Tess of the D

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Tess of the DUrbervilles A Book of Symbols
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Landscape

• Thus Tess walks on a figure which is part of
  the landscape (220).

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Blakemore

• Hardys description?
• The village of Marlott lay amid the
  north-eastern undulations of the beautiful Vale
  of Blakemore or Blackmore aforesaidan engirdled
  and secluded region, for the most part untrodden
  as yet by tourist and landscape-painter . . .
  fertile and sheltered . . . (5).

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May Day Dance
(Blakemore, cont.)

• What is May Day all about?
• A ritual celebrating the fertility of nature
• White dresses
• Flowers
• May pole or wands
• Red ribbon

5
The Slopes

• Hardys description?
• A country-house built for enjoyment pure and
  simple, with not an acre of troublesome land
  attached to it . . . The house proper stood in
  full view. It was of recent erection, indeed
  almost new, and of the same rich red colour . . .
  Everything looked like moneylike the last coin
  issued from the Mint (26-27).

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Early or Forced Strawberries
(The Slopes, cont.)

• He conducted her about the lawns, and
  flower-beds, . . . And green-houses, where he
  asked her if she liked strawberries.
• Yes, said Tess. When they come.
• They are already here. DUrberville begn
  gathering specimens of the fruit for her . . . A
  specially fine product of the British Queen
  variety he stood up and held it by the stem to
  her mouth.
• No, no! she said quickly, putting her fingers
  between his hand and her lips. I would rather
  take it in my own hand. (29)

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The Chase

• Setting in relation to Alecs home?
• Far behind the corner of the house . . .
  Stretched . . . The Chasea 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 hand 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 (26).
• . . . Darkness and silence ruled everywhere
  around
• What might this place symbolize?

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Talbothays Dairy in Froome Valley

• Not quite sure of her direction Tess stood still
  upon the hemmed expanse of verdant flatness . . .
  The red and white herd nearest at hand . . . Now
  trooped towards the steading, their great bags of
  milk swinging under them as they walked. Tess
  followed slowly in their rear (82)

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Paradise
(Talbothays, cont.)

• Being so oftenpossibly not always by chancethe
  first two persons to get up at the dairy-house,
  they seemed to themselves the first persons up of
  all the world. . . . The spectral,
  half-compounded, aqueous light which pervaded the
  open mead impressed them with a felling of
  isolation, as if they were Adam and Eve (102)
• her eyes son lifted, and his plumbed the
  deepness of the ever-varying pupils, and their
  radiating fibrils of blue, and black, and grey,
  and violet, while she regarded him as Eve at her
  second waking might have regarded Adam (133).

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Tesss Mouth
(Talbothays, cont.)

• Her mouth he had seen nothing to equal on the
  face of the earth . . . No they were not
  perfect. 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 (118).

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Angel and Alec Literary Foils
Talbothays, cont.

• Differences
• Berry picking, carriage manners
• courtesy vs. force
• Angel and Devil?
• Similarities
• Both pursue Tess, struggle with faith
• Both change because of Tess
• Role Reversal Alec becomes Protector
• Angel deserts her

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Flintcomb-Ash

• Hardys description?
• Every leaf of the turnips having already been
  consumed the whole field was in colour a desolate
  drab it was a complexion without features, as if
  a face from chin to brow should be only an
  expanse of skin. The sky wore, in another colour,
  the same likeness a white vacuity of countenance
  with the lineaments gone. So these two upper and
  nether visages confronted each other, all day
  long the white face looking down on the brown
  face, and the brown face looking up at the white
  face, without anything standing between them but
  the two girls crawling over the surface of the
  former like flies (223-24).

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The Machine
(Flintcomb-Ash, cont.)

• Maltese cross of the reaping-machine (68), the
  Red Tyrant, blue turnip slicer, thresher,
  buzzing red glutton (262)
• 19th century industrialization exploits the
  countryside and the past just like Alec exploits
  Tess I was you master once . . .
• Machine repository of force
• The sun seems to approve from the west sky a
  wrathful shine . . . burst forth (262).
• Machine Natural force Alec (a ticking like
  the love-making of the grasshopper-68)

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Stonehenge

• Why this?
• 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. Owing to
  the action of the sun during the preceding day,
  the stone was warm and dry. . . I dont want to
  go any further, Angel (310).
• Did they sacrifice to God
• here? asked she.
• No, said he.
• Who to?
• I believe to the sun (311).

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Symbolism of the Sun Natures Plan for Tess
(Stonehenge, cont.)

• The sun
• lit up their figures at dance (6)
• absorbed the young strangers retreating figure
  (10)
• makes Princes hooves sparkle (23)
• is a godlike creature gazing down on earth with
  a curious . . . personal look (67)
• stretches Tesss and Angels shadows a quarter of
  a mile (152)
• sets a spot like a paint-mark on Tesss skirt
  during honeymoon (171)
• receives sacrifice at Stonehenge (311)

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Tesss Journey of Faith

• Early in life, she loses her Angel
• on this blighted planet.
• Is tempted and falls.

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Tess Challenges Christianitys Rules
(Tesss Journey of Faith, cont.)

• I dont believe God said such things.
• Becomes a priestess for her innocent child.
• Wonders why the sun do shine on the just and the
  unjust alike (99).

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(Tesss Journey of Faith, cont.)

• Meets an Angel in the fallen gardenfinds a new
  Eden at Talbothays Dairy and a new religion
  LOVE. For a few perfect months, they live as if
  they were Adam and Eve (102).
• There was hardly a touch of earth in her love
  for Clare (151).
• Tesss Angel falls (as all humans do) Tesss
  faith in LOVE is tested.
• Again she is tempted--A jester might say that
  this is just like paradise. You are Eve, and I am
  the old other one come to tempt you (275)--in
  returning to Alec, she denies her faith in LOVE.
• Tess is able to slay the evil force in her life
  and regains her Eden, but in the process she
  becomes a sacrificial victim to LOVE.

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(Tesss Journey of Faith, cont.)

• Tess believes love is redemptive Tell me now,
  Angel do you think we shall meet again after we
  are dead? . . . Whatnot even you and I Angel,
  who love each other so well? (311)
• Ironically, Angel condemned Tess for her
  imperfection, but she is the Christ figure of the
  story, acting out love, forgiveness, and a higher
  justice.
• She would have laid down her life for ee.
• No man hath greater love than thisthan to lay
  down his life for a friend. John 1513

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Tess A Christ Figure?I am ready.
(Tesss Journey of Faith, cont.)

• Two persons were walking rapidly . . . With bowed
  heads, which . . . The suns rays smiled on
  pitilessly. . . . They moved on hand in hand, and
  never spoke a word, the dropping of their heads
  being that of Giottos Two Apostles (313)

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Sources for Images

• Virtual tour of settings http//www2.sisu.edu/dep
  ts/ english/Tess1.htm
• http//justinewaddell.ourfamily.com/gallery.htm
• http//www.aande.com/tv/shows/tess/