H04032 DAMON WILDEVE'S ORIGIN QUESTION 4/26/04 HARDY FORUM ARCHIVE

From: mchll9898@netzero.com

Subject: The Return of the Native

Date: April 26, 2004 4:36:34 PM PDT

Is Damon Wildeve originally from Egdon Heath, or is he from another city like Eustacia is? I'm trying to understand why some characters in the novel love the heath and why others loathe it and I think it might be related to whether they are a native of the heath or not.

Thanks,

Michelle Fraser

mchll9898@netzero.com

From: jessedmoore@hotmail.com

Subject: RE: The Return of the Native

Date: April 26, 2004 1:52:04 PM PDT

I think he is a native. I don't recall anything that suggest otherwise.

Resent-From: HARDY-L@csusm.edu

From: apalling@tbaytel.net

Subject: Re: Damon Wildeve: Native or Interloper in *The Return of the Native*

Date: April 26, 2004 4:49:33 PM PDT

By his polished speech and as a result of what the revellers at the bonfire say about him, I had always assumed that Wildeve merely had relatives on Egdon Heath. We are told has educated for better things and for a time worked as an engineer at Budmouth, but has inherited The Quiet Woman Inn. Like Eustacia, then, he would not be a native of the place, but an interloper.

From: mchll9898@netzero.com

Subject: Re: Damon Wildeve: Native or Interloper in *The Return of the Native*

Date: April 26, 2004 9:29:00 PM PDT

Thank you very much. I noticed this too and I doubted he was a native but I

wanted to be sure before I wrote it in my senior term paper.

Michelle

From: wwmorgan@ilstu.edu

Subject: Re: Damon Wildeve: Native or Interloper in *The Return of the Native*

Date: April 26, 2004 6:34:33 PM PDT

Just to add a bit more to what Philip has already summarized. . . . Here is what the novel says about Wildeve's coming into possession of his land:

She first reached Wildeve's Patch, as it was called, a plot of land redeemed from the heath, and after long and laborious years brought into cultivation. The man who had discovered that it could be tilled died of the labour; the man who succeeded him in possession ruined himself in fertilizing it. Wildeve came like Amerigo Vespucci, and received the honours due to those who had gone before. (Book First, chapter IV)

Bill Morgan