The novel's farmers, innkeepers, sons, mothers, and lovers are mirrored in the changing face of the heath. Clym Yeobright returns from living a worldly life in Paris. He and his cousin Thomasin, her fiancé Damon Wildeve, and the obstinate Eustacia Vye are the main characters in this story of destined love, passion, alienation, and melancholy as Hardy masterfully explores a theme so prevalent throughout his fiction the treacherous role of chance in determining a life's course.