Ruang Buku: Review : The Return of The Native

In The Return of the Native, the reader is introduced to Egdon Heath, a dry and isolated land where the characters live. The soil is poor and farming is hard, so many people make a living by cutting furze, a tough shrub used for fuel. This simple, difficult work shows how closely their lives depend on the heath.

Eustacia Vye lives with her grandfather, Captain Vye, in a cottage on Egdon Heath. Because she is different from the other villagers—beautiful, proud, and mysterious—people gossip about her and even say she is a witch. This shows how she does not fit in with the simple life of the heath and why she dreams of escaping it. Eustacia longs to go to Paris, dreaming of a brighter and more exciting life than the lonely heath can offer. But she cannot go on her own—her future depends on finding a man who will marry her and take her there. For her, love is not just about romance, but also a way to escape and reach the life she desires.

The title The Return of the Native mainly refers to Clym Yeobright, whose return brings a fresh breeze to the dry and lonely heath. After spending years in Paris, he comes back with new ideas and energy, raising hopes and stirring changes in the quiet life of Egdon. Eustacia uses her charm and beauty to draw Clym closer, hoping to shape his path toward her own desires. She sees him as the one who could take her away from the heath, and with her seductive presence she tries to guide him, like stepping stones, toward the dream she longs for.

As is typical in a Hardy novel, Destiny and irony have a strange way of showing up, generally quite tragically, into the lives of the plot's characters. Quickly the reader is also introduced to the novel's other players: Thomasin Yeobright is a bride-to-be when the first chapter of the novel, but her marriage is uncertain and clouded with doubt. Mrs. Yeobright, the matriarch, feels the weight of change around her and struggles to adapt to a different period of time, while trying to guide and protect her family, and the reddlemen or Diggory Venn beneath his unusual appearance (look reddish and strange) but he is kind, loyal, and steady.

The tragedy in The Return of the Native feels like a natural part of human life, bringing clarity and revealing the stubbornness of human nature. This novels reminds us that human dreams and pride often clash with fate and nature’s power. No matter our place in life, we cannot escape the struggles and limits that shape us.

I always appreciate Hardy’s style of writing and the beauty of his stories. I was also drawn to Clym, whose wish to change and educate the people of the heath shows Hardy’s deeper concern with hope and human progress. Like Eustacia, Sometimes, I feel similar to Eustacia Vye in when my dreams seem too big for the place or life I am in. Like Eustacia, who longed for passion, excitement, and the world beyond the lonely Egdon Heath, I, too, have moments when I feel trapped—whether by surroundings that feel too small, routines that feel too quiet, or commitments like marriage or expectations that weigh me down. Her desire to escape and live a more vibrant life reflects that deep human longing to break free from limitations, even if it means making risky choices.

The Egdon Heath

A Saturday afternoon in November was approaching the time of twilight, and the vast tract of unenclosed wild known as Egdon Heath embrowned itself moment by moment. Overhead the hollow stretch of whitish cloud shutting out the sky was as a tent which had the whole heath for its floor. The distance was lost in a gradually deepening haze, and the heath seemed to be of no limited extent. It was a face on which time makes but little impression.

The Furze-cutter

The place became full of a watchful intentness now. The sudden depression of nature caused by the closing in of the day was emphasized by the solitary figure of a man. He was a furze-cutter. The furze, or “gorse,” was not only plentiful on the heath, but valuable in the adjoining towns, where it was used for firing ovens and heating bakers’ loaves.