pg. 12 “the sea changed, the fields changed, the rivers, the villages, and the people changed, yet Egdon remained"
But even while the heath has a physical object it is described as "inviolate," and untouchable by man, as a symbol it is highly manageable: it becomes what the various characters want to make of it. It is ugly for Eustacia, beautiful for Clym Yeobright, comforting for Thomasin Yeobright, and home for Diggory Venn. And it is described differently by the narrator at different times, depending on what the character perspectives are focused on; it is not just the attitudes of the characters that change, but, in the narrator's perspective, the entire heath itself that seems changeable. It is both "an installment of night" and an object of delicate, intricate beauty.
The heath affects the heath people in a very big way, it causes lots of superstitions, this is mostly between the different characters,
The characters can be put into groups according to the various ways in which they react to the Heath. Clym Yeobright is the product of Egdon, and its shaggy hills are friendly to him but he leaves the heath to live in paris when he returned he married eustacia vye but he then lost his eyesight some of the heath folk think this is a result of leaving the heath or even that he lost his sight to the amout of books that he read. Eustacia is filled with a great hatred of this monster that is the heath it holds her back from the indulgence of her fiercer passions, she has no chose but to live in the heath because both of her parent s have died but she wants to leabve the heath but near the end of the novels she drowneds which is like the heath saying she will never leave. Wild-eve thinks of the heath as a place to flee from, at the end of the novel he also dies. The reddleman is the spirit of the heath and is helped constantly by it, but to the heath people he is like a devel figure because he extracts die from the heath which the heath folk think is going against the heath. Thomasin admires its "grim old face," and to her, it is an remote open ground. It is ironic that both Wildeve and Eustacia die in the very place they wish to flee from:
Heath Customs 1: On the night of November 5th, the heath-folk gather furze and make them into bonfires. All across the heath, bonfires can be seen, the light from the fire shining brightly against the night sky. Once the heath-folk light the first bonfire on Rainbarrow, the other heath inhabitants light their own fires.
Heath Customs 2: The villagers gather around the bonfires, sing, and dance wildly. The tradition of lighting bonfires on November 5th is a holiday for the heath-folk. This holiday tradition is a celebrated custom of Egdon Heath, a custom which Eustacia Vye detests.
Heath Customs 3: Some children of the heath believe that reddlemen have connections to the devil. Johnny Nunsuch is no exception; he is scared of Diggory Venn and gives as much information as he can about Eustacia Vye before he can finally leave and feel safely out of the reddleman's reach.
Heath Customs 4: Another heath custom is the Christmas mummers' play performed every year. Eustacia usually despises the Christmas mumming, as she does with every heath custom, but this year she is interested in it, once she hears that the first Christmas performance is at the Yeobrights'. That the mummers are masked completely means that Eustacia can scheme to find a way to perform as a mummer and spy on Clym.
Heath Customs 5: Thomasin braids her hair in seven strands on her wedding day. She and the other heath-women braid their hair according to the importance of the day (the more important the day, the more strands in the braid).
Heath Customs 6: The heath-men gather at Timothy Fairway's place for their weekly hair-cutting. The hair-cutting custom is another tradition that the heath-folk cherish and value.
Heath Customs 7: Susan Nunsuch believes that Eustacia is bewitching her son. To exorcize the bad spirit of Eustacia, she sticks a needle in Eustacia's arm during church.
Heath Customs 8: The bucket-fetching process is yet another important heath custom. When Captain Vye's bucket has fallen into the well, the heath-men gather rope from their homes and lower the men into the well with the rope tied around them.
Heath Customs 9: The raffle at the Quiet Woman Inn is a heath tradition the men participate in. They each put a shilling in the raffle and one man wins the money for his sweetheart.
Heath Customs 10: Furze-cutting is an important tradition to the heath-folk. Many men cut and gather furze for bonfires, but Eustacia and Mrs. Yeobright are horrified and ashamed that Clym becomes a cutter.
Heath Customs 11: The gipsying is a custom the villagers enjoy heartily. The heath-folk very much enjoy singing, dancing, and socializing; this gipsying, which is a picnic and dance, allows them the chance to take advantage of the heath landscape.
Heath Customs 12: The villagers make a remedy for Mrs. Yeobright's adder wound. The remedy consists of boiling the oil of a freshly-killed adder and applying it to the wound. Clym is doubtful that the remedy will work, but applies it because he trusts the villagers.
Heath Customs 13: Susan Nunsuch makes a voodoo effigy of Eustacia and inflicts pain on the effigy by sticking needles in it and then melting it--with satisfaction. Susan wants to counteract the evil curse she believes Eustacia set on her ailing son.
Heath Customs 14: The May-pole revel is a favorite tradition of the heath-folk. Thomasin especially takes delight in the beautiful flowers and the sight of the May-pole. Thomasin's delight and happiness at the May-pole revel coincides with her uplifted and cheerful spirits.
Heath Customs 15: The heath-folk celebrate Thomasin and Venn's wedding with certain heath customs: they make a fresh feather-bed for the newlyweds and they serenade them.
Return of the Native, like Hardy's other novels, is constructed in a series of scenes. The novel opens with a description of Egdon Heath, in its past and its present. Eustacia, who lives in misery on the heath, is awaiting somebody "greater" than Wildeve whom she could love and who would love her to madness. When Clym Yeobright returns to his native place, Eustacia is certain that this man from Paris is her special somebody and her ticket out of her dreary existence on the heath. The marriage of Clym and Eustacia takes place. For a couple of months they live an idyllic existence, in spite of the fact that Clym is estranged from his mother, who does not approve of the marriage. The mother, hoping for a reconciliation with her son, decides to visit him. The oppressive summer heat exhausts her as she comes in sight of the house, where she sees another man being let in by Eustacia. When she arrives at the door, she sees Clym's furze cutting implements by the door, but her knock goes unanswered; then she sees Eustacia looking out the window, but she doesn't open the door.
Concluding the worst, heart-weary and desolate, the mother retraces her way, is bitten by an adder, and dies. Clym, hearing that his mother has said that she has been cast off by her son, is guilty and remorseful. But when he later reconstructs and pieces together the "crime," he denounces Eustacia and accuses her of deliberate cruelty and infidelity. Eustacia, numbed by shock and grief, returns to her grandfather's house and aided by Wildeve, plans to flee Egdon. Struck by the wretchedness of her plight, she commits suicide instead.
The above plot closely follows the bell-shaped curve of literature. The introduction comes in the first chapters when Egdon Heath is described in detail. The rising action develops the relationship between Eustacia and Wildeve, the marriages of Wildeve to Thomasin and Clym to Eustacia, the breech between Mrs. Yeobright and her son and daughter-in-law, and Eustacia's increasing despondency. The climax occurs when the harsh and rigid Clym, without knowing the circumstances, accuses his wife of infidelity and denying his mother admittance to their home. These accusations cause Eustacia to flee from Clym and seek refuge with her grandfather and to seek help from Wildeve. When she realizes, however, that fate will never let her reach her goals, she plunges herself into the water to commit suicide. Wildeve also dies trying to save her. In the conclusion, Hardy tries to tie up the remaining loose ends related to the remaining characters. Thomasin marries Venn and Clym becomes an itinerant preacher.
The plot of the story is tightly woven. Between the introduction in the first chapters and the conclusion in the sixth book, the action of the story takes place in exactly a year, almost to the day. There is also a single setting, for all of the action takes place on Egdon Heath. Hardy also uses repetition to tighten the plot. Clym's hardness to his mother is repeated in his hardness to his wife. His procrastination in reconciling with Mrs. Yeobright is repeated in his procrastination to forgive Eustacia for a perceived infidelity to him and a perceived cruelty to his mother. As a result of his errant ways, Clym indirectly causes two deaths: first comes the death of Mrs. Yeobright, which is repeated in the death of Eustacia.
Even in minor motifs, there is repetition in the plot. At the first of the book the bonfires are lighted on the fifth of November. Wildeve sees Eustacia's bonfire and reads it as a signal for him to come. At the end of the book, it is again the fifth of November and the bonfires are lighted. Once again, Clym sees a bonfire at the Vye household, and, assuming it is another signal from Eustacia, he comes running to her side. In a similar manner, the story begins in the darkness of night with Eustacia and Wildeve meeting out on the heath. The action of the story concludes in the darkness of night with Wildeve and Eustacia meeting, under very unfortunate circumstances, out on the heath. These repetitions are obviously a successful means of weaving the events of the plot closely together. In spite of the fact that Hardy wrote the novel in a series of scenes that could be easily serialized, he has masterfully pulled the story together to work as a whole.