Book Club Guide

The Return of the Native

Key themes

Egdon Heath as a force that overwhelms and outlasts
The woman who wants more than her world allows
The tragedy of imagination in a world of fact

About this book

The native of the title is Clym Yeobright, who returns to the area from the bright society of Paris and, as any reader of Hardy knows, all is not smooth. He is quickly taken by and marries the one wom

Published serially in 1878, The Return of the Native established the Wessex world that Hardy would develop across his major novels. He later said it was the novel he was least pleased with, though readers have often rated it among his best.

Discussion questions

Egdon Heath opens the novel as an almost supernatural presence — ancient, indifferent, beautiful. How does Hardy use the heath throughout the novel, and what does it mean for the human drama played out across it?
Eustacia Vye is one of Hardy's most ambiguous heroines — romantically idealistic, socially frustrated, ultimately destroyed. How does Hardy generate sympathy for a character who is also vain and selfish?
Clym Yeobright's vision of teaching the peasants of Egdon is dismissed as naive idealism. What is Hardy saying about the relationship between educated aspiration and the actual world of rural Dorset?
The novel's ending involves multiple deaths that might have been avoided. Is this fatalism — the heath will always win — or something more specifically human in its causes?
Hardy called this his 'tragic tale.' What does he mean by tragedy here — is it classical in form, or is it the more modern tragedy of people whose ambitions simply exceed what their circumstances allow?