Tess of the D’Urbervilles
Phase 7
Tiffany Lee
Ryan Jolluck
Period 6
Character List
 Tess Durbeyfield- The novel’s protagonist. She eventually reunites with Angel and is
arrested at Stonehenge for her murder of Alec. Her last request is for Angel to marry
her sister, Liza-Lu. She is later executed
 Angel Clare- Tess’ husband. He has finally returned from Brazil in order to find Tess.
 Alec d’Urberville- Tess blames him for causing a burden on both herself and Angel,
and finally ends up murdered by Tess.
 Mrs. Clare- Angel’s mother. She tries to stop Angel’s worrying of Tess by saying
“don’t be anxious about a mere child of the soil”
 Liza-Lu Durbeyfield- Tess’ younger sister. She is described as “a spiritualized image
of Tess, slighter than she, but with the same beautiful eyes.” Angel Clare marries her
at Tess’ last request.
 Mrs. Brooks- The householder at The Herons who notices the blood on the ceiling
which prompts her to find out that Alec was murdered.
 Joan Durbeyfield- Tess’ mother and a widow. She accepts that she does not know
her daughter as well as Angel.
Plot Summary: Angel returns from Brazil looks sickly and sends a letter to Marlott in order to
locate Tess. Joan Durbeyfield replies to Angel that the family no longer lives at Marlott and she
will notify him where Tess is. Angel starts his travels to find Mrs. Durbeyfield in order to find
Tess. He finally locates Mrs. Durbeyfield who eventually tells him that Tess is at Sandbourne.
Angel eventually finds out where the d’Urberville’s are staying and believes that Tess is working
there as a servant. Tess comes out to see her visitor dressed up in a cashmere dressing gown.
She rejects Angle saying that it is too late and tells him to leave. The owner of Herons, Mrs.
Brooks starts to listen at the conversation between Alec and Tess. During the conversation, Tess
is in distress because she has lost Angel again. Mrs. Brooks later notices a blood stain on her
ceiling. It turns out that Alec was killed with a knife. Angel and Tess reunite where they spend
the next few days wandering around the countryside, staying in an abandoned mansion, and at
Stonehenge. Tess tells Angel to marry Liza-Lu before she goes to sleep. The next morning,
sixteen men have come to capture Tess where she is later sentenced to death.
Key Discussion Points and Quotes
 “Children of the soil” – Angel refers to everyone as the same and from the soil. Hardy
uses him as further criticism of the classes in Victorian England. The soil of England
acted as a melting pot for cultures such as the Saxons, Britons, and Normans
culminating in the English culture. Hardy views the English as equals and without any
special status to elevate one person over the other. As time passes noble families like
Tess’s fall and so does the current aristocracy in England.
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How does the soil symbolize England and its history and society?
“Children of the soil! Well we all are children of the soil. I wish she were so in the sense
you mean: but let me now explain to you what I have never explained before, that her
father is a descendant in the male line of one of the oldest Norman houses, like a good
many others who lead obscure agricultural lives in our villages, and are dubbed ‘sons of
the soil.’”
Tess’ loss of self- When Tess meets Angel at the Heron, “she was loosely wrapped in a
cashmere dressing-gown of gray-white, embroidered in half-mourning tints, and she
wore slippers of the same hue. Her neck rose out of a frill of down, and her wellremembered cable of dark-brown hair was partially coiled up in a mass at the back of
her head and partly hanging on her shoulder—the evident result of haste.”
This is completely different than what Angel imagined Tess would be doing at Heron.
This scene represents how Alec is controlling Tess by making Tess loose herself. The
change in clothes makes Tess fit into the role of a proper mistress or someone of upper
class. Therefore, is Hardy commenting on how women in upper class are subjected to
men? Is there a way for a woman to be free?
Tess murdering Alec- Hardy’s narrator focus in chapter 56 shifts to Mrs. Brooks, the
householder, in order to provide suspense of the result of Tess’ rejection of Angel.
Hardy does not reveal what happens until the workman says “My good God, the
gentleman in bed is dead! I think he has been hurt with a knife—a lot of blood had run
down upon the floor!” The act committed by Tess represents how she has freed herself
from her oppressor in order to come back to Angel.
Is Hardy using this event to show that women are only free when they are no longer
oppressed by males?
Is Tess fated to have this tragedy?
“Angel,” she said, as if waiting for this, “do you know what I have been running after you
for? To tell you that I have killed him!”
“He has come between us and ruined us, and now he can never do it any more. I never
loved him at all, Angel, as I loved you.”
Stonehenge, Paganism, and sacrifice – Hardy seems to refer to former times of England,
before William the Conqueror and spread of Christianity. During these ages in Briton,
there was less of a stake in your family name and life was based more on your abilities
and merit. Hardy use of the pagan religion can be a part of the writing period of
romanticism. Druidism and nature was a large part of paganism and it links to the
Romantic Movement. Stonehenge is a possible altar for sacrifices by those who built it.
Tess does seem to sacrifice herself for the loving connection with Angel.
What represents Tess’ final embodiment of nature?
How does Tess’ sacrifice on the altar represent the sacrifice of nature? What does her
sacrifice mean about nature?
“The heathen temple, you mean?”
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“But Tess, really tired by this time, flung herself upon an oblong slab that lay close at
hand, and was sheltered from the wind by a pillar.”
The Justice of Fate- Hardy refers to Tess’ death as ““Justice" was done, and the
President of the Immortals, in Aeschylean phrase, had ended his sport with Tess.”
This represents how fate is unjust because Aeschylus wrote Prometheus Bound
which is used to represent how Tess’ death and suffering was unfair like the
punishment that Prometheus receives. This reinforces the idea that Tess’ fate was
predetermined since “the d'Urberville knights and dames slept on in their tombs
unknowing.”
Is fate considered fair?
Why is ‘Justice’ in its own quotes?
How are the Mighty Fallen- Sir John Durbeyfield’s tombstone’s inscription says “How
are the mighty fallen” represents the social criticism of people trying to strive to live
from the pride of their ancestors. Hardy’s commentary comes from Mr. Durbeyfield
who represents the blend in social classes as he has noble blood but lives as a
peasant. Mr. Durbeyfield’s resting place being separated from his ancestors shows
that society does not believe that Mr. Durbeyfield belongs there since he has no
money, which is seen as a sign of power.
Is John Durbeyfield the embodiment of the phrase?
"Ah, sir, now that's a man who didn't want to lie here, but wished to be carried to
Kingsbere, where his ancestors be." "And why didn't they respect his wish?" "Oh—
no money. Bless your soul, sir, why—there, I wouldn't wish to say it everywhere,
but—even this headstone, for all the flourish wrote upon en, is not paid for."
Symbols
 Black Flag- It represents Tess’ execution along with the impurity that she had faced
in her life. It also shows how Tess’ suffering ended.
 Stonehenge- This is where Tess recognizes that she must accept her fate for the
murder of Alec by “self-sacrificing” herself so that she can end her suffering.
 Durbeyfield and d’Urbervilles- The name D’Urbervilles in England speaks of a former
time when kings ruled and conquered. The French Normans are almost nonexistent and
have blended into the English culture. The loss of lands and prestige of the D’Urbervilles
symbolizes how family names should have little meaning in modern society. The
generations of D’Urbervilles did not live up to the abilities of their fathers leading them
into obscurity. Such is the case with most if the aristocratic families in England who are
only contributing to society by name and living off the wealth of their inheritance.
 The Blood Stain on the Ceiling- The blood stain represents Tess killing Alec to win
back Angel’s love. It also represents how Tess was able to free herself from her
male bondage, which is Alec.
Strong Imagery
 “This fashionable watering-place, with its eastern and its western stations, its piers, its
groves of pines, its promenades, and its covered gardens, was, to Angel Clare, like a fairy
place suddenly created by the stroke of a wand, and allowed to get a little dusty. An
outlying eastern tract of the enormous Egdon Waste was close at hand, yet on the very
verge of that tawny piece of antiquity such a glittering novelty as this pleasure city had
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chosen to spring up. Within the space of a mile from its outskirts every irregularity of
the soil was prehistoric, every channel an undisturbed British trackway; not a sod having
been turned there since the days of the Caesars. Yet the exotic had grown here,
suddenly as the prophet's gourd; and had drawn hither Tess.”-Chapter 55. This is the
scene where Angel goes to Sandbourne in order to find Tess. Angel first thinks that
Tess is working as a servant. Hardy shows the contrast in the expectation that Angel
has of Tess to show that Tess lost herself to Alec who is controlling her. This shows
that Tess is not free with Alec.
“The next pillar was isolated; others composed a trilithon; others were prostrate, their
flanks forming a causeway wide enough for a carriage and it was soon obvious that they
made up a forest of monoliths grouped upon the grassy expanse of the plain.”- Chapter
58. This is the description of the Stonehenge. It has a sense of mystery since the scene
moves away from a plain field to the pillars of stone. This also lets Tess to become the
human sacrifice which is related back to the Pagan traditions.
“Against these far stretches of country rose, in front of the other city edifices, a large
red-brick building, with level gray roofs, and rows of short barred windows
bespeaking captivity, the whole contrasting greatly by its formalism with the quaint
irregularities of the Gothic erections. It was somewhat disguised from the road in
passing it by yews and evergreen oaks, but it was visible enough up here. The
wicket from which the pair had lately emerged was in the wall of this structure. From
the middle of the building an ugly flat-topped octagonal tower ascended against the
east horizon, and viewed from this spot, on its shady side and against the light, it
seemed the one blot on the city's beauty.”- Chapter 59. This is a description of where
Tess is executed for her crime. This contrasts with the nature and modern society
since Tess was most happy when she was in the countryside away from civilization.
This has also allowed Tess’ suffering to end which makes her death be part of the
happy ending.
Motifs
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D’Urberville Coach- the motif represents how fate forces Tess to murder Alec
because it is in her blood. Therefore, Tess’ execution was predestined since she
was destined to commit the crime like her ancestors. “There momentarily flashed
through his mind that the family tradition of the coach and murder might have arisen
because the d'Urbervilles had been known to do these things.”
Durbeyfield name of Tess’s branch of the family is used to imply a family of
commoners and peasants working the “fields” instead of a city or town which is what
“ville” is more associated with.
Traveling – Angel and Tess are often separated and even by the end of the story
they are to end up without each other. Both Angel and Tess are moved great
distances to find or escape from something or someone.
Passages demonstrating Romanticism and/or Realism
 “Upon the cornice of the tower a tall staff was fixed. Their eyes were riveted on it. A few
minutes after the hour had struck something moved slowly up the staff, and extended
itself upon the breeze. It was a black flag.”- Chapter 59.
This passage represents realism because the narrator is describing a tangible building
and a pole that is seen often in the real world. The rising of the black flag is also a
procedure that happens when someone gets executed. The sentences are in simple
sentence structure.
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“She ceased, and he fell into thought. In the far northeast sky he could see between the
pillars a level streak of light. The uniform concavity of black cloud was lifting bodily like
the lid of a pot, letting in at the earth’s edge the coming day, against which the
powering monoliths and Trinitrons began to be blackly defined. “Did they sacrifice to
God here” asked she. “No,” said he. “Who to?” “I believe to the sun. That lofty stone set
away by itself is in the direction of the sun, which will presently rise behind it.” – Hardy
demonstrates his uses of mysticism in his work as part of the Romantic movement. The
passage shows paganism and a focus on nature.
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“Have they come for me?” “Yes dearest,” he said. “They have come.” “it is as it should
be,” she murmured. “Angel, I am almost glad – yes, glad! This happiness could not have
lasted. It was too much. I have had enough; and now I shall not live for you to despise
me!” She stood up, shook herself, and went forward, neither of the men having moved.
“I am ready,” she said quietly. – This scene also demonstrates the use of Romanticism.
Hardy focuses on plot since it is Tess’ arrest that pushes the plot to make a reference to
her execution. It also shows a positive outlook since Tess is looking to the positive
aspect of her arrest which is being able to still have Angel’s love.