, Eustacia's former lover, Clym's mother and his cousin Thomasin. The Return of the Native illustrates the tragic potential of romantic illusion and how its protagonists fail to recognize their opportunities to control their own destinies |
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afternoon Alderworth appeared asked aunt bank barrow began better Blooms-End bonfire Budmouth Charley Christian Clym Clym's colour cream-coloured courser Damon dance dark Diggory door Dowden Egdon Heath Eustacia eyes face Fairway feel fern fire furze garden girl gone Grandfer Cantle guineas hand head heard hill hour Humphrey husband knew lantern light lips live looked ma'am marriage married Maypole mean mind minutes Mis'ess Miss Vye Mistover morning mother mummers murmured neighbours never night once passed path Quiet Woman Rainbarrow reached reddleman replied returned round Saint George scene seemed seen silent soon stood strange suppose sure Tamsin tell there's thing Thomas Hardy Thomasin thought to-night told tone took tumulus turned Venn Venn's voice wait walk Wessex wife Wildeve Wildeve's window wish words Yeobright young
Popular passages
Page dxxiv - And the king rose up to meet her, and bowed himself unto her, and sat down on his throne, and caused a seat to be set for the king's mother; and she sat on his right hand.
Page dxxiii - Go forth, O ye daughters of Zion, and behold king Solomon with the crown wherewith his mother crowned him in the day of his espousals, and in the day of the gladness of his heart...
Page xliii - Then it became the home of strange phantoms; and it was found to be the hitherto unrecognized original of those wild regions of obscurity which are vaguely felt to be compassing us about in midnight dreams of flight and disaster, and are never thought of after the dream till revived by scenes like this...
Page lxxiii - Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, Bless the bed that I lie on. Four corners to my bed, Four angels round my head; One to watch and one to pray And two to bear my soul away.
Page dl - The sombre stretch of rounds and hollows seemed to rise and meet the evening gloom in pure sympathy, the heath exhaling darkness as rapidly as the heavens precipitated it. And so the obscurity in the air and the obscurity in the land closed together in a black fraternization towards which each advanced halfway.
Page cxv - She had Pagan eyes, full of nocturnal mysteries, and their light, as it came and went, and came again, was partially hampered by their oppressive lids and lashes; and of these the under lid was much fuller than it usually is with English women. This enabled her to indulge in reverie without seeming to do so: she might have been believed capable of sleeping without closing them up. Assuming that the souls of men and women were visible essences, you could fancy the colour of Eustacia's soul to be flame-like.
Page ccxxxvii - The view of life as a thing to be put up with, replacing that zest for existence which was so intense in early civilizations...
Page cxv - Eustacia Vye was the raw material of a divinity. On Olympus she would have done well with a little preparation. She had the passions and instincts which make a model goddess, that is, those which make not quite a model woman.
Page xli - A Saturday afternoon in November was approaching the time of twilight, and the vast tract of unenclosed wild known as Egdon Heath embrowned itself moment by moment. Overhead the hollow stretch of whitish cloud shutting out the sky was as a tent which had the whole heath for its floor.
Page cxvi - One had fancied that such lip-curves were mostly lurking underground in the South as fragments of forgotten marbles. So fine were the lines of her lips, that, though full, each corner of her mouth was as clearly cut as the point of a spear. This keenness of corner was only blunted when she was given over to sudden fits of gloom, one of the phases of the night-side of sentiment which she knew too well for her years.