Quotes Flashcards
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.
Phase 1, Chapter 2
Traditional pastoral image - setting up the scene
Themes of nature, religion and women.
She was a fine and handsome girl - not handsomer than some others, possibly - but her mobile peony mouth and large innocent eyes added eloquence to colour and shape. She wore a red ribbon in her hair and was the only one of the White company who could boast of such a pronounced adornment.
Phase 1 Chapter 2
First mention of Tess in the novel, presented as being average but yet different from the rest, stands out in the group.
Red - lust, danger potential contradiction.
Tess Durbeyfield at this time of her life was a mere vessel of emotion untinctured by experience.
Phase 1, Chapter 2
Suggests foreshadowing change is going to occur, unusual to call her a ‘vessel’ perhaps that’s how some people treat her later on?
He, too, was sorry then that, owing to her backwardness he had not observed her; and with that in his mind he left the pasture
Phase 1, Chapter 2
Sets up their relationship, whenever they met there is always something missing or wrong.
Marxist point - she will never be of the same class as him, so ‘her backwardness’ means they can never be equals and thus partners.
‘White figures’ ‘green enclosure’
Phase 1, Chapter 2
Girls could be seen as angelic as they are dressed on white. However, they could also be sheep, suggesting they are just waiting there to met a husband?
Nature is containing them.
As usual, Mrs. Durbeyfield was balanced on one foot beside the tub, the other being engaged in the aforesaid business of rocking her youngest child.
Phase 1, Chapter 3
Stock pastoral character - motherly figure.
And take the Compleat Fortune-Teller to the outhouse.
Phase 1, Chapter 3
Believes in mythology and tradition rather than modern science and knowledge.
Well, Tess ought to go to this other member of our family. She’d be sure to win the lady – Tess would; and likely enough ‘twould lead to some noble gentleman marrying her. In short, I know it.
Phase 1, Chapter 4
Tess’ fate is being decided for her. Leaving home is the beginning of her downfall.
The morning mail-cart, with its two noiseless wheels, speeding along these lanes like an arrow, as it always did, had driven into her slow and unlighted equipage. The pointed shaft of the cart had entered the breast of the unhappy Prince like a sword, and from the wound his life’s blood was spouting in a stream, and falling with a hiss into the road. In her despair Tess sprang forward and put her hand upon the hole, with the only result that she became splashed from face to skirt with the crimson drops.
Phase 1, Chapter 4
Death of prince, the beginning of the end.
She regarded herself in the light of a murderess.
Phase 1, Chapter 4
Foreshadowing her killing Alec.
I would rather take it in my own mouth.
Phase 1, Chapter 5
Tess is too independent for her good - reluctance to please Alec is a theme to continue through the novel.
He watched her pretty and unconscious munching through the skeins of smoke that pervaded the tent, and Tess Durbeyfield did not divine, as she innocently looked down at the roses in her bosom, that there behind the blue narcotic haze was potentially the “tragic mischief” of her drama – one who stood to be the blood-red ray in the spectrum of her young life.
Phase 1, Chapter 5
Red links in with her ribbon at the beginning of the novel.
‘It is for you to decide. I killed the old horse, and I suppose I ought to do something to get ye a new one.’
Phase 1, Chapter 6
Test is leaving her fate for others to decide. Prince’s is the leading cause deciding her fate.
She had hoped to be a teacher at the school, but the fates seemed to decide otherwise
Phase 1, Chapter 6
Fate has chosen Tess’ downfall not herself
Prophetic bird
Phase 1, Chapter 7
Tess is being linked to an animal - Pastoral
Recurring theme
