Essay Prompts: Tess
1.
What is the purpose of Parson Tringham’s chance remarks to Jack Durbeyfield? What does
this encounter suggest about the role of fate in Hardy’s novel? What does this situation
suggest about intentions and results? How does it contribute to the significance of the novel?
2.
Explain how Hardy uses the ballad structure. What does the use of the ballad structure
contribute to the significance of the novel?
3.
Explain how Hardy uses the archetype of the tragic hero. How do the country rustics serve the
same purpose as a “Greek chorus,” as Hardy calls them? What is the significance of the rustic
Greek chorus? What does the use of this archetype contribute to the significance of the novel?
4.
Explain how Hardy uses the archetype of the mythic hero. What does the use of this archetype
contribute to the significance of the novel?
5.
What is the ache of modernism? Explain how important characters in the novel suffer from the
ache of modernism and how this discrepancy of feeling and understanding contributes to the
significance of the book.
6.
AP Essay Exam Question: In a literary work an external sign or object can represent an internal
symbol or truth. Explain the significance of the Keelwell’s Marmalade pottery jar on top of
Sorrow’s grave. What does it contribute to the significance of the novel?
7.
Hardy unites many details to personify Tess as nature. Explain how he accomplishes this and
what it contributes to the significance of the book.
8.
Critic Gilbert Phelps has written of Tess: “Her flaw is not character but that her sensitivity,
integrity, and essential purity of spirit cannot possibly stand up against the blind operations of
the universe.” Explain why Phelps holds this opinion. Is there any evidence to refute it? If so,
explain why his statement could be false.
9.
How does Hardy create psychological landscape? What purpose does this device contribute to
the rest of the book or themes of the book?
10. Why is Hardy called the “first of the moderns and the last of the Victorians?”
11. Why did Hardy say that Tess is an expression of the “adjustment of things unusual to things
eternal and universal?”
12. Explain how Tess contains the conflict of the individual versus the organization. What social
critique does this conflict help Hardy make?
13. Hardy writes of the benign and the malignant. Explain how he illustrates this antithesis with
both industrialism and nature. What is the significance of this duality to the rest of the book?
14. “Hardy’s novels, written between 1868 and 1895, have a unity of thought and feeling that
challenges all the accepted truths of his time.” Most critics consider Tess of the d’Urbervilles
(1891) to be his masterpiece. What are these truths? Why is Hardy called a subversive writer?
15. Why does Hardy include the subtitle “A Pure Woman Faithfully Presented?” Why was this
subtitle controversial in his time? Does it continue to be controversial today? Why or why
not? What does the subtitle contribute to the significance of this novel?
16. Scholar David L. Kubal writes, “. . . her death is a triumph rather than a defeat.” Why? How
is it that Tess gives her life? (for society does not really take it) Why does she say, “I am
ready” when she is at Stonehenge? How does her status as victim change at the end?
Essay Prompts: Tess
17. “The firmer an individual’s adherence to principle, the greater his liabilities in the world.”
Hardy acknowledged that virtue under these circumstances is even more noble and tragic.
According to Hardy, virtue rewarded is reason enough to be good; virtue unrewarded is reason
enough to be noble. Explain the significance of this statement in relation to Tess and the novel
as a whole.
18. How is the liberated Angel a “slave to custom and conventionality,” despite his reading of
radical texts of the time, his rejection of a university education, his attempts to learn farming
despite his status as a gentleman’s son? How does Angel’s characterization contribute to
the significance of the novel?
19. Shakespeare’s Othello is primarily about the husband, and Hardy’s novel is primarily
about the wife. Since Hardy has been called the “Shakespeare of the Novel,” in what
ways are the two works alike other than sharing the topic of infidelity? Why is Hardy
called the “Shakespeare of the Novel,” even to this day?
20. Hardy’s early title for this novel was Too Late Beloved. Why would this have been an
appropriate title? Why is Tess of the D’Urbervilles a better, richer title that is fully
ironic? How does the title contribute to the significance of the book?
21. What is the dramatic purpose of Alec’s conversion? What does his conversion and
subsequent backsliding contribute to the themes of the book?
22. “ . . . the folktale of the ruined maid takes on the aspect of universal tragedy” at Stonehenge.
Why?” How is Hardy a “great mythopoeic writer”? How does Hardy’s use of myth
contribute to the significance of the novel?
23. What is the purpose of the symbolism in the Stonehenge scene? (Be specific and complete.)
How does the symbolism unify all of the themes in the novel? How does Stonehenge
contribute to the significance of the novel?
24. Although Hardy has been called a pessimist, at least one critic has said that Hardy’s work
is the reverse of pessimism: “Tess as a Child of Nature, solidly placed on the earth, embodies a
health and life-giving principle.” How does Tess’s life embody this principle rather than an
acceptance of fatalistic doom? What evidence suggests that Hardy is not a pessimist? Is there
evidence to suggest that he is a meliorist? How does Tess’s connection to the earth contribute to the
significance of the novel?
25. Is there a difference in the novel between fate, coincidence, chance, and destiny?
Explain. Does Hardy appear to endorse one or more of these as the cause of the events of human
lives? How does Hardy use the book to explore the larger question of cause and effect?
26. How does Hardy go beyond Jane Austen (who turned the novel into literature) into making the
novel more significant (indeed in raising the novel to high art)? Why is tragedy considered
important art? How does Hardy use the tale of one specific peasant to suggest universal
themes?
27. 1982 AP Exam Question: No scene of violence exists for its own sake. Explain how a scene(s)
of violence contributes to the meaning of the complete book Tess of the D’Urbervilles.
28. 1983 AP Exam Question: Analyze the nature of a character’s villainy (Alec) and discuss how it
enhances meaning in the work.
29. 1985 AP Exam Question: Writers use images, allusions, and symbols to extend the
implications of the dramatic action in a work. Explain how Thomas Hardy accomplishes this
extension and emphasis of his themes.
Essay Prompts: Tess
30. 1987 AP Exam Question: Some novels and plays seem to advocate changes in social or
political attitudes or in traditions. Choose such a novel or play and note briefly the particular
attitudes or traditions that the author apparently wishes to modify. Then analyze the techniques
the author uses to influence the reader's or audience's views.
31. 1990 AP Exam Question: Choose a novel (TESS) that depicts a conflict between a parent (or
a parental figure) and a son or daughter. Write an essay in which you analyze the sources of the
conflict and explain how the conflict contributes to the meaning of the work.
32. 1991 AP Exam Question: Many plays and novels use contrasting places (for example, two
countries, two cities or towns, two houses, or the land and sea) to represent opposed forces or
ideas that are central to the meaning of the work. Choose a novel (TESS) that contrasts two
such places. Write an essay explaining how the places differ, what each place represents, and
how their contrast contributes to the meaning of the work.
33. 1994 AP Exam Question: In some works of literature, a character who appears briefly, or who
does not appear at all, is a significant presence. Choose a novel (TESS) of literary merit and
write an essay in which you show how such a character affects action, theme, or the
development of other characters. Avoid plot summary.
34. 1995 AP Exam Question: Writers often highlight the values of a culture or a society by using
characters who are alienated from that culture or society because of gender, race, class, or
creed. Choose a novel (TESS) in which such a character plays a significant role and show how
that character's alienation reveals the surrounding society's assumptions and moral values.
35. 1996 AP Essay Question: The British novelist Fay Weldon offers this observation about
happy endings: "The writers, I do believe, who get the best and most lasting response from
readers are the writers who offer a happy ending through moral development. By a happy
ending, I do not mean mere fortunate events*a marriage or a last-minute rescue from death*but
some kind of spiritual reassessment or moral reconciliation, even with the self, even at death."
Choose a novel (TESS) that has the kind of ending Weldon describes. In a well-written essay,
identify the "spiritual reassessment or moral reconciliation" evident in the ending and explain
its significance in the work as a whole.
36. 1998 AP Essay Question: In his essay "Walking," Henry David Thoreau offers the following
assessment of literature: "In literature it is only the wild that attracts us. Dullness is but another
name for tameness. It is the uncivilized free and wild thinking in Hamlet and the Iliad, in all
scriptures and mythologies, not learned in schools, that delights us." Choose a novel (TESS)
that you may initially have thought was conventional and tame but that you now value for its
"uncivilized free and wild thinking." Explain what constitutes its "uncivilized free and wild
thinking" and how that thinking is central to the value of the work as a whole. Support your
ideas with specific references to the work you choose.
37. 2008 AP Essay Question: Choose a minor character who possesses traits that emphasize, by
contrast or comparison, the distinctive character and qualities of the main character. The ideas
or behavior of the minor character might be used to highlight weaknesses or strengths of the
main character. Analyze how the relationship between the minor character and the major
character illuminates the significance or theme of the work.
38. 2007 AP Essay Question: Past events can affect, positively or negatively, the present actions,
attitudes, or values of a character. Choose a character who must contend with some aspect of
the past, either personal or social. How does the character’s relationship to the past contribute
to the meaning of the work as a whole?
39. 2006 AP Essay Question: Many writers use a country setting to establish values within a work
of literature. The country may be a place of virtue and peace or one of primitivism and
ignorance in contrast to the city as a place of sin and chaos. How does the country setting
function in the work as a whole? (How does it contribute to the significance or themes of the
work?)
40. 2005: In Kate Chopin’s The Awakening (1899), protagonist Edna Pointellier is said to possess
“that outward existence which conforms, the inward life which questions.” Identify a character
who conforms outwardly while questioning inwardly. How does this tension between outward
conformity and inward questioning contribute to the meaning of the work
41. 2004 AP Essay Question: Critic Roland Barthes has said, “Literature is the question minus the
answer.” Considering Barthes’ observation, analyze a central question the work raises and the
Essay Prompts: Tess
extent to which it offers any answers. Explain how the author’s treatment of this question
affects your understanding of the work as a whole.
42. 2002 AP Essay Question: Morally ambiguous characters—characters whose behavior
discourages readers from identifying them as purely evil or purely good—are at the heart of
many works of literature. Choose a morally ambiguous character who plays a pivotal role.
Explain why the character can be viewed as morally ambiguous and why his or her moral
ambiguity is significant to the work as a whole. Avoid mere plot summary.
43. Hardy presents “imperfectly an imperfect world which can only be understood
imperfectly.” Explain how Hardy develops this idea in Tess through imagery and
allusion that evoke the Garden of Eden. How do they contribute to the significance of the novel?
44. Alec and Angel are intruders in Tess’s life and in nature. Explain how they become
agents of change in Tess’s life and why she is not able to change them. How does change
contribute to the significance of the novel?
45. Hardy said the “best tragedy – highest tragedy in short – is that of the worthy encompassed by
the inevitable.” Explain how this is true in Tess and how it reinforces Hardy’s themes.
46. Hardy laments the apparent pursuit of innocence unto its destruction. He admires the pursuit of
virtue without count of the cost. Does Hardy appear to believe that evil is an active force
pursuing the innocent or that evil is the absence of good. Explain in relation to Tess. How does
the role of innocence contribute to the significance of the novel?
47. Dorothy Van Ghent, a Hardy scholar, declares that the description of the death of Prince
suggests all the links in Tess’s tragedy, from her going to the D’Urberville estate to her
killing of Alec. Examine those two pages again. Discuss characterization, action,
imagery, and narrative elements which symbolize and foreshadow the course of Tess’s
tragedy. Explain how Hardy uses all of these threads in the rest of the book.
48. Scholar Albert Guerard writes that Hardy sees “life-creating strength connected to
traditional rural order” and that human life “wilts when out of its natural habitat and
communal order.” Although Hardy became discouraged that such order could survive
the industrial age, his novel provides many examples of the close connection between
humans, agrarian communities, and nature. Using these examples, discuss how Hardy uses a
contrast between the traditional rural way of life and the changes brought by the Industrial Age to
write a universal novel rather than a regional one.
49. To what degree is the word “justice” ironic at the end of the book? How is one great
good sacrificed for another? What are these “goods” and how do they contribute to
Hardy’s vision of Tess’s world?
50. Tess undergoes three deaths and three rebirths: The Chase, Flintcombe-Ash, the gallows.
Explain. What is the significance of this cycle to the significance of the novel?
51. How is Tess a story of Paradise Lost? What is the significance of Paradise to the novel?
53. “And it was the touch of the imperfect upon the would-be perfect that gave the
sweetness, because it was that which gave the humanity.”
Explain an important Hardy philosophy expressed in this comment about Tess’s lips.
Use evidence from an earlier discussion Tess has with her brother about the “blighted” planet.
Also use evidence from the Garden of Eden motif which Hardy develops in the book. Explain how
these ideas contribute to the significance of the novel.