Lecture 2 Tess of the
d’Urbervilles
Lecture 2 Focus
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Preliminary remarks: Re- Hardy’s Accidentalism
Darwinian sub-text
Structure
Method of Narration and Point of View
Point of View and ‘Women in Literature’
Authorial Intention
Setting
Setting as Symbol,
Symbolism, and the colour ‘Red’
Chance, Mishap, Accident
• In the accidentalism of Hardy’s universe,
• we can recognize the profound truth of the
darkness in which life is cast—
• Darkness both within the soul and without.
• This accidentalism is more pronounced in
Tess of the d’Urbervilles than any other
novel by Thomas Hardy
Darwinian Sub-Text
• In Hardy’s view
• the real world is not naturally fitted
• to the hopes and wishes of human beings
NOTE:
• We can also see this in the
Darwinian subtext of the novel,
that of the struggle for existence,
in a world of blind chance,
• in the naturalist voice of the narrator
From Chapter 5 Hopes & Wishes?
(third last paragraph)
• In the ill-judged execution of the welljudged plan of things the call seldom
produces the comer, the man to love rarely
coincides with the hour of loving. Nature
does not often say ‘See!’ to her poor
creature at a time when seeing can lead
to happy doing; or reply ‘Here!’ to a body’s
cry of ‘Where’? Till the hide-and-seek has
become an irksome, outworn game.
(paragraph cont.)
• Enough that in the present case, as in
millions, it was not the two halves of a
perfect whole that confronted each other
at the perfect moment; a missing
counterpart wandered independently
about the earth waiting in crass
obtuseness till the late time came. Out of
which maladroit delay sprang anxieties,
disappointments, shocks, catastrophes,
and passing-strange destinies.
Structure (and Student Study)
• Each chapter is sparked by an important incident
(Chapter 1 Durbeyfield & Parson)
• Divided into seven phases, consisting of a series
of accidents and coincidences.
• The end of each phase is also the end of an
important stage in the life of Tess.
• Tess begins each phase with an altered view of
herself and her destiny.
• E.g. The Maiden (Phase the First) ends with the
loss of Tess’s virginity (Chap 11)
Structure: Literary Patterning
• Very little of the language of TD is
concerned with telling us what happened
• Events in Hardy’s novels are arranged to
display a pattern in human affairs which he
offers for our consideration and comment
• The events, and the language in which
they are narrated, are woven together to
form a structure / pattern of meanings
Omniscient Narration and Point of
View
• Storyteller with total, God-like knowledge
of the characters and their actions
• Two types: Intrusive and Unintrusive
• Intrusive narrator enters into the novel by
explicitly commenting on events and
characters. (Note: Shift in Tense of verb)
• Omniscient narrator provides information
to which the characters have no access.
Hardy an intrusive omniscient
narrator, and adopted persona
• Hardy (aside from his adopted persona)
quite frequently directly intrudes
• Hardy then appears as himself in his own
pages; intervenes to comment
• As a philosophical commentator; and
discursive moralist
• In a tone of — wry, saddened wisdom,
• and sardonic humour
From near the end of Chapter 2
• [Angel] He took almost the first that came to
hand, which was not the speaker, as she had
expected; nor did it happen to be Tess
Durbeyfield. Pedigree, ancestral skeletons,
monumental record, the d’Urberville
lineaments, did not help Tess in her life’s
battle as yet, even to the extent of attracting
to her a dancing-partner over the heads of
the commonest peasantry. [So much for
Norman blood unaided by Victorian lucre.]
Fourth last paragraph
Chapter 5
• Thus the thing began. Had she perceived
this meeting’s import she might have
asked why she was doomed to be seen
and coveted that day by the wrong man,
and not by some other man, the right and
desired one in all respects—as nearly as
humanity can supply the right and desired;
yet to him who amongst her acquaintance
might have approximated to this kind, she
was a transient impression, half forgotten.
Narration, Formality of Language,
and Point of View
• The narrative is written to large extent on the
basis of Victorian educated speech;
• Hardy the writer, identifies himself with the
more educated of his audience / his peers
• Hardy creates a sense of verisimilitude.
• His detailed descriptions are often seen
through the eyes of the main characters.
• E.g. We know how Tess feels about her
Marlott home because we see the family
cottage through her eyes in Chapter 3.
Illustration from early on
in Chapter 3: Whose Point of View?
• There stood her mother amid the group of
children, as Tess had left her, hanging
over the Monday washing-tub, which had
now, as always, lingered on to the end of
the week. Out of that tub had come the
day before—Tess felt it with a dreadful
sting of remorse—the very white frock
upon her back which she had so
carelessly greened about her skirt on the
damping grass…
Point of View
• The point of view is of central importance to
narrative prose, because the reader needs to
know WHO is telling the story.
• The narrator acts as an intermediary
between characters and readers
• Point of view is used to describe the visual
perspective from which the story is
presented
• POV is used to indicate the ideological
framework from which the story is told
Point of View and ‘Women in
Literature’
• Point of view is also used to indicate any
bias contained in the text
• This is what we are commenting on when
we ask, ‘Does the text present a ‘male
perspective’?
• Victorian society classified women under
two broad categories: ‘Madonna’ and
‘Whore’
• Hardy ‘works’ hard to defend Tess’s purity
Point of View
• However, there are Feminist Literary
Critics who consider the novel to be
strongly or entirely misogynistic
• They argue that Tess is portrayed as a
spectacle in the novel
• And that Tess is presented to us as an
object of display
• Tess is looked at in detail, from near and
far
Point of View
• We are made to gaze into the depths of
her eyes, their colour, size and shape
• We see her working as a figure in the
landscape
• We are compelled to consider every
‘aspect’ of the womanliness of Tess
• This is partly because she is a WOMAN,
and women are exhibited as OBJECTS for
the male gaze within patriarchy.
From Chapter 5
• ...as she innocently looked down at the roses
in her bosom, that there behind the blue
narcotic haze was potentially the ‘tragic
mischief’ of her drama—one who stood fair
to be the blood-red ray in the spectrum of her
young life. She had an attribute which
amounted to a disadvantage just now; and it
was this that caused Alec d’Urberville’s eyes
to rivet themselves upon her.
• It was a luxuriance of aspect, a fulness of
growth, which made her appear more of a
woman than she really was.
Some Salient features of ‘Women
in Literature’ re- TD
• Sexuality: this ‘luxuriance of aspect’;
But Tess is presented as neither
intellectually dumb, or (sexually) loose in
morals (Novel’s subtitle: ‘A Pure Woman’
• Misogyny; Misogynistic?
• Masculinity: Does the text present a very
masculine perspective?
• Patriarchy
• Family, motherhood, relationships?
Authorial Intentions
• To characterize: a character can be created
through physical description
• To set the scene: Scene setting is obviously
very important. If the writer wants to
convince the reader of the fictional world
created.
• Physical details of time and place can enable
the reader to visualize the background
against which the action takes place
Authorial intentions (cont)
• To evoke atmosphere
• The creation of different atmospheres can
be very important to the overall impact of a
novel.
• If readers are to be convinced of the
fictional world created, it is important that
the writer successfully arouses the
reader’s emotions
From Chapter 5
• As Tess grew older, and began to see how
matters stood, // she felt quite a
Malthusian towards her mother for
thoughtlessly giving her so many sisters
and brothers, when it was such trouble to
nurse and provide for them. Her mother’s
intelligence was that of a happy child:
Joan Durbeyfield was simply an additional
one, and that not the eldest, to her own
long family of waiters on Providence.
Transposition of Sentences /
Passages
• Her mother’s intelligence was that of a
happy child.
[Hardy’s sentence]
Alternative possible syntactical choices:
• A: Her mother had the intelligence of a
happy child.
• B: Her mother had more or less the same
level of intelligence as a happy child.
Setting
• In TD, nature is the next most important
element after the characters
• Thus the reader is obliged to pay close
attention to Hardy’s use of setting and
environment; the geographical landscape
• Novel’s setting takes place in (imaginative)
Wessex, a region encompassing the
southern English county of Dorset.
Setting as Symbol
• These landscapes have a clear literary
purpose;
• Each provides the frame and background
for the stages / phases in Tess’s life
• Which take her farther and farther from the
safe shelter of home;
• From innocence to experience
• They are external symbols, suggestive of
the interior experiences of her soul
Setting as Symbol (cont)
• The characters and setting mirror each
other
• Tess moves from a world that begins in the
beautiful regions around Marlott
• To the two main farms—
Talbothays and Flintcombe-Ash
• Representing the best and worst of farm
life, and by extension, experience of life.
From Chapter 5
• The Vale of Blackmoor was [to her]
the world, and its inhabitants the races
thereof. From the gates and stiles of
Marlott she had looked down its length in
the wandering days of infancy, and what
had been mystery to her then was not
much less than mystery to her now.
The colour ‘red’; Connotations?
• Red? The colour connected to Tess
throughout the novel.
• You might say watching Tess’s life, we
begin to see that her destiny is nothing
more or less than the colour red?
• First time we see her in the May dance,
she stands out. How?
• The other girls are all in white.
• Tess “wore a red ribbon in her hair
• The red stands out because of the pure
white background.
• This colour patterning of red and white is
often visible in the background
• throughout the novel.
• In Chapter 2, Tess is described as “a mere
vessel of emotion untinctured by
experience”
• Diction: The word choice, “untinctured”
comes as a surprise to readers.
• Why?
• We tend to think of people as being
shaped by experience
• Not coloured by experience
• Yet the word choice is intentional. Why?
• Being connected with dye and paint
From opening of Chapter 6
• One among her fellow-travellers
addressed her more pointedly than any
had spoken before: ‘Why, you be quite a
posy! And such roses in early June!’
• Then she became aware of the spectacle
she presented to their surprised vision:
roses at her breast; roses in her hat;
roses and strawberries in her basket to
the brim. She blushed…
(cont)
• Then she fell to reflecting again, and in
looking downwards a thorn of the rose
remaining in her breast accidentally
pricked her chin. Like all cottagers in
Blackmoor Vale, Tess was steeped in
fancies and prefigurative superstitions; she
thought this an ill omen—the first she had
noticed that day.
End paragraph of Chapter 6
• She had hoped to be a teacher at the
school, but the fates seemed to decide
otherwise. Being mentally older than her
mother she did not regard Mrs
Durbeyfield’s matrimonial hopes for her in
in a serious aspect for a moment. The
light-minded woman had been discovering
good matches for her daughter almost
from the year of her birth.