Tess Flashcards
‘So reduced was the former figure from its former contours by worry… You could see the skeleton behind the man and almost the ghost behind the skeleton’
His removal from tess has destroyed him almost completely - he’s become a ‘ghost of his former self.’ Realisation of his treatment and betrayal of her has resulted in not only her destruction but also his- the importance of love and security
“Under the trees several pheasants lay about, their rich plumage dabbled with blood; some were dead, some feebly twitching a wing, some staring at the sky, some pulsating quickly, some contorted, some stretched out - all of them writhing in agony except the fortunate ones whose tortures had ended during the night by the inability of nature to bear more. […] Tess’s first thought was to put the still living birds out of their torture, and to this end with her own hands she broke the necks of as many as she could find”
The dying birds symbolise her own condition. Farming is always associated with production, never with loss or sacrifice. But hunting is different: it kills creatures, and does so unnecessarily - it’s gratuitous cruelty. The image of silently suffering victims of violence evokes Tess’s quiet acceptance of her own violation at the hands of Alec, which was also gratuitous. In a literary sense, these flightless birds stand in sharp contrast to the high-flying birds of romantic poetry. Romantic birds leave the Earth below to soar into a higher plane of existence, however the birds here have no luck, having been shot down, as Tess has been by Alec’s cruelty.Tess’s killing of the birds suggests that she is killing off that part of herself that has quietly accepted many years of agony. After this scene Tess begins to show a more active resolution that culminates in her final murder of Alec.
‘Send Tess to claim kin’
The Durbeyfield’s familial love is obstructed through, predominantly, john’s desire for higher status and greater wealth. Although his motive isn’t as dark as the result of this, sending tess off in the hope of a higher place in society sets her destruction in motion, as this is how she meets Alec. Shows the importance of status within their society as this is placed even above parental responsibility and familial love.
‘Tess don’t look at me so- I cannot stand your looks!’
Women’s/Tess’s hold over men is centred around their looks and sexuality. This is the element that creates lust and even love? Also shown by Angel- he seems to be more in love with the idea of Tess rather than Tess herself. He has a romanticised view of a rural, beautiful woman- shown through his overly romanticised and sexualised descriptions of her. Appearance creates an image/concept of love through lust.
“Clare came close, and bent over her. “Dead, dead, dead!” he murmured. […] Then lifting her from the bed with as much respect as one would show to a dead body, he carried her across the room, murmuring, “My poor poor Tess, my dearest darling Tess! So sweet, so good, so true!””
Angel’s nighttime somnambulism reveals an inner conflict within a character who earlier seems convinced of a moral idea, in control, and inflexible. He consciously maintains a conviction that Tess is bad, corrupt, and cannot be forgiven, but his unconscious sleepwalking self reveals the tender love and moral respect for her (“so good, so true!”) that he feels somewhere inside him. This revelation foreshadows his final realisation, too late, that his condemnation of Tess was wrongheaded. Angel’s words “dead, dead, dead” hint at Tess’s future death, but they also signal Angel’s conception of Tess. She is alive physically, but for him she is dead morally, as dead as an idea of purity that he once revered.
