The Impact of the Heath

After reading The Return of the Native, by Thomas Hardy I was left with the impact of feeling miserable for the characters, especially Clym.  I felt as though all Clym wanted was to be happy, and for him this came with doing what he pleased which was as what some may say, "sinking down in class".  He enjoyed the work of manual labor and resided in doing that, while all his greedy wife Eustacia wanted was to move to Paris.  Because of his love for being humble, their love dwindled under his wife's self-centeredness.  Throughout reading the book I seemed to get a sense of many love triangles and relationship confusions.  This just seemed to enhance the fact of the failure of this relationship.  Where did all this confusion start?  What caused all these messed up relationships and jealousy issues?
After analyzing a couple of the pieces of "Modern Criticism" at the end of Hardy's book I found my answer.  In D. H. Lawrence's, "Study of Thomas Hardy", it all became clear to me.  The originator of all this confusion, jealousy, and what some may even call hatred or depression came from the Heath!  I should have known right from the beginning since such an emphasis was put on the Heath.  For everything in this book is "born" by the Heath.  As Lawrence said, "For out of the Heath, it was the reality that worked the tragedy.  Out of the body of this crude earth are born Eustacia, Wildeve, Mistress Yeobright, Clym, and all the others."  It suddenly all made sense! For so long I was solely focusing on the characters,the way they acted, and their personalities, that it never dawned on me that it wasn't the characters that portrayed this tragic theme, but the Heath itself.  The Heath is personified in such a way, that I believe it to be a character.  Lawrence refers to the characters as one year's accidental crop by the Heath.  It's true when he says, "What does it matter that some (characters) are dead, drowned, or unhappy for the Heath will bear many more crops."  The Heath will never stop creating no matter what the past outcome was. 
This leads me to think, what will be the future of this Heath? Will the future be completely opposite or will it once again produce a tragedy?  After finding out that the Heath completely creates the tone in this book, I am led to believe that many other books follow this idea.  Many times I do not consider the setting when trying to understand characters and the tone.  This philosophy that Lawrence reinstates, that the setting can create the plot, reinforces in me the power that setting has.  I look forward to my future readings and the possibility that the setting will have the same power that the Heath had in, Return of the Native.