Clym, having been born and raised on the heath, loves Egdon. He is a "product" of the heath--he understands and appreciates it for what it is. Clym is accustomed to the country ways and customs of the heath and would rather live simply than live in a flashy, glamorous environment like Paris. He feels that his business in Paris is shallow and idle and wants to do something significant with his life. He is therefore glad to return, to Eustacia's surprise. Clym wants to make a significant contribution to the home and the people he loves rather than work and make a large fortune. He is as passionate about staying on the heath and giving back to the land as Eustacia is desperate to leave Egdon.
In the scene of the first meeting between Clym and Eustacia, Hardy makes the young woman the instigator of the encounter; however, since she has disguised herself as a mummer, she is not at first recognized as even a woman. When she is, she is in no position to reveal her identity since her appearance may strike Clym as merely whimsical. But in the scene of the second meeting, Clym is the instigator, though of course Eustacia makes sure she is available to meet him. She is more than willing to prolong the conversation with him and puts up with an injury to her hand with very little complaint. She shows her interest in him, in part, by frankly expressing her opinion of Egdon Heath, perhaps thinking he will share it or at least challenging him in her comment.
The scene in which Eustacia finally agrees to marry Clym occurs on Rainbarrow and is lighted by a moon that slowly moves into an eclipse. The symbolism of Rainbarrow has already been mentioned, and certainly Clym’s meeting Eustacia here, as Wildeve has before, is a sign of his moving into her orbit. If Rainbarrow symbolizes her view of life, Egdon Heath might be said to symbolize Clym’s. It might be added that Paris appears here and elsewhere as an ambiguous symbol: it represents all that is lively and worth living for to Eustacia and all that is idle and valueless to Clym.
Hardy’s use of the moon as a symbol is noteworthy. When Eustacia makes her appearance on Rainbarrow, the moon begins to go into eclipse; by the time she has promised to marry Clym and they part, the eclipse is almost full. The significance for both their lives is plain enough. When Clym observes the moon before the eclipse and Eustacia’s arrival, he sees it as perhaps “some world where personal ambition is not the only recognized form of progress” and imagines himself exploring its solitary wildness. Eustacia, after agreeing to marry Clym, reads into it her own meaning: “Clym, the eclipsed moonlight shines upon your face with a strange foreign colour, and shows its shape as if it were cut out in gold. That means that you should be doing better things than this.” Both readings are idealistic and romantic but represent conflicting images. Clym is glad to work on his beloved heath, and he wants to feel useful, and in his mind, he is doing no wrong.
These conflicting ideas of what Clym should be produce one of the large ironies of the novel, clearly shown here. Eustacia wants Clym as the avenue to a glamorous life; Clym has returned to Egdon Heath to live a life of service. She promises to be his “for ever and ever,” but is sure he “will never adhere to [his] education plan” and will eventually take her to Paris. He asks her to marry him but thinks of her as a helpmate in his desire to be a “schoolmaster to the poor and ignorant.” Clym is painfully conscious of the dilemma he now finds himself in: “Three antagonistic growths [have] to be kept alive: his mother’s trust in him, his plan for becoming a teacher, and Eustacia’s happiness.” He is also somewhat, though not fully, aware of the irony of the cross-purposes in his relationship with Eustacia. Whatever her reason, Mrs. Yeobright is, in fact, right: Eustacia is the wrong woman for Clym. But as Hardy implies, all human beings, like Clym, pay little attention to what is right in fact. Or perhaps Hardy means to say men are fated to do the very thing that is wrong for them.
As for the heath’s customs, 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 inhabitant’s light their own fires, 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 that Eustacia Vye detests. 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. 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.
Before Eustacia actually met Clym Yeobright, she dreamed about a man in silver armour
Hardy himself proposes the questions, “What brings on tragedy- Eustacia's wilfulness or an accidental turn of events? Is she forced to act in certain ways, or is she trapped by circumstances?” The way to approach this question is to look at Eustacia's crucial moments of decision, critical turning points in the action. There are several examples- her decision to marry Clym, her decision not to open the door for Mrs. Yeobright, her decision to leave with Wildeve, her decision to commit suicide in the end, all of which create a relationship between her will, her desire, and the actual options open to her
Just as the gambling scene is a dramatic symbol, so also is Clym’s loss of eyesight. Just as the world for the determined gamblers is reduced to the size of the flat stone, so Clym’s world is now literally limited: “His daily life was of a curious microscopic sort, his whole world being limited to a circuit of a few feet from his person.” Eustacia is desperate to get away from the heath; she brings up Paris when she is with Clym a number of times, such as when they first get together, and when Eustacia tells Clym of the occasion of when her and Mrs Yeobright quarrel bitterly, she brings up Paris again. It is as if she believes escaping the heath is the answer to all her problems, but perhaps it is a cover up and her problems are more deep down and personal. Perhaps, by acting as if everything would be okay if she could leave, she is ignoring the true problem behind her unhappiness in life. Clym appears to know what will please him and what will make him unhappy pretty clearly, and makes changes in his life to suit his ideals. Both characters are unhappy in their settings ands want to change, but it seems as though Clym’s the only one to do so, and do so without having to marry first or be taken away on somebody else’s wing. The irony is that the audience know these two characters are not suited for each other, but they take their time in finding this out. This helps move the plot along and add curiosity to the story of Return of the Native.
Perhaps Hardy desires his characters to hate the heath, conceivably this is part of his plan in high-quality story writing, because we do not; live in a world where we can run away from our problems. As Clym has shown, we always end up coming back to face them, whether we want to or not. The world is not perfect, we all have to endure things we do not wish to, and Hardy skilfully proves this by having his characters begrudge their surroundings: Egdon Heath. Perhaps the most ambiguous aspect of the novel is its ending. The novel seems to privilege a bleak understanding of human nature. Given the tragedy of the double drowning, it seems impossible that the novel could end happily. Yet, Diggory Venn and Thomasin are contentedly married. This is not, however, the way the novel was first conceived; Hardy was forced to give the novel a happy ending in order to please the Victorian public. Hardy even remarks in one of his interviews, "The writer may state here that the original conception of the story did not design a marriage between Thomasin and Venn But certain circumstances of serial publication led to a change of intent. Readers can therefore choose between the endings." Therefore, even the true conclusion of the novel is left in doubt, a fitting end for a novel that thrives on uncertainty and ambiguity.
