Realist writers were concerned with producing accurate portrayals of ordinary life. They rejected Romantic emotionalism as an ineffective tool for reforming and describing industrial society. By examining the details of daily life, realist writers explain why ordinary people and characters behave the way they do. In Return of the Native, Thomas Hardy develops the backgrounds of his main characters to allow his audience to understand the perspectives of each character. Eustacia, who was brought up in the city, dreams of the thrill and splendor of Paris. In contrast, the heath seems dreadfully dull to her. In contrast, Clym was brought up on the heath and feels at peace with that environment. Hardy’s descriptions of Eustacia’s and Clym’s background helps his audience to understand their reactions to the heath.
Hardy also emphasizes the role guilt plays a lot of the events of the characters’ lives. He recognizes the motivation of guilt and put’s a focus on this- rather than romance or idealism. Through his writing, the audience studies the causes and effects of the characters’ actions and how them results of those actions manifest themselves in the characters’ lives forever. For example, Eustacia was immensely guilty over accidentally killing Ms. Yeobright, but instead of giving a lengthy speech about how terrible she felt (as many novelists write), Eustacia acted on her emotions in a more realistic way- suicide. Additionally, we can observe how the guilt among characters causes them to marry men/women that do not make them happy, and then how those feelings cause them to misbehave in their marriages and pursue people outside of those marriages. Diggory Venn, on the other hand, is acting on his true feelings for Thomasin and never pursues less genuine outlets, so he (as reality could predict) feels no guilt.
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