The Return of the Native
Return of the Native, The,a novel by T. Hardy , published 1878 .
The scene is the sombre Egdon Heath, powerfully and symbolically present throughout the novel. Damon Wildeve, once an engineer but now a publican, dallies between the two women by whom he is loved—the gentle Thomasin Yeobright and the wild, capricious Eustacia Vye. Thomasin rejects her humble suitor Diggory Venn, a reddleman, and is eventually married to Wildeve, who takes her less for love than from a wish to hurt Eustacia. Thomasin's cousin Clym Yeobright, a diamond merchant in Paris, disgusted with the worthlessness of his occupation, returns to Egdon intending to become a schoolmaster in his native heath. He falls in love with Eustacia, and she in a brief infatuation marries him, hoping to induce him to return to Paris, thus escaping from Egdon, which she detests. But to her despair he will not return; his sight fails and he becomes a furze-cutter on the heath....
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