In the novel characters are defined by their relation to the Heath, so seemingly, with Clym practically being the quintessence of it, he and Eustacia would form an ideal couple. However, to Clym the Heath is beautiful and is his home, but to Eustacia it is hateful and “is her Hades.” He desperately wishes to stay and she desperately wishes to leave, effectively they are both natives, just of very different places, and they both long to return to where they feel they belong but Hardy plays God in his novel, which in a sense, towards the end of the book, Eustacia realises as she begins to “…observe herself as a disinterested spectator, and think what a sport for Heaven this woman Eustacia was.” Clym is another who accepts his fate, saying “What will be, will be.”
All the characters are in some way deeply flawed, and Clym’s lack of ability, or compliance, to communicate causes distress for many, including himself. During the early stages of his marriage to Eustacia they each spend a considerable amount of time simply assuming that the other is happy to conform to their individual, ideal plans. Clym’s rejection of communication frustrates us, but I think that the novel deliberately perplexes the reader, leaving them to form their own argument.
Before his arrival Clym is, perhaps unfairly, built up by Hardy in the reader’s minds to be something he is not. This could be a tool of the author’s to show us that Eustacia had fallen in love with the idea of Clym rather than the person, or to make us consider sympathising with Clym because the people he has returned to have, in his absence, formed expectations of him which he is obliged to meet.
Clym is not a materialistic man and is like his cousin in the sense that he is happy leading a simple life, as long as that life is lead in Egdon. His choice to reside in the Heath is a drastic one, but his motives are somewhat unclear. He claims that he simply wishes to give others opportunities they would otherwise be denied of and do something worthy before he dies, which would in no way be out of character, but his lack of consideration for those it will effect other than himself strongly suggests that his plans revolve around his self-fulfilment. It is, however, plausible that he is so certain that his new vocation is the right one that he expects those he loves to automatically support him with his decision.
I personally get the impression that Clym starts to believe that he, alone, can change the lives of all the villagers, and effectively thinks that he is going to ‘save’ them, thus adopting a sort of patronising, ‘martyr’ attitude. I also think that the theme of the Heath’s consistency throughout the novel could perhaps be used to emphasise the fact that in Egdon, Hardy is God, that the characters are only significant amongst their small community and that it would take something a lot more than one man with an idea in his head to change a community like it, something like the industrial revolution.
I consider Clym’s altruism to be genuine to an extent, but I believe that his self-fulfilment gives him the majority of his motivation.
