Tess - Position In Society Flashcards
What position does Tess assume in society due to her rape?
An untenable position
How does Tess try to escape linear time?
Through immersing herself in the processes of nature at Talabothaysv
- moves from linear to cyclic time
- fails to recognise this move will only take her to another kind of determined life
What does she do after recovering from grief of sorrows death?
Start over
Temporal terms
In linear concepts consequences are inescapable
- in natural and thus cyclical terms, Tess had always acted purely
- ‘she had been made to break an accepted social law, by no law known to the environment in which she fancied herself such an anomaly’
Why did Angel and Tess go to Talbothays ?
To escape linear time
- Angel confronted the possibility of living wholly in the present immersed in the cycle of natural growth and rebirth ‘he became wonderfully free from the chronic melancholy which is taking hold of civilised races’
What is Angel unable to do?
Live in the present
- unable to accept the relationship with Tess in a present context, by demanding Tess accept his hand in marriage, he himself begins the destruction of their life by moving it out of the present and into a future sequence of predetermined events
What does Hardy show?
A gradual reduction of nature’s fecundity as Tess moves to make her decision
Hardy suggest that until Tess finally accepts Angel’s demands.,.
The couple continues to live in a kind of continual present moment that belong in general terms, to cyclic time ‘thus, during this October month of wonderful afternoons’ page 250
