In Thomas Hardy's The Return of the Native, the heather is essentially treated as a character, albeit an extremely powerful one. Like the other characters, he loves possessively and without caring about the feelings of others. He competes with Mrs. Yeobright and Eustacia for Clym's affections, ultimately destroying all three of their lives. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on “Why Violent Video Games Should Not Be Banned”?Get the original essayThomas Hardy presents Health as a character who lives, loves, and feels the same way as the other characters. He opens the novel by introducing and describing the heath, giving the reader a first glimpse of its wild grandeur and raw, sometimes cruel power: It was now a place perfectly in keeping with the nature of man - nor horrible , hateful, nor ugly; neither banal, nor insignificant, nor tame; but, like man, despised and enduring; and at the same time singularly colossal and mysterious in its swarthy monotony. As with some people who have lived apart for a long time, loneliness seemed to lose its face. His face was lonely, suggesting tragic possibilities. (p. 7) The heather is an illusory character, full of dark force and mystery. Although habitable, it is at its core an untamable and wild place, and "civilization [is] its enemy." (p. 7) Although she is temperamental and sensitive to human emotions, Heather possesses supernatural strength and a capacity for unbridled violence. He exercises his physical power over the humans who live there, shaping their lives to his will. With the exception of Diggory Venn and Thomasin, "love" for the characters is more synonymous with possession than romance. Wildeve exploits Thomasin, marrying her primarily to punish Eustacia. When Eustacia "loves" Wildeve, she only thinks of him in monetary terms, and her love fades when she perceives his social inferiority:. . . What was the value of the man whom a woman inferior to herself did not esteem? . . . Her social superiority over him, which until then had hardly impressed her, became unpleasantly insistent, and for the first time she felt that she had lowered herself to loving him. (p. 83) Heather is a jealous lover, and like the other characters in the novel, she wishes not only to romanticize her objects of affection, but to possess them, both physically and mentally. No one in the novel manages to leave the moor alive: either they remain by free will like Thomasin, victims of circumstances like Clym, or, like Eustacia and Wildeve, die trying to escape. The moor has a special love for Clym. As evidenced by the novel's title, Clym is a native of the area – in many ways a child of the moor and an object of fascination to it and its more ordinary inhabitants. “. . . I admit we were talking about you. We were wondering what could possibly be keeping you here, when you've made such a global name for yourself. . . .” (p. 143-4) Clym has decided that the life he has been traveling through is empty, and so he returns to his homeland, proudly announcing, "I have come home." (p. 144) He delights in the unchanging glory of the heath: To many people this Egdon was a place that had slipped out of its century generations ago, to creep in like a gross object. It was an obsolete thing, and few people cared to study it... But as for Yeobright, when he looked down on his path from the heights, he could not help feeling a barbaric satisfaction in observing that, in certain attempts to recover the waste, the work of the soil, after having lasted a year or two, had once again retreated in despair, the ferns and the tufts of gorsestubbornly taking their place. (p. 146-7) Clym's long excursions and his decision to become a part-time gorse cutter indicate an urgent need to be in and with the heather. His restraint is rewarded - the heather, delighted at his return, warmly welcomes Clym, a reunion like that of long-lost lovers: The bees buzzed around his ears with an intimate air, and tugged at the heather and gorse at his sides in such great numbers that they weighed them down to the grass. The strange amber butterflies that Egdon produced, never seen elsewhere, quivered at the breath of his lips, alighted on his bent back and played with the glistening tip of his hook as he floated it up and down . (p. 209) Heather's relationship with Eustacia Vye is not that intimate. Eustacia is not originally from the moor: she was born outside, in the local town of Budmouth, but when her father died she was moved to Egdon to be looked after by her grandfather. She feels like a prisoner of the moor, exiled from “. . . what we call life - music, poetry, passion, war and all the beats and pulses that happen in the world" (p. 233) and blames Destiny for having imprisoned her there , “'...You hate heather as much as ever. ; that, I know. “Yes,” she whispered deeply. ' 'This is my cross, my shame, and it will be my death!' » (p. 71) Eustacia sees Clym as a way to get to Paris, and it is above all this illusion that attracts her to him. Even as he attempts to propose to Eustacia, his mind is lost in Paris: “There is only one cure for this anxiety, dearest: you must be my wife.” » She began: then tried to say calmly: 'The cynics say it cures anxiety by curing love.' 'But you have to answer me. Should I claim you one day – I don’t mean right away? “I have to think about it,” Eustacia murmured. “Right now, tell me about Paris. Is there a place like this on earth? (page 165) Mrs. Yeobright is a proud woman and, although she accepts living on the moor, she is no friend of it. Her conversations with Clym suggest that she views life on the moor as inferior to life elsewhere. Even before Eustacia, she wants Clym to have a better life than the one he has set his sights on. When Mrs. Yeobright becomes aware of her connection to Clym, she primarily blames Eustacia for her desire to stay: “It troubles me, Clym. You are wasting your life here; and it's only because of her. Without this woman, you would never have considered this teaching project. (p. 161) From the beginning of their interactions, Mrs. Yeobright and Eustacia are at odds with each other. Mrs. Yeobright, not entirely above the town gossip, not only warns Clym that Eustacia is not only inferior in terms of social status, but also questions his moral substance: "I never heard that she was of any use to herself or others. . Good girls are not treated like witches, even on Egdon. (p. 150) Mrs. Yeobright also worries that Eustacia is the reason Clym wants to stay on the heath. She thinks Eustacia is tying her up and is angry with her. For Eustacia, it is above all arrogance and an exaggerated sense of dignity that drives her to fight with Mrs. Yeobright: I am outraged; and any woman would be too. It was a condescension on my part to be Clym's wife, and not a maneuver, let me remind you; and that is why I will not be treated like an intriguer who becomes necessary to put up with because she has slipped into the family. (p. 203) The competition and fight that ensues between the two women creates what appears to be airreconcilable division between them. Heather, who desires to possess Clym for herself, competes with Mrs. Yeobright and Eustacia for Clym's affections. Heather attempts to satisfy all of Clym's desires, even those for human companionship. He not only allows Clym to earn a living by cutting gorse, but also seeks to satisfy his need for privacy. While Eustacia seeks to turn Clym's head with her physical attractiveness, the heather envelops Clym in an aura of organic finery, wooing him with "litters of young rabbits" (p. 209) and "tribes of grasshoppers emerald green.” (page 209). It's, in a sense, putting on a show for Clym, trying to lure him in to ensure his loyalty. He is also presented as a mother figure to Clym: [Clym] could be considered his product. His eyes were first opened to this; with his appearance, all the first images of his memory were mixed; his estimate of life had been colored by it; his toys had been the flint knives and arrowheads he found there, wondering why the stones "grew" into such strange shapes; its flowers, the purple bells and the yellow furs; its animal kingdom, snakes and harvesters; its society, its human ghosts. (p. 146) Heather is an extraordinarily narcissistic character. He seeks to replace his mother and wife, not for Clym's benefit, but because he wants him to be totally dependent on them. Because she cannot emit emotions like a human could, Heather often expresses her feelings over time, which is a great indicator of the mood of a scene in the novel. When agitated or angry, the heather becomes wild and tumultuous. The storm that followed Clym and Eustacia's decision to marry expresses the moor's anger at their union and what it means for Clym's future: The weather was very different from the day before. . . The wet young beech trees suffered amputations, bruises, disabilities and severe lacerations, which would leave visible scars until the day they were burned. Each stem was torn at the root, where it moved like a bone in its socket, and with each appearance of wind, convulsive noises came from the branches, as if pain were felt. (p. 175) The heather demonstrates its destructive power in the storm, a dark omen of things to come. Although Eustacia and Mrs. Yeobright compete for Clym's attention, they share a common hope for his future. Both women want Clym to return to Paris: Mrs. Yeobright because that is what will be best for him, and Eustacia because she hopes Clym will take her away from her stifled existence on the moor. Mrs. Yeobright said to Clym: "I really expected that in a month or two you would have realized the folly of such self-sacrifice and would by then be back in Paris on some business or another. (p. 144) She has high expectations of Clym and is worried about his decision to “return to the world.” Eustacia, by far the more self-centered of the two, is primarily concerned with what she hopes to gain from her marriage to Clym: a life in Paris. Despite their different motivations, the women agree on this subject. For most of the novel, Eustacia and Mrs. Yeobright live very separate lives, each trying to keep as much distance from the other as possible. However, Mrs. Yeobright, gripped by despair and loneliness, ultimately decides to swallow her pride and visit Clym and Eustacia. She hopes to reconcile with Eustacia, but above all to find Clym, who she misses very much. When Mrs. Yeobright walks towards Clym's house, the heather, trying to separate the two, causes a..