Wildeve marries Thomasin out of spite, arousing the concern of reddleman Diggory Venn, who loves Thomasin unselfishly and will do anything to see her happy. Believing Clym to be her ticket out of England, Hardy's heroine breaks things off with Damon and sets out to win Yeobright's heart. Eustacia finds Damon exciting but feels that he is somehow beneath her, although he shares with her the disdain for the heath and promises to take her away, and she shifts her attentions when Thomasin's cousin Clym returns from Paris, where he had been successful in the jewelry business. Wildeve is something of a rogue and a "lady killer" who has a strong desire and bond with Eustacia but is pledged to marry the fair Thomasin Yeobright. Eustacia is looked down on by the townspeople, referred to as a witch because of the young men of the community being smitten with her - one such man being Damon Wildeve, a failed engineer and innkeeper of The Quiet Woman Inn. But it is that very idealism that draws in Eustacia Vye, the beautiful, willful and unconventional young woman who had come to Egdon Heath (another part of Hardy's fictional Wessex) to live with her former seafaring grandfather. Debated among readers, the native of the title is Clym Yeobright, certainly one of the dullest central characters to be featured so prominently in a novel, his idealism seemingly the forefront trait of his colorless personality. Continuing on my Thomas Hardy kick, his 1878 novel The Return Of The Native, while not considered his best by many, is a very interesting commentary on the role of fate in life, choices that lead individuals down questionable paths, and ultimately, how a person's refusal to live by the standards of society find themselves outcasts and the subjects of gossip and superstition.
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