‘since her eyes last fell upon it she had learnt

that the serpent hisses

where the sweet birds

sing’ 90Phase 2

• Hardy is once again evoking the Garden of Eden motif to portray experience tutoring Tess on the world as Eve learnt knowledge when eating the forbidden fruit.

• Tess has realised that evil happens when the natural world mixes with the urban lifestyle

‘THY, DAMNATION, SLUMBERETH, NOT…

fiery lettering’ 94 + 95

Phase 2

• Paraphrased quotation of 2 Peter 2:3 in the Bible.

• It means that Tess’ sins do not sleep and will waste no time in catching up with her.

• Tess arguing that her sins were not of her ‘own seeking’ is Hardy being critical of the rules within religion.

• The fiery red lettering suggests Hell and evil, further emphasising the irony of the innocent Tess’ situation.

‘he was dust and ashes to her’ 97

Phase 2

• ‘Ashes to ashes, dust to dust’ is a phrase from The Book of Common Prayer and is used in Christian funeral services. It is based on the book of Genesis in which a certain passage states that we begin and end as dust.

• The quote denotes that Tess sees Alec as nothing more than his physicality and has no respect for his soul or conscience.

• The quote is also foreshadowing Tess and Alec’s death.

• Hardy is also making a point of how both Alec and Tess are equal when dead, showing irrelevance to the social hierarchy of

the time.

‘if I spoke of his fond feelings and what they might lead to, you would be hontish wi’ him

and lose your chance’ 97

Phase 2

• Even when Joan takes blame for what has happened she attacks Tess and blames her also by saying that she is too proud and stuck up.

• The quote also once again highlights Tess’ innocence as everyonce around her seems to know what is going on in her life apart from herself.

‘she looked upon herself as a figure of guilt

intruding into the haunts of innocence’ 101

Phase 2

• Tess feels as if she has been corrupted by Alec and her innocence has been tainted.

• The reader feels sympathetic towards Tess but she see’s herself as spoilt and can only focus on how society and God will judge her. Of course because Hardy believed that God and society went hand in hand.

• The term ‘ruin’ reinforces the Victorian idea of the utter shame of a women having sexual encounters before marriage.

‘made to break an accepted social law, but no law known to the environment in which she fancied herself an anomaly’

101

Phase 2

• In a way this quote suggests that her ruination by Alec has brought her even closer to nature, now that she is outcast from human society.

• 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. 

• Tess is realising that laws are not actually a part of nature. This contains an irony to later in the book where Angel is put off by Tess’ supposed separation from nature

‘she fell to violently kissing it some dozens of times’ 106

Phase 2

• Although we are given the impression that she does not want the child, she can not help being loving and kind.

• The oxymoron of ‘violently kissing’ displays Tess’ torn feelings about her child not to mention the opposing personalities that have gone into the baby, Alec’s forceful violence and Tess’ loving kindness.

• Violently is also turned into a positive, powerful adverb when coupled with ‘kissing’

• The fact that she kisses Sorrow ‘dozens’ of times emphasises the burning love Tess has for her child.

‘the familiar surroundings had not darkened because of her

grief’ 107

Phase 2

• This suggests the idea of an unforgiving world that goes on no matter what. She has suffered and still the sun will shine.

• Presenting the hard, brutal side of rural life, a common theme of Pastoral writing.

‘moral sorrows were passing away…baby had been suddenly

taken ill’ 107

Phase 2

• Tess is slowly learning to come to terms with what has happened and return to normal life. It suggests that she has not actually done something wrong.

• However as she begins to make progress Tess’ fortunes begin to turn sour once again as her baby becomes ill.

• Having these lines next to each other emphasises the drastic rollercoaster of emotions that Tess is undergoing.

• It also highlights Tess’ inability to be happy for longer than a line or two.

‘name suggested… book of Genesis…SORROW’ 111

Phase 2

• The baby’s name is symbolic of this particular time in her life and her emotions.

• The source of her baby is Alec and she has named him Sorrow, the fact that she got the name from the Bible suggests that her Sorrow has come from Religion.

‘bastard gift of shameless Nature’ 113

Phase 2

• A bastard is a child born out of wedlock and very strong language.

• However nature does not care about how life enters the world and does not follow the human law of this seemingly disgraceful act. It is portraying a nicer, truer side of nature.

‘A particularly fine Spring came around…stir o germination in the buds; it moved her, as it moved the wild animals’ 113

Phase 2

• Metaphor for Tess’ life, we can tell that Tess’ life is about to change and it suggests that for once it will be good due to the fact we are coming into the Spring, a new start.

• Another suggestion that Tess is at one with nature.

Other Quotes• ‘did it never strike your mind that

what every woman says some women may feel?’

• ‘I was born bad, and I have lived bad, and I shall die bad’

• Strange and godlike was a composer’s power, who from the grave could lead through a sequence of emotions’

Other Quotes 2• ‘girl-mother’• ‘her baby had not been baptized’• ‘Tess thus changed from simple girl

to complex women’