Return Of The Native

The Return Of The Native has been considered as one of Thomas Hardy's greatest novels and one of the great works of late Victorian fiction. Egdon Heath, sunk in history, representing both the indifferent world of nature and the stage on which human dramas have been enacted since time immemorial, sets the tone for this sombre story of trapped human passions. Fulfilment for one is frustration for another; maternal love and pride is a mysterious and paradoxical combination of selfishness and self-sacrifice; characters are active or passive according to their nature, but actions never have their expected or intended consequences and the interweaving of human passions produces strange patterns.