Tess of the D'Urbervilles

Tess of the D’Urbervilles is an excellent example of Hardy’s best work and ties together multiple levels of “place” or “landscape.” Aside from the exquisite description of each location in his literary “Wessex,” Hardy weaves together a tragic and dynamic story of a young girl of the lowest agricultural class in rural England and her strong will and desire for independence. Tess is a young, innocent teenage girl living in the tiny village of Marlott, located in the Vale of Blackmoor. This Dorset Valley is one of simple beauty and full of lucrative dairy farmers. When Tess first arrives after traveling through the

uplands and lowlands of Egdon…she found herself on a summit commanding the long-sought-for vale, the valley of the Great Dairies, the valley in which milk and butter grew to rankness, and were produced more profusely, if less delicately, than at her home- the verdant plain so well watered by the river Var or Froom (The Return of the Native 102).

This luscious vale not only produces some of the best milk, butter and cheeses in Wessex, but its strength and wealth represents a positive, successful and happy chapter in Tess’s life. Hardy quite intentionally names the first phase of this book: “The Maiden.” Tess is introduced to the reader while dancing with other young girls at a Maypole celebration in town. It is clear that Tess is a strong and smart individual. Hardy w Tess Quote rites: “Tess’s pride would not allow her to turn her head again, to learn what her father’s meaning was, if he had any” (15). Tess, although only a girl of twelve, is already aware of her place in public, as well as that of her father- a drunkard and man who has been unsuccessful at providing for his family. She knows that it is better to simply ignore him in order to maintain a decent level of self-respect in the town and to not stoop to that of her father.

Despite her ability to capture the eyes of many townspeople here, Hardy concludes that “to almost everybody she was a fine and picturesque country girl, and no more” (16). This all changes when her mother decides that it is up to Tess to help save the family from complete poverty and financial ruin by claiming kinship with the D’Urberville family. This decision comes after Tess and her brother Abraham accidentally kill their family’s horse, Prince, while taking a load of hives to Casterbridge. Mr. Durbeyfield, after a night of heavy drinking and poor health, is unable to do his job. Without a horse, there is no way for the Durbeyfield family to make much of an income and thus can mean ruin for the family. Tess feels that she ought to do something for her family and blames herself for bringing ruin upon her family. So, Tess is sent to Trantridge, a town northeast of Blackmoor Vale and believed to be modern-day Pentridge (due to it’s close proximity to Cranborne, or “Chaseborough”) in order to claim kinship with the D’Urberville family who her father believes they are distantly related to.

Unfortunately for Tess, the moment she arrives at Trantridge and meets her “cousin” Alec D’Urberville, the tragedy of her life begins. While living and working at Trantridge, Alec strips her of her innocence and makes her a “Maiden no more,” as this phase of her life is titled by Hardy. She returns home a hardened woman. Tess’s luck changes when she becomes a dairymaid at the Talbothay’s farm and meets Angel Clare, the love of her life. Working as a dairymaid gives Tess a new outlook on life and seems to temporarily strip a way her past- thus purifying herself, body and soul. Her relationship with Clare restores life within Tess. However, she struggles with whether or not she should share her past with him before their marriage. She eventually does so on their wedding night. Clare is unable to handle this soiled past and leaves her. After working as a hard laborer in the fields – a much more strenuous and difficult life than working as a dairymaid she runs into a reformed Alec D’Urberville who believes that the only way to right his sin is to marry her. When Clare does not return, Tess decides to marry Alec since he can provide her with a good and comfortable life. However, Clare does return after a grueling trip to Brazil and much self-reflection on his life and love for Tess. He searche Holly in Hardy Country s for Tess and finds her married to D’Urberville. In an attempt to finally escape D’Urberville, Tess murders Alec and escapes with Clare. She eventually gives herself up, in a self-sacrificial manner, at Stonehenge .

This dramatic self-sacrifice at Stonehenge is one of the several examples of Hardy’s use of pagan elements throughout the novel. This use of pagan symbolism not only helps to show the differences between the lower and higher classes of society, but it also weaves in the Old World beliefs that are ingrained in the rural, Pre-Industrial world in which the novel is set. Wessex is based on an ancient Anglo-Saxon Kingdom, thus the past superstitions and pagan practices are still apart of the culture and taken seriously, especially in the lower and rural classes. Tess’s mother, a woman of agricultural and poor roots is described by Hardy as being traditionally superstitious. Tess has a fortune telling book that she likes to read that she hides in an outhouse because “A curious fetishistic fear of this grimy volume on the part of her mother prevented her ever allowing it to stay in the house all night” (23). These pagan beliefs and superstitions also clearly depict the division between generations and the pre-industrial and modern:

Between the mother, with her fast-perishing lumber of superstitions, folk-lore, dialect, and orally transmitted ballads, and the daughter, with her trained National teachings and Standard knowledge under an infinitely Revised Code, there was a gap of two-hundred years as ordinarily understood. When they were together, the Jacobean and Victorian ages were juxtaposed (23).

Thus, Hardy incorporates pagan symbolism, beliefs, stories and superstitions in order to show the difference between his modern heroine, Tess, and her elder, more “backwards” and traditional mother.

Not only is Hardy an author, he is a true artist. He paints with explicit detail a wonderful portrait of England’s South-West - of his home county of Dorset, especially the area surrounding Dorchester. His descriptions of the landscape are extensive:

…the hills are open, the sun blazes down upon the fields so large as to give an unenclosed character to the landscape, the lanes are white, the hedges low and plashed, the atmosphere colourless. Here, in the valley, the world seems to be constructed upon a smaller and more delicate scale; the fields are mere paddocks, so reduced that from this height their hedgerows appear a network of dark green threads overspreading the paler green of the grass. The atmosphere beneath is languorous, and is so tinged with azure that what artists call the middle distance partakes also of that hue, while the horizon beyond is of the deepest ultramarine. Arable lands are few and limited; with but slight exceptions the prospect is a broad rich mass of grass and trees, mantling minor hills and dales within the major. Such is the Vale of Blackmoor. (12)

Tess country is a visually enticing world. Not only does it physically appeal to the eye, but the people and culture embedded in the valley make for colorful stories. It is this region of Dorset that he turns into Wessex. His depiction of the class structure throughout the country not only gives an accurate view of rural life in England, but it also stresses the differences between a more modern world and a world still in the past. The telling of Tess’s story, full with pagan references and modern themes, set in rustic Wessex, Hardy succeeds in painting a dynamic portrait of life in the South West.