Tess of the D'Urbervilles Quotes - Phase the Third (The Rally) Flashcards
A quote from the start of Phase the Third showing the vale of Talbothays to be a fertile and plentiful place, full of life and nourishment. It is idyllic, reminiscent of the plentiful paradise of the Garden of Eden
“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”
A quote describing the garden in which Tess meets Angel, a fertile description full of sexual secretions. Tess finds herself covered in this fertility
“The outskirt of the garden in which Tess found herself had been left uncultivated for some years, and was now damp and rank with juicy grass which sent up mists of pollen at a touch; and with tall blooming weeds emitting offensive smells… She went stealthily as a cat through this profusion of growth, gathering cuckoo-spittle on her skirts”
A quote likening Tess and Angel to Adam and Eve, the two being the first to wake in the morning. This foreshadows the fall to come, the two being tempted by love and pulled apart by blame
“Being so often […] the first two persons to get up in the dairy-house, they seemed to themselves the first persons up of all the world”
Quotes from the perspective of Angel showing him to fall in love with the idea of Tess, and not Tess herself. He separates her into the Eve-like being of the female essence, and simply Tess the woman, whom he fails to love in the same way
“It was then, as has been said, that she impressed him most deeply. She was no longer the milkmaid, but a visionary essence of woman - a whole sex condensed into one typical form”
“Then it would grow lighter, and her features would become simply feminine; they had changed from those of a divinity who could confer bliss to those of a being who craved it”
