# Perplexity Among Honest People explained — The Return of the Native

> Chapter companion for The Return of the Native by Thomas Hardy.

## What happens

Thomasin returns home unmarried due to a license irregularity, causing distress and tension with Mrs. Yeobright. They confront Wildeve at the Quiet Woman inn, where a group of heathfolk arrives to serenade the couple, forcing them to maintain appearances. Wildeve later sees a signal fire on the heath and decides to go to Eustacia.

## Themes in this chapter

### Love and Marriage

The failed wedding and forced engagement highlight the tension between romantic love and social obligation.

### Pride and Reputation

Mrs. Yeobright's concern for family respectability drives her anger and insistence on the marriage.

### Social Class and Ambition

Wildeve's failed engineering career and the heathfolk's communal singing reflect class dynamics and social expectations.

## Character check-ins

### Thomasin Yeobright

Returns home unmarried, tearfully explains the failed wedding to her aunt, and later pleads with Wildeve to go through with the marriage.

### Mrs. Yeobright

Angry and humiliated by the failed wedding, she confronts Wildeve and insists on maintaining family respectability.

### Damon Wildeve

Explains the license irregularity, shows reluctance but agrees to marry Thomasin, and is later drawn to Eustacia's signal fire.

### Diggory Venn

Brings Thomasin home after the failed wedding.

### Timothy Fairway

Leads the heathfolk in singing a welcome song outside the Quiet Woman.

### Grandfer Cantle

Joins the singing with a wheezy thin piping voice.

## Key lines

> It means just what it seems to mean: I am—not married.

Thomasin confesses that the wedding did not take place.

_Thomasin's admission of the failed marriage._

> I could almost say that it serves you right—if I did not feel that you don't deserve it.

Mrs. Yeobright is torn between anger and sympathy for Thomasin.

_Mrs. Yeobright's conflicted emotions._

> He told her that she was the joy of his life, And if she'd consent he would make her his wife; She could not refuse him; to church so they went, Young Will was forgot, and young Sue was content; And then was she kissed and set down on his knee, No man in the world was so loving as he!

The heathfolk sing a traditional ballad about a successful courtship and wedding.

_The serenade outside the Quiet Woman._

## Links

- HTML: https://www.betterreads.online/discover/the_return_of_the_native_se/chapters/v-perplexity-among-honest-people
- Book: https://www.betterreads.online/discover/the_return_of_the_native_se
- All chapters: https://www.betterreads.online/discover/the_return_of_the_native_se/chapters