CLYM- EUSTACIA RELATIONSHIP

Hardy�s The Return of the Native is a novel based on unpractical idealism and  incompatible relationship between two major characters � Clym Yeobright and Eustacia Vye. Both of them are poles apart in character: The former is a plodding idealist, whereas the later is a fiery sensualist. Where Eustacia�s vision is a projective dream of the world, Clym�s is an introspective dream.

Where she is a �the raw material of a divinity� who wilfully creates the objects of her world, Clym, is the enslaved sovereign of the kingdom of his mind. The conflict between these two antithetical modes of perception is inevitable from the outset; both fail to see the other at the commencement of the relationship.

 When the story begins, we are not introduced with Clym who has been in Paris at that time but returns soon to the heath and it is the return that drives the plot of novel. Clym Yeobright is the tragic hero of Hardy�s novel. He is young man of thirty three and he is attractive enough to make Eustasia fall in love with him. In a letter to Arthur Hopkins, Hardy rated him as the most important character of the novel but described Eustacia as �the wayward and erring heroine�.

 Eustacia is described by Hardy, as �Queen of Night� whose eyes are pagan, are too fancy that a whole winter does not contain darkness enough to form its shadow. She is a woman of nineteen, tall, straight and graceful. Her very appearance made Clym infatuated with her.
Eustacia always longs for passionate love:�To be  loved to madness� is her great desire.The crippling boredom and feeling of being trapped within the heath leads Eustacia to crave an unrealistic love. Hardy says that �she seemed to long for the abstraction called passionate love more than for any particular lover�. Micael Millgate accuses Eustacia of �impulsive actions� which drive the couple finally apart� but describes Clym as  �Self-absorbed, isolated, humourless�incapable of sympathetic communication with anyone outside himself�. Eustacia�s ability to quickly forget her �love� for Wildeve as soon as an apparently superior possible opportunity presents itself is very telling. Once she begins fixating on Clym Yeobright, Wildeve develops �the rayless outline of the sun through smoked glass�. All Eustacia ever really craves is a chance to escape the Heath and lead the life she so arrogantly presumes to be her right.Throughout the novel Eustacia is filled with romantic imagining of a man who would �love her to madness� and take her away from the heath. She imagines Clym as a born leader of man who would go with her into the brilliant world � Paris which would give her the fullness of life and the freedom she craves for.  Even When Clym proses Eustacia, Eustacia�s response is, �At present speak of Paris to me. Is there any place like it on earth?�

Clym Yeobright, on the other hand, is relentless and self-centered man who �had been so inwoven with the heath in his boyhood that hardly anybody could look upon it without thinking of him�. Indeed, it should be noted that Clym is the returning native of the heath, while Eustacia is a complete alien on the heath, making her entrapment upon it even more poignant. Her belief that she will be able to convince Clym to return to Paris after they are married is another part of her downfall; she has too much faith in her own power There is a fatal incompatibility between the two lovers. Even at the moment  when she  and Clym decide to marry, she gazes toward the eclipsed moon and warns,

�See how our time is slipping, slipping, slipping!� 

She confides to her lover the deep fear that their love will not last. All her fears come true.

Within two months of their marriage, Eustacia�s vision of Clym is changed utterly; he is a fallen idol; far from being the Promethean lover her idealising vision had made of him; he is �merely� a furze-cutter, and seeing him as such she feels degraded. In addition, her  renewed interest in Wildeve further drives Eustacia away from Clym. The death of Mrs. Yeobright is a turning point in their relationship. When Clym learns the real cause of Mrs. Yeobright�s death, he becomes angrily upset and rushes home to confront Eustacia. He storms in on Eustacia. He screams at her and calls her a whore and a murderess. Eustacia exits Clym�s house in anger and despair. Eustacia, then decides to elope with Wildeve in order to fulfill her long cherished dream of Paris. On the night of her elopement, weather assumes a menacing shape, and Eustacia seems to drown herself alongwith Wildeve. Thus the most incompatible relationship Clym and Eusacia comes to an end. Eustacia met her tragic death leaving behind agonized Clym  who turns himself into a preacher in order to console her depressed soul.

Clym-Eustacia relationship can also be understood in the light of Eustacia-Wildeve relationship. She seems to be torn between her love for Clym and love for Wildeve. She oscillates back and forth  in her love affairs. The incongruency of the Clym-Eustacia relationship is also  illustrated by their different attitudes toward Egdon Heath. Clym loves Egdon Heath as much as Eustacia hates it. He is the �native' of the soil and very object appears to him friendly. Eustacia detests the heath, and her words later ring eerily true when she says of the heath that ��tis my cross, my shame, and will be my death!�

        Prepared and Composed by Shahzad Khan Chandia