The Return of the Native is part of the Naturalism literary movement, which generally elevated and revered the natural world but also portrayed it as fearsome and immensely powerful. As such, the book’s setting, Egdon Heath, acts as a character in and of itself. Many passages, including the entire opening chapter of the novel, feature vivid descriptions of the heath. It’s vast and beautiful, and it demands the respect of those who live on it. After all, the heath is a dangerous place: wildlife, weather, and darkness all pose a threat. Most of the inhabitants of the heath respect Egdon; they know how dangerous the heath can be and choose to take precautions. For instance, in the beginning of the novel, Mrs. Yeobright asks Olly to walk with her because she knows it is unsafe to walk alone at night.
However, other characters, particularly Eustacia and Wildeve, choose to disrespect the heath. Eustacia regularly expresses her desire to move away from Egdon because she cannot stand it. She also often walks alone in the darkness, even though she knows it is dangerous. Similarly, Wildeve wants nothing to do with the heath and also chooses to walk alone in the dark. Notably, neither character makes their living off of the land, unlike most of the residents of Egdon. Additionally, both characters share an unearned respect for the modern world, despite never living anywhere except the heath in their lives. Following her failed marriage to Clym, Eustacia decides that she cannot stand the heath any longer and asks Wildeve to help her escape. Wildeve agrees, and the two of them choose a particularly dark and stormy night to travel, once again disregarding the rules of the heath. This decision leads to both of their deaths, as Eustacia and Wildeve find themselves at the bottom of a whirlpool. Ultimately, then, The Return of the Native cautions against disrespect or arrogance toward the natural world, as humans are no match for nature’s sublime power.
Related Themes from Other Texts
Humans vs. Nature ThemeTracker
Humans vs. Nature Quotes in The Return of the Native
Indeed, it is a question if the exclusive reign of this orthodox beauty is not approaching its last quarter. The new Vale of Tempe may be a gaunt waste in Thule; human souls may find themselves in closer and closer harmony with external things wearing a sombreness distasteful to our race when it was young. The time seems near, if it has not actually arrived, when the chastened sublimity of a moor, a sea, or a mountain will be all of nature that is absolutely in keeping with the moods of the more thinking among mankind. And ultimately, to the commonest tourist, spots like Iceland may become what the vineyards and myrtle gardens of South Europe are to him now; and Heidelberg and Baden be passed unheeded as he hastens from the Alps to the sand dunes of Scheveningen.
The sea changed, the fields changed, the rivers, the villages, and the people changed, yet Egdon remained.
“The place he’s been living at is Paris,” said Humphrey, “and they tell me ’tis where the king’s head was cut off years ago. My poor mother used to tell me about that business. ‘Hummy,’ she used to say, ‘I was a young maid then, and as I was at home ironing Mother’s caps one afternoon the parson came in and said, “They’ve cut the king’s head off, Jane; and what ’twill be next God knows.’”
On Egdon there was no absolute hour of the day. The time at any moment was a number of varying doctrines professed by the different hamlets, some of them having originally grown up from a common root, and then become divided by secession, some having been alien from the beginning. West Egdon believed in Blooms-End time, East Egdon in the time of the Quiet Woman Inn. Grandfer Cantle’s watch had numbered many followers in years gone by, but since he had grown older faiths were shaken. Thus, the mummers having gathered hither from scattered points each came with his own tenets on early and late; and they waited a little longer as a compromise.
“There is no chance of getting rich. But with my system of education, which is as new as it is true, I shall do a great deal of good to my fellow-creatures.”
“Dreams, dreams! If there had been any system left to be invented they would have found it out at the universities long before this time.”
“Sometimes more bitterness is sown in five minutes than can be got rid of in a whole life; and that may be the case here.”
“How I have tried and tried to be a splendid woman, and how destiny has been against me! . . . I do not deserve my lot! [. . .] O, the cruelty of putting me into this ill-conceived world! I was capable of much; but I have been injured and blighted and crushed by things beyond my control! O, how hard it is of Heaven to devise such tortures for me, who have done no harm to heaven at all!”
He frequently walked the heath alone, when the past seized upon him with its shadowy hand, and held him there to listen to its tale. His imagination would then people the spot with its ancient inhabitants—forgotten Celtic tribes trod their tracks about him, and he could almost live among them, look in their faces, and see them standing beside the barrows which swelled around, untouched and perfect as at the time of their erection. Those of the dyed barbarians who had chosen the cultivable tracts were, in comparison with those who had left their marks here, as writers on paper beside writers on parchment. Their records had perished long ago by the plough, while the works of these remained. Yet they all had lived and died unconscious of the different fates awaiting their relics. It reminded him that unforeseen factors operate in the evolution of immortality.
