'Tess of the D'Urbervilles' - regional writers 2 - Themes
- Created by: Alasdair
- Created on: 06-06-18 13:54
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- 'Tess of the D'Urbervilles' - regional writers 2 - Themes
- Fate
- Hardy presents it as a cruel fate that 'the man to love rarely coincides with the hour for loving'
- Tess sees the irony that Angel saw her 'when I - was sixteen; living with my little sisters and brothers' and would not dance with her
- Hardy describes rural people as being fatalistic and accepting of what happens - the phrase 'was to be' is repeated
- The final paragraph of the novel suggests that mankind is the 'sport' of the immortals and is without freewill
- The seasons
- A large number of chapters begin with reference to a specific month, so that we can trace Tess's story chronologically
- Seasonal references accord with Tess's happiness:
- Phases 1 and 3 open in May, a time of new life and hope, signifying Tess's optimism
- Hardy employs parallelism:
- Chapter 12, when Tess leaves Alec, and Chapter 41, when Angel has deserted Tess
- Both open in October
- Chapter 12, when Tess leaves Alec, and Chapter 41, when Angel has deserted Tess
- In the dairy,the progress of the summer mirrors the burgeoning love between Tess and Angel - they separate in the winter
- Sexual hypocrisy
- Angel declares he 'hated impurity, as I do now' when revealing that he spent two days in 'dissipation', highlighting his hypocrisy over sexual matters
- The principle concern of Angel's evangelical Christian parents is whether Tess is 'pure and virtuous'
- Although Tess suffers social degradation after her liason with Alec, he, as the instigator of this, is able to recover his social position, even in evangelical Christian circles
- Tess is despised by 'people of scrupulous character' for having had a child out of wedlock and her family is evicted partly in consequence
- Modernity versus Nature
- The mail-cart, a symbol of the modern world, symbolically pierces the 'slow' horse Prince
- The reaping machine kills wildlife and requires just one man to run it, in place of many workers with scythes
- The train running near Talbothays Dairy allows urban citizens who, in a post-industrial society, may have 'never seen a cow' to access fresh milk easily
- Hardy presents a vanishing way of life, with old customs and routine being superseded by new technologies
- Ignorance and superstition
- Mrs Durbeyfield owns a book called the 'Complete Fortune Teller' which, ironically, she will not keep in the house in case it brings bad luck
- Mrs Durbeyfield tries to read Tess's future in the book, and believes she will marry a 'noble gentleman', not foreseeing Alec will precede Angel
- Tess percieves Angel's original failure to dance with her as an 'ill-omen'
- As the newly married Tess and Angel leave the dairy, a **** crows unexpectedly. Other characters see this as bringing bad luck.
- Fate
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