The Return of the Native by Thomas Hardy (Characters)

 

The Return of the Native

by Thomas Hardy

(Characters) 

Eustacia Vye

With all her faults and weaknesses of character Eustacia Vye, the granddaughter of Captain Vye, is the heroine of the novel. She is a perfect contrast to Thomasin and represents modern woman very different from the Victorian doll concept of a woman. She has her courage and will and knows how to meet them. Once determined nothing can deter her from actualizing it. She is bold and daring and these are the qualities that the Victorian public least expected in a woman. Being married she continues her illicit relationship with Wildieve and even thinks of eloping with him. Her life-long desire is to be in Paris and to be loved to madness there.

Being a modern woman, she hates Egdon Heath and its people and also herself for her being there. She is passionate and has her sense of superiority over others. She had been well educated during her early age at Budmouth before her grandfather came to settle at the heath. Being young and passionate she starts her courtship with Wildieve though she thinks him inferior to her and keeps him only as a stop gap arrangement. She confesses to Diggory that she hates Egdon Heath and would not care for Wildieve if there had been a better man than him on the heath. Being bold she is not afraid of playing the male role also because of not finding an opportunity to see Clym’s face closely. Before being married she already determines that she would become Clym’s wife and she ultimately succeeds in being so.

But she is proud and vain also. When the reddleman comes to her with the suggestion that she should persuade Wildieve to marry Thomasin her reply is that “I will not be beaten down by an inferior woman like her” and that she would never allow Wildieve to marry her.” She finally tells the reddleman “but I lose all self-respect in talking to you.” She is not worried about what other people think of her and there are many women in that area who think that she is a witch and exercises great power over menfolk. The situation is very piquant when disguised as a boy she goes to Clym’s house and there she sees Thomasin talking to Clym and feels jealous of Thomasin for she harbours the apprehension that Thomasin may tempt Clym into marrying her.

It is, however, her beauty and her figure over which even the novelist grows ecstatic: “She was in person full-limbed and somewhat heavy. To the touch she was as soft as a cloud. To see her hair was to imagine that a whole winter did not contain darkness enough to form its shadow: it fell over her forehead like night descending upon the evening glow in the western sky.”

It is not only imaginatively that she is a resident of Paris but her physical beauty too qualifies her for the enchanting city of fashion and perfection. A complete picture or her beauty can be met in such chapters as “Queen of Night” or “Drink to me only with thine eyes”. Every detail of her personality has been described as, for example, her eyes were “pagan and full of nocturnal mysteries” and the lines of her lips were “exquisite”. The only fault in her character is her impulsiveness and unruly passion. But this is a trait which she has inherited form her parents and her grandfather. Her father had been a bandmaster in the army. She has been much misunderstood also. Having once vowed faithfulness to Clym she does not sexually surrender to Wildieve. She is always conscious that she is a married woman and asks Wildieve to leave her as far as upto Budmouth and the rest she will herself manage. But when she finally prepares to leave she realizes that having no money she would have to be Wildieve’s mistress. This is unbearable for her and finding no escape she drowns herself into the Shadewell Weir and ends her life. With all her weaknesses she leaves an impression on her readers’ minds.

Wildieve

Before his arrival at Egdon Wildieve had been an engineer but he gave up that position to come to settle at the Egdon. He is now the keeper of an inn known as “Three Quite Women”.

It is in the third chapter of book-I that we come to know about him. Mrs. Yeobright, Thomasin’s aunt, had forbidden Thomasin’s marriage with Wildieve who was much older than her. Form the conversation of the rustics one gets to know more about him. One of the rustic women had remarked that Thomasin was a fool to have chosen Wildieve for her marriage but another woman contradicted her by observing that Wildieve was a good looking, clever, learned fellow as clever as Clym. She also adds that a hundred women would like to marry such a man as Wildieve.

Wildieve as a man cannot decide what is best for him. Though he is settled as an innkeeper for Eustacia’s sake yet Eustacia had kept him only as a stop gap arrangement waiting for some better person to arrival at Egdon. Having waited for a long time to marry Eustacia successfully he gets married to Thomasin just to make Eustacia marry him out of jealousy. This shows what a dashing schemer he is.

Wildieve has no control over his passions and likings. Though he had been married to Thomasin his longing for Eustacia has not subsided. He is out and out a sentimental person– ”to be yearning for the difficult, to be weary of that offered, to care for the remote, to dislike the near” had been his nature always and this brings tragedy in the lives not only of his own and of Eustacia but of other characters such as Clym and Mrs. Yeobright.

In the novel Wildieve appears in the position and character of a villain but it must be admitted that there is nothing villainous in him. He has his own points of strength and weakness. He has been charged with being mediocre and ordinary but these charges befit Clym better. The truth is that he has been infected by the evil of modern civilization. Clym too is well educated but he is unaffected by modern civilization and culture. Clym came to Egdon as its son and he loves its tracts and terrains and is in perfect harmony with its traditions. Wildieve, on the other hand, has his moods and passion and is always eager to escape Egdon with Eustacia. Wildieve and Clym can make interesting study as opposition. Clym abandons Paris for his Egdon but Wildieve wants to abandon Egdon to seek the life of pleasure and Paris.

At core Wildieve is a dashing youngman and of independent and anti-religious values. He was brought up to better things in life than keeping the “Three Quite Women”. His manners are charming and his outward appearance and behaviour are sufficiently attractive. Though he can win Thomasin’s heart he fails to be sufficiently attractive to Eustacia. All in all, he is what the novelist Hardy says of him –– “Altogether he is one in whom no man would have seen anything to admire, and in whom no one would have seen anything to dislike.”

Diggory Venn

The readers are introduced to Diggory Venn earliest of all other characters. He is a reddleman and sells reddle chalk to farmers to colour their sheep. This is a profession fast going out of use mainly because of the spread of modern education. He is a youngman with an attractive personality. Though first rejected in his love by Thomasin he remains faithful to her throughout his life. He harbours no ill - will against Thomasin as any other suitor in his place would have done in such a situation. Even Eustacia is puzzled to see such a self – sacrificing person as him.

If Clym is the true son of Egdon it must be said that the reddleman is the moving and operating spirit of the place. At all critical moments and important events he is invariably present. He is true not only to Thomasin but to everyone else. He may be against Wildieve but not as a person but against his modern ways. Wildieve’s education has taught him no moral qualities. He checks Wildieve’s unruly passion also because he is Thomasin’s husband. For him Wildieve’s passion for Eustacia is unjust because he is Thomasin’s husband.

Diggory Venn, like Egdon Heath whose spirit he is, does no harm to anyone without sufficient reason. When Mrs. Yeobright seeks his advice regarding her reconciliation with her son and daughter-in-law, he gives her his best. When Eustacia asks him to carry the letter and gifts of Wildieve to be returned to him as an indication of her termination of love and marriage he agrees to do so. It must be acknowledged that he is never against Eustacia and asks her to intervene in the matter of Thomasin’s marriage with Wildieve and to that extent knows Eustacia’s influence and power over Wildieve. He finds nothing humiliating in his career as a reddleman just as Clym Yeobright saw nothing humiliating in being a furze - cutter.

Clym Yeobright

Clym is the only son of his mother and his father had been a farmer on Egdon Heath. After the death of his father when he was a little boy his mother had taken good care of him and got him well educated. He has a cousin named Thomasin. At the beginning of the novel we find him employed as the manager of a diamond merchant in Paris, a city which is world over renowned as one of great fashion and taste. He is doing well in his profession. He is also the hero of the novel The Return Of The Native for it is he who is the native of Egdon Heath returned from Paris after finding his job there as the idlest and most effeminate. Accordingly, he now wants to take up to teaching the children on the heath. Though his mother is against the choice of this change of profession yet he does not listen to her.

The flaw in his character is that he is a great idealist and once determined he is careless about consequences. Wildieve is quite right in the estimate of his character when he tells Eustacia “that’s because you don’t know him. He is an enthusiast about ideas and careless about outward things. He often reminds me of the Apostle Paul” and Wildieve further comments: “Yes, the worst of it is that though Paul was excellent as a man in the Bible he would hardly have done in real life”. It must be recognized that Mrs. Yeobright could not understand her own son better than Wildieve could.

It cannot be denied that Clym’s own nature is much to blame and he is the cause of the tragedy of two women. Temperamentally Clym and Eustacia are different natures. Temperamentally Mrs. Yeobright and Eustacia are of different natures and for all his love of his mother even Clym and his mother are of contrary natures and Hardy, the novelist, comments that for Clym “These antagonistic growths had to be kept alive: his mother’s trust in him: his plan for becoming a teacher and Eustacia’s happiness. His fervid nature could not afford to relinquish one of these.”

The difficulty with Clym is that he too much complicates things. Before one plan is on its way he would introduce another. “Though his love for Eustacia is as chaste as that of Petrarch for Laura” says the novelist, “it had made fetters of what previously was only a difficulty.” His passion to be a school master is greatly complicated by the addition of Eustacia. “Just when his mother was beginning to tolerate one scheme, he had introduced another still bitterer than the first and the combination was more than she (his mother) could bear.”

The outcome of all this is that with his best intentions he does his most to save both his mother and his wife but could save neither from their ruin and it is only after losing both of them that he becomes an open - air wandering preacher.

Thomasin

Thomasin, also called by the name of Tamsie, Clym’s cousin and niece of Mrs. Yeobright under whose guardianship she lives is a simple girl and when the novel opens, we find that she has been attracted towards Wildieve, the keeper of the inn ‘Three Quiet Women’. She has been to the Anglebury church for her marriage with Weldieve but has been tricked by Wildieve as a result of which her marriage has failed. Earlier to this Diggory Venn had been attracted to her and had made a marriage proposal to her but because she had been attracted towards Wildieve and wanted to marry him she had made a polite refusal to Diggory Venn.

Though finally she succeeds in being married to Wildieve after the first debacle, she could not succeed in getting the love and care of Wildieve, her husband, whose infatuation for Eustacia did not diminish even after his marriage with Thomasin. Thomasin is perfectly faithful in love to her husband Wildieve but Wildieve, always sexually politicking with Eustacia, is never faithful to his wife Thomasin. Wildieve’s first choice is Eustacia and not Thomasin and he marries Thomasin only when finally rejected by Eustacia.

Thomasin has been portrayed as being in perfect contrast to that of Eustacia Vye. If Eustacia keeps Wildieve to show her power over him and other menfolk of the heath Thomasin is too simple and unassuming to do so. She is generally nice and good to everyone. She always consoles and comforts her aunt by her advice when the latter is very unhappy. She helps her aunt when she is preparing to receive her son who is coming from Paris. She is quiet conscious

of the fact that Diggory Venn is always kind and helpful to her and thinks only of her welfare and frankly admits this fact to Diggory in his face. She tells him that his exterior is not as deep as his heart. She is not complaining to anyone about her husband’s indifferent behaviour towards her although she is not ignorant of his advances to Eustacia.

Thomasin is basically and out and out a child of Egdon Heath and is familiar with every nook and corner of the place. By looking at the bonfire she can tell the area in which it is being lit. When the Christmas mummers come to perform at Mrs. Yeobright’s house she entertains them with ample food and drink. In every sense she is a simple good-hearted girl. She never thinks ill of anyone and can adjust herself in every situation. If she is attracted to Wildieve it is because she sincerely and genuinely likes him. When a country woman remarks that Thomasin is a fool to marry Wildieve another woman retorted by saying Wildieve is an educated person and that a hundred women would like to marry him. Wildieve is a good reader of other people’s character and his judgement about Thomasin also cannot be questioned when he tells Eustacia that she is a “confoundedly good little woman”. In all Hardy’s novel she is the only woman who, after her marriage with Diggory Venn, lived happily under the loving care and love of her new husband.

Mrs. Yeobright

When Mrs. Yeobright appears in the novel she is already a middle aged lady and the mother of Clym. She is intelligent and upright and can be rigid in her attitude when she thinks that she is right. She had been married to a small farmer on the heath although she had been the daughter of a curate. After marriage she has been totally devoted to her family. Under her guardianship is her niece Thomasin. She has been a devoted mother and has provided the best education and attention to her son Clym who is the manager of a diamond merchant in Paris. He is now coming to Egdon to celebrate Christmas with his family.

On coming over there he decides to settle at Egdon permanently and this greatly pains Mrs. Yeobright. She asks him not to give up his job in Paris but Clym does not listen to her and wants to become a school teacher. While he is at Egdon he falls in love with Eustacia Vye and this also pains Mrs. Yeobright because she knows that Eustacia has her love affair with Wildieve. But here again Clym does not listen to her mother’s advice and leaves her to find another house for himself and Eustacia after their marriage Mrs. Yeobright is again very unhappy and she comments, “O, it is mistake and he will rue it someday and think of me”. All this is because she knows that her son loves her intensely.

Mrs. Yeobright is also very considerate to her niece. She wanted her to be married to Clym but finding that Thomasin is in love with Wildieve she gives her permission to marry him. When she finds that Eustacia continues her relationship with Wildieve after her marriage with Clym she thinks of getting reconciled to her son and daughter-in-law. When she reaches their house she finds herself rejected and utterly broken returns from there. On the way she is bitten by an adder and soon after dies. She is full of dignity and conducts herself gracefully throughout.