Tess Durbeyfield Timeline and Summary
• Tess sees Angel at the dance on the village green; he doesn't
dance with her.
• She falls asleep while driving the family's produce to the market in
the middle of the night; the horse, Prince, is killed by an
oncoming mail coach.
• Tess is sent by her parents to visit the D'Urberville family at
Trantridge, in the hopes that they'll lend them money for a new
horse.
• Later, Tess is invited by Alec D'Urberville to come and work at
Trantridge; her parents pressure her to accept the invitation.
• She works at Trantridge for a while, then is seduced and raped by
Alec in The Chase.
• She goes back to Marlott immediately afterwards, gives birth to a
baby, and works in the fields close to home to make money.
• The baby dies; she buries it in the churchyard.
• Tess travels to Talbothays Dairy to work where no one knows her
history.
• She falls in love with Angel Clare, a gentleman's son who is getting
practical experience at a dairy in preparation to buy a farm of
his own.
• Tess agrees to marry Angel and tries to tell him about her history in
a letter, but he never receives it.
• Tess marries Angel.
• She confesses everything to him on their wedding night.
• Angel can't get over it, and leaves her for Brazil with instructions to
get extra money from his father when she spends what he
leaves her.
• Tess goes back to her parents' house at Marlott for a while, then
decides to work at a farm during the winter with an old friend
from Talbothays.
• She tries to visit Angel's parents, but overhears his brothers talking
about his unfortunate marriage, and gives it up.
• Tess sees Alec D'Urberville, who has converted to Christianity and
has become a wandering preacher.
• She tries to ward off Alec's unwanted advances.
• Tess is called back to her parents' house because of her mother's
bad health.
• Her mother recovers, but her father suddenly dies.
• Tess has to help her mother and younger siblings move to a new
house; Alec offers to give her family a cottage on his estate;
Tess refuses.
• Alec eventually convinces Tess to become his mistress again, and
puts her family up in his cottage.
• Angel returns for Tess and meets her in Sandbourne; she tells him
it's too late.
• She stabs Alec in the heart with a knife and joins Angel.
• They run away together across the countryside to avoid the
authorities who understandably want to arrest Tess.
• Tess is arrested when they stop for a break at Stonehenge.
• Tess is executed in the county capitol of Wintoncester.
Tess Durbeyfield
Character Analysis
Tess is the protagonist, and not just because she's the title character.
She's also the moral center of the novel – the narrator consistently
sympathizes with her, and her moral outlook is continually shown to
be the best one. But early critics of the novel believed that Tess was
morally culpable for being raped, as well as for everything else that
happened to her – up to and including, of course, the murder of
Alec.
Hardy knew how critics would respond to her, and he's on
the defensive throughout the novel. The narrator is Tess's only
constant friend and sympathizer. Angel, her "true" husband and
supposed soul mate, doesn't understand her until it's too late. Even
her own mother doesn't understand her, as she admits to Angel
towards the end of the novel: "I have never really known her" (54.36).
Tess is certainly a difficult character to understand, both for
characters in the novel and for readers. So let's take a closer look at
a few passages to try and clarify a few things.
Tess's Eyes (and mouth, and cheeks, and body…)
Tess's physicality is referred to so frequently in the novel that it's hard
not to think of her attractiveness as her defining characteristic. Some
characters in the novel aren't able to see past her good looks. The
scene in which she first meets Alec D'Urberville is the first instance of
this:
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 fullness of
growth, which made her appear more of a woman than she really
was. She had inherited the feature from her mother without the
quality it denoted. It had troubled her mind occasionally, till her
companions had said that it was a fault which time would cure. (5.63)
The "luxuriance of aspect" and "fullness of growth" is a polite way
of saying that Tess is curvaceous, and surprisingly developed for her
age. OK, let's do away with euphemisms: she has big chest. Later on,
when Alec runs into Tess again, he can't stop talking about her
mouth: "Surely there never was such a maddening mouth since
Eve's!" (56.125). Why does Hardy mention this? Because it's
important to point out that Alec's obsession with Tess is purely
physical, and his physical attraction to her has to do with her
beauty.
But Angel is physically attracted to Tess, too. What's the
difference? Let's look at the passage in which Angel is staring at Tess
(unbeknownst to her) and studying her face: How very lovable her
face was to him. Yet there was nothing ethereal about it; all was real
vitality, real warmth, real incarnation. And it was in her mouth that this
culminated. Eyes almost as deep and speaking he had seen before,
and cheeks perhaps as fair; brows as arched, a chin and throat
almost as shapely; her mouth he had seen nothing to equal on the
face of the earth. To a young man with the least fire in him that little
upward life in the middle of her red top lip was distracting, infatuating,
maddening. (24.8) Angel is generally an ethereal, spiritual person
– less interested in physical realities than he is in the spiritual or ideal
aspects of things. And in general, that's how he views Tess – until he
really looks at her face, and especially her mouth. Notice the "yet" in
the second sentence. The "yet" suggests that her face is "lovable to
him" in spite of the fact that it's physical, and not ethereal. So, yes,
he's sexually attracted to her, because no "young man with the least
fire in him" could help it, but she is lovable to him in spite of it, and not
because of it.
Tess herself views her own physical beauty with
pride, only to think that Angel is proud to have a pretty wife. At other
times, she is self-conscious and embarrassed about her good looks.
When she travels alone after Angel has left her, she goes so far as to
disguise herself so that she'll be able to avoid the unwanted remarks
and leers of men on the road. She snips off her eyebrows and ties a
bandage around her chin (52.2). She somehow sees her own
physical attractiveness as a sin – it's something she cannot help, but
her physicality tempts men, and causes them to accuse her of
deliberately tempting them, as Alec does: "You temptress, Tess; you
dear witch of Babylon!" (56.125).
Ideal or Real?
The descriptions of Tess's physicality, and the different attitudes
towards it taken by the three main characters, lead to another
question about Tess's character: is she a kind of mythic "every
woman," who can stand in for some universal female experience, or
is her experience unique? Some characters see her as ideal and
mythic, but she insists that she's not – she's just a regular girl. Let's
look at some of the passages that suggest the ambiguity:
Tess's
eyes are "neither black nor blue nor gray nor violet; rather all those
shades together, and a hundred others, which could be seen if one
looked into their irises – shade behind shade – tint beyond tint –
round depths that had no bottom; an almost typical woman" (14.24).
Her eyes are every color of the rainbow, and then some? How does
that work? Her eyes are somehow universal – they make her an
"almost typical woman." Looking into her eyes is like looking into the
eyes of any woman, anywhere – and from any time – but only
"almost." Hardy backs away from saying that she is a "typical
woman," and says she's only almost a "typical woman."
But Angel,
who should know her better than anybody, still sees her that way:
He called her Artemis, Demeter, and other fanciful names half
teasingly, which she did not like because she could not understand
them.
"Call me Tess," she would say askance; and he did. (20.1011)
Angel calls her by the names of ancient Greek goddesses.
Demeter is the goddess of the earth and of fertility – this makes
sense, because Tess has already repeatedly been associated with
fertility rituals (remember the May Dance?). Artemis is the Greek
goddess of hunting, and of the moon, and – ironically – of
chastity.
But Tess is too complicated to be summed up as either of
those characteristics – as an "earth goddess" or as the "goddess of
chastity." Neither one of them is really true, and neither one of them
gets at her complexity as a person. Both are, to use the academic
term, reductive – they reduce her to a single, simple term or idea.
Tess doesn't know who Artemis or Demeter are, but she knows she
doesn't want to be reduced like that, so she says, "Call me Tess." Her
desire to be called by her own name is her way of asserting her own
individuality – she's not an ideal woman, and she's not reducible to a
single term or idea. Her own name is the only way to capture her
complexity as a character.
But even after Angel stops trying to
reduce Tess to these overly simple ideas, he still refuses to
acknowledge her complexity as a character: whenever she
references her past, he laughs it off, as though she could have no
history before coming to Talbothays. How could such a fresh, pretty
country girl, he thinks, have any kind of dark past or history to tell?
What stories could that exterior hide? One example is when she
starts to tell him about Alec, and he makes light of it, saying 'Tell it if
you wish to, dearest. This precious history then. Yes, I was born at so
and so, Anno Domini – " (30.35). So, in a way, Angel fails to see past
Tess's exterior as much as Alec does. The difference is that Angel
can't see past his idealized vision of Tess as a timeless, ideal woman
(who would therefore have no history), and Alec can't see past his
vision of Tess's gorgeous looks.
Tess's Spirituality: Christian and Pagan
Part of what early critics of Tess of the D'Urbervilles objected to was
Tess's lack of traditional Christian doctrine. If she blamed herself for
being raped, and spent the rest of her life shunning men and trying to
atone for her "sin," they might not have objected to her so much. In
that case, the novel would have become a cautionary tale about the
dangers of being too sexy.
But Tess realizes that what happened
to her really wasn't her fault – she didn't even know what sex was
before she went to Trantridge. She had no way of defending herself
against Alec because she didn't fully understand what he wanted.
She realizes that she's the victim and, in a moment of mental
anguish, she asks herself why she should suffer so much: Never
in her life – she could swear it from the bottom of her soul – had she
ever intended to do wrong; yet these hard judgments had come.
Whatever her sins, they were not sins of intention, but of
inadvertence, and why should she have been punished so
persistently? (51.8) So Tess doesn't blame herself – which early
readers saw as problem number one. In addition, she's not all that
well schooled in Christian doctrine. She goes to church regularly, but
doesn't always understand what she hears there. Her faith pertains
more to what she sees in Nature (with a capital "N") than what she
hears in church. Angel teasingly calls her a pagan when they're at the
dairy together, and Tess recalls his remarks when they're at
Stonehenge just before her arrest. Tess feels a connection to the
ancient, primeval, mysterious stone circle, and says, "One of my
mother's people was a shepherd hereabouts, now I think of it. And
you used to say at Talbothays that I was a heathen. So now I am at
home" (58.34). Tess feels connected to the pagan history of Britain
through her mother's family, and that's an association that Hardy has
stressed from the beginning of the novel.
Tess gets all her
prettiness from her mother, but that "gift" is "therefore unknightly,
unhistorical" (3.13). Because her mother is a commoner, and isn't
related to an ancient, noble family like her husband, Jack
Durbeyfield/D'Urberville, Tess's prettiness is likewise common, or
"unknightly." But to call it "unhistorical" seems problematic – the
history of her mother's family might not be written in history books, or
found by antiquarians like the Parson Tringham who discovers the
Durbeyfield's connection to the D'Urbervilles, but that doesn't mean
that it has no history.
In fact, Hardy frequently alludes to the
ancientness, or even the timelessness, of Tess's femininity. Her
mother collects ancient ballads, and seems to represent all the old
traditions of Britain – the May Dance, for example, is a relic of an
even older fertility ceremony dating back to pagan times and the
worship of the ancient Roman goddess Ceres (2.6). That ceremony
connects Tess to her matrilineal heritage (her lineage through her
mother) as opposed to her patrilineal heritage (you guessed it – her
D'Urberville lineage through her father). And Tess's matrilineal
heritage connects her to ancient, druidical, pagan times.
So how do we interpret Tess?
That's the real question, isn't it? The whole tragedy of her life seems
to have been caused by "misreadings" of Tess – Alec's failure to see
past her physical beauty to her complex spiritual core; Angel's failure
to see her human side or to acknowledge that she has a
history.
Hardy obviously wants the reader to understand Tess – his
defensiveness of her is almost tender at points. Critics have
postulated that he might even have been in love with her himself,
even though she was a fictional character he had invented. The basis
for this (probably flawed!) assumption is the line in a letter he wrote: "I
have not been able to put on paper all that she is, or was, to me."
Even Hardy himself found it difficult fully to comprehend the layers of
Tess's character. Part of interpreting her correctly, then, is simply
acknowledging that complexity.
Tess of the D'Urbervilles Theme of Fate and Free Will
This theme is strongly linked to the themes of "Time" and "Memory
and the Past." Basically, in the world of Tess of the D'Urbervilles,
your history determines your future, but you don't have much control
over it. Or do you? Different characters take different views on this.
Does being a D'Urberville mean that Tess necessarily will have the
kind of sketchy morality that Angel thinks all aristocrats have? No, of
course not. But is Tess's rape a result of her being a D'Urberville?
Well, kind of – but only due to bad choices on her father and mother's
parts. So whether the tragedy is caused by fate or free will is still an
open question at the end of the book.
Questions About Fate and Free Will
• Is Tess's rape a result of fate, or free will?
• Why do so many of the rural characters, like Joan Durbeyfield, like
to blame things that happen on fate?
• Why does Tess reject the idea of fate, even though it would help to
excuse what happened to her?
• After Tess's rape, the narrator quotes "Tess's own people" who are
never tired of saying among each other in their fatalistic way: 'It
was to be' (11.64). Does he mean Tess's family, the ancient
D'Urberville family, or other common people? Why would their
reaction be so "fatalistic"?
Chew on This
Try on an opinion or two, start a debate, or play the devil’s
advocate.
Although Tess's tragedy is primarily caused by events over which
Tess has no control, it is impossible to argue that her suffering was
the result of an adverse, abstract "Fate."
Despite the many
characters that blame their misfortunes on the will of a perverse
"Fate," Tess insists on blaming her own suffering entirely on human
causes.
Tess of the D'Urbervilles Fate and Free Will Quotes
Page 1
Page (1 of 4) Quotes: 1
2
3
4
How we cite the quotes:
Citations follow this format: (Chapter.Paragraph)
Quote #1
"And take the Complete Fortune-Teller to the outhouse" […]
The Complete Fortune-Teller was an old thick volume,
which lay on a table at her elbow, so worn by pocketing that
the margins had reached the edge of the type. (3.34-5)
Tess's mother is superstitious about keeping the Complete Fortune-Teller
indoors after dark, so they tuck it into the outhouse. Her mother's superstition
contrasts strongly with Tess's pragmatic realism, and we discuss that in the
"Memory and the Past" theme analysis. But for our discussion of Fate and Free
Will, it's interesting that Tess's mother puts so much faith in the ability of this
particular book to prophesy Tess's future. Whenever you're reading a book that
discusses a book that gets read and re-read until its pages are "so worn" that
"the margins had reached the edge of the type," it's a good idea to stop and pay
attention. This is clearly a book that Mrs. Durbeyfield reads frequently. But the
trouble is that she's not a good reader. As we learn in the next chapter, the book
tells her that Tess will marry a gentleman – that's true. But the circumstances
under which she marries the gentleman (and which gentleman she marries) are
still fuzzy. Mrs. Durbeyfield doesn't read critically – she interprets what the book
tells her in the most superficial possible way, and sees her own desires reflected
in the text. Hardy is showing his readers what not to do.
Quote #2
"Why do you own such a horse?"
"Ah, well may you ask
it! It was my fate, I suppose. Tib has killed one chap; and
just after I bought her she nearly killed me. And then, take
my word for it, I nearly killed her. But she's queer still, very
queer; and one's life is hardly safe behind her sometimes."
(8.12-13)
Alec uses "fate" as an excuse for owning a horse that occasionally tries to kill him
when he's attempting to frighten Tess on the carriage ride to The Slopes. And the
strange thing is, Tess seems to accept his answer – "fate" is real to her,
something that can be called up to explain the unexplainable.
Quote #3
[W]here was Providence? Perhaps, like that other god of
whom the ironical Tishbite spoke, he was talking, or he was
pursuing, or he was in a journey, or peradventure he was
sleeping and was not to be awaked. (11.61)
The superficial meaning of "Tishbite" is pretty clear: the narrator is suggesting
that "Providence" must have been "sleeping" to have allowed this to happen to
Tess. This is a bitingly cynical remark, of course – and goes against all of the
fatalistic language elsewhere in this chapter that suggests that it was Tess's
"fate" to fall into Alec's hands at this point in her life. This passage thrusts the
responsibility firmly on the people involved: "Providence" was sleeping; it wasn't
the fault of "fate" or anything outside of the control of ordinary people.
Quote #4
Why it was that upon this beautiful feminine tissue,
sensitive as gossamer, and practically blank as snow as
yet, there should have been traced such a coarse pattern
as it was doomed to receive; why so often the coarse
appropriates the finer thus, many thousand years of
analytical philosophy have failed to explain to our sense of
order. (11.63)
OK, so that previous passage suggested that fate had nothing to do with it –
Tess's rape was something that people were responsible for. But here's a
passage that comes two paragraphs later that uses words like "doomed," which
suggests that it was Tess's "doom," or "fate" to be raped. Which is it? It's another
ambiguity in a scene that's already incredibly ambiguous.
Quote #5
One may, indeed, admit the possibility of a retribution
lurking in the catastrophe. Doubtless some of Tess
D'Urberville's mailed ancestors rollicking home from a fray
had dealt the same wrong even more ruthlessly upon
peasant girls of their time. But though to visit the sins of the
fathers upon the children may be a morality good enough
for divinities, it is scorned by the average human nature;
and it therefore does not mend the matter. (11.63)
Tess's rape, the narrator suggests, could be an echo of the similar "wrong[s]"
committed by Tess's D'Urberville ancestors. After all, a rich and powerful man
taking advantage of a poor and relatively defenseless woman is not a new story.
The narrator even suggests that the "sins" of Tess's ancestors are being revisited
on her. But while allowing for that possibility, the narrator brings the story back to
the "average human," and rejects the idea of fated "retribution." But the possibility
is still there, even if the narrator "scorn[s]" it – was she fated to be raped, or not?
Quote #6
As Tess's own people down in those retreats are never
tired of saying among each other in their fatalistic way: 'It
was to be.' There lay the pity of it. (11.64)
The rape scene is shrouded in ambiguity. First of all, none of it gets described –
the narrator backs away and talks in general terms about how rapes have always
happened, and describes the setting of The Chase where it's happening.
Secondly, the narrator seems to go back and forth about whether "fate" or "free
will" is to blame for the rape. This final paragraph of the chapter (and of the whole
first phase of the novel) doesn't resolve any of the ambiguity. The narrator quotes
the village people's "fatalistic" expression, "It was to be," but he's only quoting
what other people say. The narrator adds, "there lay the pity of it" – is he saying
that it's a "pity" that Tess should have been fated to be raped, or that it's a "pity"
that the village people should blame things on fate, when they could do
something to stop it? More ambiguity!
Quote #7
Tess was now carried along upon the wings of the hours,
without the sense of a will. The word had been given; the
number of the day written down. Her naturally bright
intelligence had begun to admit the fatalistic convictions
common to the field-folk and those who associate more
extensively with natural phenomena than with their fellowcreatures; and she accordingly drifted into that passive
responsiveness to all things her lover suggested,
characteristic of the frame of mind. (32.24)
This passage is important both to the idea of "Time" in the novel, and to the
theme of "Fate and Free Will." Tess has named the date of the wedding, and has
lost any sense of agency in the matter. Now all she can do is wait, "passive[ly],"
for the wedding to take place. It's out of her hands, and she's given up personal
responsibility for it.
Quote #8
This incident had turned the scale for her. They were simple
and innocent girls on whom the unhappiness of unrequited
love had fallen; they had deserved better at the hands of
Fate. (34.72)
When Tess hears the bad news about Retty's attempted suicide and Marian's
drunkenness, she blames it on "the hand of Fate." Sure, the two girls were
disappointed, but blaming fate for a suicide attempt and the decision to forget her
troubles by getting blistered shifts the responsibility onto an abstract idea.
Quote #9
'Decrepit families postulate decrepit wills, decrepit conduct.'
(35.61).
Angel blames Tess's past (i.e., her rape) on the fact that she comes from a
"decrepit" family. Broken-down families create people with broken-down wills –
people who can't think and act for themselves. So Angel seems to be coming
down pretty firmly on the side of "free will" for the reason of Tess's rape, and he's
putting an awful lot of the blame on the side of her "will," as opposed to Alec's.
We all know that Tess's "will" and wishes weren't consulted at all by Alec, but
Angel assumes that they were, and that she complied.
Quote #10
'I couldn't help your seeing me again!' (56.107)
Alec argues that his meeting with Tess again after so many years was fate, and
that it means that they are meant to get back together. Tess still argues against
fate, and insists that it's free will, and not fate, that makes the world go round. Of
course, once again, her will wasn't consulted in the matter: she couldn't "help"
that he saw her again.
Tess of the D'Urbervilles Theme of Memory and the
Past
In Tess of the D'Urbervilles, this theme is obviously connected with
the more general theme of "Time," but while that theme has to do
with the passage of time, this one has to do mostly with characters'
relationship to the past. Many characters, like Jack Durbeyfield, want
to live in the past, and others, like Tess, are continually re-living their
own history while trying to run away from it. Is the past something you
want to escape, or something you want to hold on to?
Questions About Memory and the Past
• In the world of Tess of the D'Urbervilles, is it possible to escape the
past? Is it desirable?
• Which characters choose to live in the past, and what are the
consequences?
• In what way does the past catch up with Tess?
Chew on This
Try on an opinion or two, start a debate, or play the devil’s
advocate.
Despite Tess's best efforts to escape her own history, events of the
past – even the distant past – continually come back to haunt
her.
Jack Durbeyfield's failure to understand the relationship of
past and present – his reliance on his family's past glory to make up
for their present shortcomings – sets Tess's tragedy in motion, and
this misunderstanding about the past haunts Tess for the rest of her
life.
Quote #1
In those days, and till comparatively recent times, the
country was densely wooded. Even now, traces of its earlier
condition are to be found in the old oak copses and
irregular belts of timber that yet survive on its slopes […]
The forests have departed, but some old customs of their
shades remain. Many, however, linger only in a
metamorphosed or disguised form. The May-Day dance, for
instance, was to be discerned on the afternoon under
notice, in the guise of the club revel, or 'club-walking,' as it
was there called. (2.4-5)
This passage shows the contrast between old and new that is so important to
Hardy in this novel. Old customs might evolve and take on new names, but they
still linger in some form. It's also interesting that he associates the old customs,
like the May-Day dance, with the old forests of the area (the "old customs" came
from the "shades" of the old forest). The forests are ancient, and seem to have
an almost supernatural power (they were, after all, associated with the druids),
and the origins of old, pseudo-pagan customs like the May-Day dance can be
traced back to the days of the druids and the ancient, primeval forest. This
description of Tess's club-walking ties the contemporary custom of dancing in the
springtime with the older custom of the May-Dance, and traces both of those
customs back to the ancient, primitive forest. It almost dissolves the distinction
between the modern and the ancient.
Quote #2
The club of Marlott alone lived to uphold the local Cerealia.
It had walked for hundreds of years, and it walked still. (2.6)
The women's club in Marlott is a holdover from the ancient springtime rituals of
the pagans – which is why Hardy references the "Cerealia," or festival to the
Roman goddess Ceres, who was the goddess of the earth, agriculture, and all
growing things. Yes, our word "cereal" comes from the name of the Roman
goddess Ceres. Springtime festivals in honor of the earth goddess were the
especial responsibility of women, because those festivals were all about new life
and seeds, and nurturing – all things associated with femininity and motherhood.
So Tess and her female friends are being associated with this long and ancient
lineage of women that is even older than the D'Urberville connection on her
father's side of the family. After all, the spring festival and the worship of the earth
goddess go back way before 1066, the time of the first Sir Pagan D'Urberville. So
again, this passage dissolves the distinction between the contemporary and the
time-out-of-mind ancient.
Quote #3
Ideal and real clashed slightly as the sun lit up their figures
against the green hedges and creeper-laced house-fronts;
for, though the whole troop wore white garments, no two
whites were alike among them. Some approached pure
blanching; some had a bluish pallor; some worn by the
older characters (which had possibly lain by folded for many
a year) inclined to a cadaverous tint, and to a Georgian
style. (2.7)
The group of women participating in the spring club-walking in Marlott reinforces
the contrast between old and new, past and present that Hardy suggested in the
passage quoted above. Only here, it's the ages of the women's dresses that
create the contrast. Some of the dresses are fresh and new, while others are
yellowed and "cadaverous" – that particular word choice suggests dead bodies,
or cadavers, which seems a rather incongruous description for a costume to be
worn for a festival celebrating spring and new life.
Besides the contrasting
color of the dresses, the styles create a contrast between past and present:
some of them are of a "Georgian" style. The novel, as we know, takes place in
the late Victorian period (Queen Victoria reigned between 1837-1901, and the
novel was written in 1887-1890). A "Georgian"-style dress would be a dress
made during the reign of George IV, who died in 1830. But there were three
Georges who reigned before George IV – the first one became king in 1714. So a
"Georgian" dress could be really old. After all, the description does suggest that
those dresses had "lain by folded for many a year."
Quote #4
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 dancingpartner over the heads of the commonest peasantry. So
much for Norman blood unaided by Victorian lucre. (2.37)
Tess might have noble blood, and an ancestry that she could trace back to the
Norman Conquest (see the Historical Context note in our summary of Chapter
One), but because she's poor, she's in the same boat as the rest of the peasant
class in Marlott. This ironic remark by the narrator doesn't just reflect on Tess's
disappointment that Angel asked another girl to dance at the club-walking
festival. It pulls back and makes a general remark about the whole Victorian
period – lots of noble families were strapped for cash, and the Victorian period is
often considered the time when the middle class rose to prominence, as people
worked hard and made their way up the social ladder. So by the time Tess's story
is taking place, many people who were officially in the middle class (they had
earned their money as merchant or entrepreneurs, or as doctors or lawyers)
were actually more wealthy than those who were officially "noble" (i.e., those who
had inherited their money and lands from their parents and grandparents). So, in
this passage, Hardy is taking Tess's immediate disappointment and putting it in
the context of this huge socio-economic trend of the rise of the middle class. It's
really a drastic juxtaposition, if you think about it.
Quote #5
There still faintly beamed from the woman's features
something of the freshness, and even the prettiness, of her
youth; rendering it evident that the personal charms which
Tess could boast were in main part her mother's gift, and
therefore unknightly, unhistorical. (3.13)
Tess's mother is still attractive even after having given birth to nine children –
impressive. So her mother isn't only pretty, she's fertile (maybe too fertile, in
Tess's opinion – her parents have a hard enough time supporting themselves, let
alone a large family that's getting bigger all the time). And the "personal charms"
that Tess has inherited from her mother include the prettiness and the fertile
womanliness. The narrator's claim that that inheritance is "unhistorical" and
"unknightly" just means that it has nothing to do with the family vault at Kingsbere
or the aristocratic D'Urberville lineage. It might be "unhistorical" in that it's not
something that an "antiquary" like Parson Tringham can trace in the library, but it
is something that connects Tess to a matriarchal, or female, lineage that goes
way, way back. Remember the women's club-walking from the previous chapter?
That female custom had its origins way back before Sir Pagan D'Urberville ever
arrived in England. This quotation, like the description of the female club-walking,
connects Tess to an ancient female inheritance, as opposed to her old and
historical, though not quite so primitive, father's lineage.
Quote #6
One may, indeed, admit the possibility of a retribution
lurking in the catastrophe. Doubtless some of Tess
D'Urberville's mailed ancestors rollicking home from a fray
had dealt the same wrong even more ruthlessly upon
peasant girls of their time. But though to visit the sins of the
fathers upon the children may be a morality good enough
for divinities, it is scorned by the average human nature;
and it therefore does not mend the matter. (11.63)
Tess's rape, the narrator suggests, could be an echo of the similar "wrong[s]"
committed by Tess's D'Urberville ancestors. After all, a rich and powerful man
taking advantage of a poor and relatively defenseless woman is not a new story.
The narrator even suggests that the "sins" of Tess's ancestors are being revisited
on her. The narrator rejects this idea (for more on this idea, check out the
analysis for the "Fate and Free Will" theme), but it still brings up the idea of
sin.
Who is sinning here? Against whom? Is Tess to blame for any of this?
Hardy doesn't think so – look at the subtitle of the novel: "A Pure Woman." But
contemporary critics thought so, and so do other characters in the novel. So this
is an important passage to consider – maybe Tess is paying for the "sins" of
others, but we don't have to look so far back to find the cause. It's not some kind
of divine retribution for the sins of the ancient D'Urberville family that got Tess
into this pickle, but her father's laziness. If he were a more responsible parent,
Tess wouldn't have had to take that late night journey that ended with the death
of their horse. And a responsible parent wouldn't have sent a sixteen-year-old girl
so far from home without knowing anything about the people who would be
taking care of her. So maybe this passage is asking us to look more closely at
cause and effect – to reject romantic ideas about sin and retribution, and to
consider the effects of our actions more carefully.
Quote #7
'Pooh – I have as much of mother as father in me!' she
said. 'All my prettiness comes from her, and she was only a
dairymaid.' (16.7)
Tess is rejecting her patrilineal inheritance – the noble lineage passed down from
her father's side, in favor of her matrilineal inheritance from her mother.
Quote #8
The light of the engine flashed for a second upon Tess
Durbeyfield's figure, motionless under the great holly tree.
No object could have looked more foreign to the gleaming
cranks and wheels than this unsophisticated girl, with the
round bare arms, the rainy face and hair, the suspended
attitude of a friendly leopard at pause, the print gown of no
date or fashion, and the cotton bonnet drooping on her
brow. (30.20)
Again, past and present are juxtaposed here. Tess represents the past, or
perhaps not so much the past, as something timeless: either way, the contrast
between her figure and the modern train with its "cranks and wheels" is pretty
striking, and Hardy wants to call our attention to it.
Quote #9
[The Slopes] was of recent erection – indeed almost new
[…] Far behind the bright brick corner of the house […]
stretched the soft azure landscape of The Chase – a truly
venerable tract of forest land, one of the few remaining
woodlands in England of undoubted primaeval date,
wherein Druidical mistletoe was still found on aged oaks,
and where enormous yew-trees, not planted by the and of
man, grew as they had grown when they were pollarded for
bows. All this sylvan antiquity, however, though visible from
The Slopes, was outside the immediate boundaries of the
estate. (5.21)
Alec D'Urberville's house, called "The Slopes" (what, doesn't your house have a
pompous-sounding name?), is fantastically shiny and new. Its modern
construction forms a drastic contrast with the ancient, "primaeval" forest of The
Chase that stretches out behind the house and lawn. So again, Hardy is
contrasting old and new, ancient and modern, pre-industrial and post-industrial.
But he takes care to point out that The Chase doesn't belong to The Slopes – the
ancient forest of The Chase is "outside the immediate boundaries of the estate."
So the modern D'Urberville family doesn't control the forest – no one does.
Quote #10
The old men […] talked of the past days when they had
been accustomed to thresh with flails on the oaken barn-
floor; when everything, even to winnowing, was effected by
hand-labour, which, to their thinking, though slow, produced
better results. (47.8)
The old men working with the steam-powered threshing machine are nostalgic
for the good old days, when everything had to be done by hand. There was a lot
of resistance to industrialization in the nineteenth century, especially among the
older generation, because the invention of all these new machines meant fewer
jobs for the workers.
Quote #1
The club of Marlott alone lived to uphold the local Cerealia.
It had walked for hundreds of years, and it walked still. (2.6)
The women's club in Marlott is a holdover from the ancient springtime rituals of
the pagans – which is why Hardy references the "Cerealia," or festival to the
Roman goddess Ceres, who was the goddess of the earth, and agriculture, and
all growing things. Yes, our word "cereal" comes from the name of the Roman
goddess Ceres. Springtime festivals in honor of the earth goddess were the
especial responsibility of women, because those festivals were all about new life
and seeds, and nurturing – all things associated with femininity and
motherhood.
So Tess and her female friends are being associated with this
long and ancient lineage of women that is even older than the D'Urberville
connection on her father's side of the family. After all, the spring festival and the
worship of the earth goddess go back way before 1066, the time of the first Sir
Pagan D'Urberville. So again, this passage dissolves the distinction between the
contemporary and the time-out-of-mind ancient.
Quote #2
There were a few middle-aged and even elderly women in
the train, their silver-wiry hair and wrinkled faces, scourged
by time and trouble, having almost a grotesque, certainly a
pathetic, appearance in such a jaunty situation. In a true
view, perhaps, there was more to be gathered and told of
each anxious and experienced one […] than of her juvenile
comrades. (2.9)
The club-walking group of women includes both young women, like Tess, and old
women. Again, Hardy wants to collapse the distinction between past and present,
old and young – all of those women are together in the same group, performing
the same ancient ritual festival to springtime, so the distinctions of age hardly
matter: they're all women.
Quote #3
Why it was that upon this beautiful feminine tissue,
sensitive as gossamer, and practically blank as snow as
yet, there should have been traced such a coarse pattern
as it was doomed to receive; why so often the coarse
appropriates the finer thus, many thousand years of
analytical philosophy have failed to explain to our sense of
order. (11.63)
We looked at this passage in the context of the "Fate and Free Will" theme, but
it's very important to the theme of femininity, as well. First of all, the narrator uses
words that denote delicacy and fragility to describe Tess's body – "tissue,"
"gossamer," and "snow." (Gossamer is a poetical word for the dew-covered
cobwebs that appear on grass in the early morning). This seems strange, given
that at other points in the novel, he describes her as strong, healthy and robust –
even able to defend herself physically on occasion (take, for example, the scene
in which she almost shoves Alec off his horse at 11.20). But here, in The Chase,
as Alec takes advantage of her relative helplessness and their isolation, Tess is
described as "sensitive" and delicate – she seems temporarily, at least, to have
lost her ability to defend herself. This description seems to be an effort by
Hardy to pin the blame of her rape firmly on Alec, despite the complaints of
contemporary critics that Tess could have done more to ward him off – Tess is
asleep when he finds her, and Hardy's choice of words makes Tess seem even
more delicate and vulnerable than she was. It's also interesting to note that while
Hardy associates femininity elsewhere with "fullness of growth" (5.63), in this
passage, it's her delicacy and "sensitiv[ity]" that makes Tess seem more
feminine.
Quote #4
[The women] were the most interesting of this company of
binders, by reason of the charm which is acquired by
woman when she becomes part and parcel of outdoor
nature, and is not merely an object set down therein as at
ordinary times. A field-man is a personality afield; a fieldwoman is a portion of the field; she has somehow lost her
own margin, imbibed the essence of her surrounding, and
assimilated herself with it. (14.10)
Once again, the narrator suggests that women can become one with nature.
Women have some inherent, natural quality that allows them to "assimilate"
themselves with "outdoor nature," that men lack. This passage hearkens back to
the earlier scene describing the women's club-walking at Marlott (2.6), which was
just a modern form of the feminine celebration of the nature goddess, Ceres.
There's a connection between women and nature that is an inherent aspect of
their femininity.
Quote #5
It was impossible for even an enemy to feel [that Tess was
unattractive] on looking at Tess as she sat there, with her
flower-like mouth and large tender eyes, neither black nor
blue nor gray nor violet; rather all those shades together,
and a hundred others, which could be seen if one looked
into their irises – shade behind shade – tint beyond tint –
round depths that had no bottom; an almost typical woman,
but for the slight incautiousness of character inherited from
her race. (14.24).
Hardy just loves describing Tess's physical appearance. Her mouth, her eyes,
her – ahem – "womanly fullness." This description of her eyes makes them seem
almost supernatural: they just go on and on. Why describe her eyes in this way?
They're not just "bedroom eyes." They show how complex her character is. She's
unusual, and her complexity is what makes her unique.
Quote #6
[W]omen whose chief companions are the forms and forces
of outdoor Nature retain in their souls far more of the Pagan
fantasy of their remote forefathers than of the systematized
religion taught their race at later date. (16.16)
Again, women are connected with old, primaeval, Pagan religion, and "outdoor
Nature," while men are (implicitly) connected with the "systematized," man-made
religion that came later.
Quote #7
Their large-veined udders hung ponderous as sandbags,
the teats sticking out like the legs of a gipsy's crock; and as
each animal lingered for her turn to arrive the milk oozed
forth and fell in drops to the ground. (16.26)
If you're thinking that this is kind of a disturbingly sexual description of cow
udders, you're right. Nature and fertility are just overflowing onto the ground here.
Tess followed the cows into the gate, and arrived when they did, so she's kind of
associated with them. Tess, as Hardy has repeatedly assured us, is a very
"womanly," (i.e., curvaceous) girl. She, too, seems to just ooze fertility. If you
think we're pushing the point, check out the "Symbols, Imagery, Allegory"
section.
Quote #8
She was no longer the milkmaid, but a visionary essence of
woman – a whole sex condensed into one typical form.
(20.10)
In the early morning hours, Tess's beauty seems other-worldly to Angel. They're
the only two people awake on the farm, and he can imagine that she's the only
woman in the world. And so he condenses every thought and fantasy of what all
women are or ever could be, and projects that ideal onto Tess. In other words,
he's making her his ideal woman.
Quote #9
He called her Artemis, Demeter, and other fanciful names
half teasingly, which she did not like because she could not
understand them.
'Call me Tess,' she would say askance;
and he did. (20.10-11)
Angel thinks Tess is some kind of "Every Woman" – some ideal fantasy of
femininity. So he calls her the names of Greek goddesses. But she doesn't like
being generalized like that – she can't understand those names, and they detract
from her unique individuality. She just wants to be called Tess, and understood
for herself.
Quote #10
She was yawning, and he saw the red interior of her mouth
as if it had been a snake's. She had stretched one arm so
high above her coiled-up cable of hair that he could see its
satin delicacy above the sunburn; her face was flushed with
sleep, and her eyelids hung heavy over their pupils. The
brimfulness of her nature breathed from her. It was a
moment when a woman's soul is more incarnate than at
any other time; when the most spiritual beauty bespeaks
itself flesh; and sex takes the outside place in the
presentation. (27.4)
We look at this passage for the "Sex" theme, because it's pretty darn sexual, but
it's also important to consider it in light of what it's doing with the theme of
"Femininity." After all, the narrator is making a generalization about all women
here – he's suggesting that a woman is less spiritual, and more bodily, when
she's just woken up than at any other time. The implication is that women
normally have some kind of balance between the physical and the spiritual. But
that balance isn't constant. We've seen this with Tess in other passages:
sometimes her beauty seems almost unreal, and sometimes she seems totally
human. This is one of the totally human moments.
• Quotes about:
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Fate and Free Will
Memory and the Past
Women and Femininity
Man and the Natural World
Man and the Natural World Theme
Justice and Judgment
Contrasting Regions
Marriage
Time
Sex
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Man and the Natural World Theme
Table of Contents
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Tess of the D'Urbervilles Man and the Natural World
Quotes Page 1
Page (1 of 4) Quotes: 1
2
3
4
How we cite the quotes:
Citations follow this format: (Chapter.Paragraph)
Quote #1
The house was overrun with ivy, its chimney being enlarged
by the boughs of the parasite to the aspect of a ruined
tower. The lower rooms were entirely given over to the
birds, who walked about them with a proprietary air, as
though the place had been built by and for themselves.
(9.1)
The poultry house at The Slopes where Tess works is being "overrun" by nature
– the ivy is taking over the outside and creeping in through the chimney, and the
interior has been taken over by the birds.
Quote #2
Darkness and silence ruled everywhere around. Above
them rose the primaeval yews and oaks of The Chase, in
which were poised gentle roosting birds in their last nap;
and around them the hopping rabbits and hares. (11.61)
It's strange that in the climactic moment of Alec's rape Hardy chooses to pull
back and describe the woods and the animals that surround them. Why does he
do that? What's the effect? Well, as we suggested in the previous quotation, it
seems that Hardy wanted to leave the scene ambiguous. So pulling back to
describe the setting seems appropriate – it's like putting your hand over your
eyes or looking away at a particularly gruesome scene in a movie – only Hardy's
doing it for us. But why describe the woods and trees in this way? Again,
here's that word "primaeval," which means primitive (in a non-derogatory sense),
and time-out-of-mind ancient. So Hardy is setting Tess's rape in the context of
something ancient. Is he suggesting that rape is something that's happened for
millennia? Maybe – but that doesn't mean that he's excusing it.
Quote #3
"'Tis nater, after all, and what pleases God." (12.83)
This is Joan Durbeyfield's fatalistic response to the news of Tess's rape. Her
response is like the response of the people the narrator quotes in the passage
quoted above: "It was to be." Her remark that it's "nater" (i.e., "nature") puts the
blame of it on someone other than Alec or even Tess. It's only "natural" that Alec
should have taken advantage of Tess. So again, here's another character who's
suggesting that fate is stronger than free will, but it's not a character who is
particularly trustworthy or reliable. We can't take Mrs. Durbeyfield's words at f
Quote #4
On these lonely hills and dales her quiescent glide was of a
piece with the element she moved in. Her flexuous and
stealthy figure became an integral part of the scene. (13.14)
Once again, the narrator associates Tess with nature. Here, she actually seems
to become one with nature. She becomes "an integral part" of the landscape, and
is "of a piece" with nature. It's more of the earth goddess thing again, although it
sounds pretty hippy.
Quote #5
Walking among the sleeping birds in the hedges, watching
the skipping rabbits on a moonlit warren, or standing under
a pheasant-laden bough, she looked upon herself as a
figure of Guilt intruding into the haunts of Innocence. But all
the while she was making a distinction where there was no
difference. Feeling herself in antagonism she was quite in
accord. She had been made to break a necessary social
law, but no law known to the environment in which she
fancied herself such an anomaly. (13.15)
Tess thinks that she's broken a universal law – something natural and
fundamental. But really, the only law that she's broken is a social law – one that
humans invented. It's a "necessary" social law, the narrator adds (he doesn't go
so far as to say that the taboo against pre-marital sex is a bad one), but it's not a
natural law. And notice also that he says that she was "made to break" that law –
in other words, she isn't at fault, and the sin isn't hers.
Quote #6
So passed away Sorrow the Undesired – that intrusive
creature, that bastard gift of shameless Nature who
respects not the civil law. (14.58)
It's another juxtaposition of nature and civilization – Sorrow was a "natural" child
in that he (or she?) was born according to "natural" laws, as opposed within the
socially sanctioned bonds of marriage. ace value.
Quote #7
The night came in, and took up its place there,
unconcerned and indifferent; the night which had already
swallowed up his happiness, and was now digesting it
listlessly; and was ready to swallow up the happiness of a
thousand other people with as little disturbance or change
of mien. (35.80)
Thanks, Hardy – what a depressing thought. Misery is spread equally over "a
thousand other people," and the world itself doesn't care or notice. The idea here
is that we're all alone in an unfeeling and unsympathetic universe. That's
certainly how Angel is feeling the morning after Tess's confession to him.
Quote #8
Thus Tess walks on; a figure which is part of the landscape;
a field-woman pure and simple, in winter guise. (42.6)
Remember when Tess was working at the harvest way back in Phase II? The
narrator describes all the female field workers as being part of the field (14.10).
This is a similar moment, but it doesn't seem as positive here. Here, Tess is
anonymous – she's a "figure," and a "field-woman." She melts into the landscape
because of the monotony of the work. She's not unique anymore.
Quote #9
Inside this exterior, over which the eye might have roved as
over a thing scarcely percipient, almost inorganic, there was
the record of a pulsing life which had learnt too well, for its
years, of the dust and ashes of things, of the cruelty of lust
and the fragility of love. (42.8)
Tess's body seems almost to dissolve into the landscape as she works in the
turnip field. Remember that earlier scene in which the narrator suggests that the
female field workers become one with the field in a way that the men cannot?
This is similar – but here, she's not just in sympathy with the ground, she herself
is "almost inorganic," or without life. Almost, but not quite – there's still a "record"
of life, but it's the "record" of a sad life.
Quote #10
Towards the second evening she reached the irregular
chalk table-land or plateau, bosomed with semi-globular
tumuli. (42.11)
So the landscape here is covered in rounded hills, or "tumuli," that Hardy
compares to "bosoms"? Yes, this is weird. Yes, this needs a closer look. What do
breasts generally signify? They usually symbolize fertility, life, and sustenance.
So the land here seems to be nurturing and fertile, but it's really "chalk[y]" and, as
Marian calls it, "starve-acre."
Quote #1
Walking among the sleeping birds in the hedges, watching
the skipping rabbits on a moonlit warren, or standing under
a pheasant-laden bough, she looked upon herself as a
figure of Guilt intruding into the haunts of Innocence. But all
the while she was making a distinction where there was no
difference. Feeling herself in antagonism she was quite in
accord. She had been made to break a necessary social
law, but no law known to the environment in which she
fancied herself such an anomaly. (13.15)
We discuss this passage in the analysis of the theme of "Man and the Natural
World," but it's also important to consider in this context. The only law that Tess
has broken is a social law, that people shouldn't have sex before they're married
– and that is a law that was invented by humans. But she, and most other
people, have so internalized those social laws that they have forgotten where
they came from. They've forgotten that those laws are not actually a natural or
fundamental part of the world. Tess is mixing up epistemology (social codes
and man-made ways of understanding the world) with ontology (the way the
world really is, without the perspective forced on us by society). Civilization
provides us with epistemology, the social framework through which we see the
world, while nature represents ontology, because it just is, with or without that
social framework. Congratulations, you just passed metaphysics 101!
Quote #2
But now that her moral sorrows were passing away a fresh
one arose on the natural side of her which knew no social
law. When she reached home it was to learn to her grief
that the baby had been suddenly taken ill since the
afternoon. (14.30)
Once again, we're seeing a distinction between "social law" and "natural" law –
between epistemology and ontology.
Quote #3
She had no fear of the shadows; her sole idea seemed to
be to shun mankind – or rather that cold accretion called
the world, which, so terrible in the mass, is so unformidable,
even pitiable, in its units. (13.13)
Tess has often been associated with nature and with the ancient worship of
female nature goddesses (see 2.6, for example, where Tess and the other
women of Marlott participate in the ancient celebration of the earth goddess,
which now takes the form of the club-walking). So it makes sense that she should
feel safe in the woods. Her only real danger is from people – especially people as
a group, or an "accretion" – because it's as a group that people judge and gossip.
Quote #4
All material objects around announced their irresponsibility
with terrible iteration. And yet nothing had changed since
the moments when he had been kissing her; or rather,
nothing in the substance of things. But the essence of
things had changed. (35.2)
After Tess confesses to Angel, his inner world goes all topsy-turvy. Everything he
ever knew, or thought he knew, has to be re-evaluated. Tess isn't the person he
thought she was (or is she?). But of course his state of inner agitation and
confusion isn't reflected in the outside world – the room itself, and all the
"material objects around" them, stay the same. The world itself is utterly
indifferent to what's going on in the hearts and minds of these two people.
They're both utterly alone.
Quote #5
The fireplace confronted him with its extinct embers; the
spread supper-table, whereon stood the two full glasses of
untasted wine, now flat and filmy; her vacated seat and his
own; the other articles of furniture, with their eternal look of
not being able to help it, their intolerable inquiry of what
was to be done? (36.1)
When Angel wakes up the morning after Tess's confession, his whole world has
collapsed. All his perceptions of Tess seem to have been wrong, and his whole
outlook on life seems to fall apart. And yet the room itself looks just the same –
the supper that they never ate is still sitting there. The inanimate objects around
him, like the furniture, are still the same as ever, and their sameness, after the
collapse of everything he ever thought he knew, seems almost to mock him.
Quote #6
She could not have borne their pity, and their whispered
remarks to one another upon her strange situation; though
she would almost have faced a knowledge of her
circumstances by every individual there, so long as her
story had remained isolated in the mind of each. It was the
interchange of ideas about her that made her sensitiveness
wince. (41.13)
Tess doesn't mind the idea of each person at Talbothays dairy knowing what
happened to her, individually, but she hates the idea of them gossiping about
her. People aren't to be feared individually – as individuals, they can pity and
understand one another. But as a group, as a society, they are to be feared
because they form social laws and conventions, and judge more severely.
Quote #7
[…] but, outside humanity, she had at present no fear.
(41.27)
Again, it's civilization, and people, that Tess fears – Nature and the outdoors
seem safe to her.
Quote #8
Never in her life – she could swear it from the bottom of her
soul – had she ever intended to do wrong; yet these hard
judgments had come. Whatever her sins, they were not sins
of intention, but of inadvertence, and why should she have
been punished so persistently? (51.8)
Tess is crying out against the injustice of the universe – if she's never knowingly
done wrong, or at least, has never had bad intentions, why should she be
punished? The answer would seem to be that the universe is, in fact, an unjust
place. The bad aren't always punished, and the good sometimes get punished for
crimes that they didn't commit.
Quote #9
[…] he had asked himself why had he not judged Tess
constructively rather than biographically, by the will rather
than by the deed? (53.25)
Angel realizes his own injustice, and that the only real justice is in judging people
by their intentions, rather than by their actions: "by the will rather than by the
deed."
Quote #10
'Justice' was done, and the President of the Immortals (in
Aeschylean phrase) had ended his sport with Tess. (59.8)
The reference to a play by the ancient Greek playwright, Aeschylus, seems at
first kind of out of place here. But Aeschylus wrote tragedies, and the phrase that
Hardy borrows, the "President of the Immortals," comes from Aeschylus's play,
Prometheus, and Prometheus was considered by many to be the ultimate tragic
hero. That play is all about punishment and justice, so it's an appropriate
reference at this point in Tess. You should also note that "justice" is ironically set
off in quotation marks in this passage.