Lecture 3 Tess of the d

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Lecture 3 Tess of the dUrbervilles

• Why didnt you tell me there was danger in
  men-folk?

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Lecture Focus

• Chance and Coincidence
• Structure in relation to its Phases
• Setting and Season
• Symbolism 1 Pervasiveness of colour Red
• Symbolism 2 Symbolical significance of the Fog
• Critically significant instances of Irony in
  Chapter 5 and Chapter 7

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Chance and Coincidence

• Chance and coincidence have become one of the
  primary motions of the universe
• (At the same time, Hardy could not help seeing
  human life and Nature in more conventional ways)
• Re- Choice, responsibility, and freedom

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Life at the Mercy of Chance

• Hardy manipulates the events in the lives of his
  characters so that it will be plain
• that human life is at the mercy of chance
• and the most arbitrary of circumstances
• He engages his characters in the most incredible
  conjunctions of unfortunate incidents

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Structure of the novel and Phases

• Hardy uses the word phase to describe the
  stages of Tesss life
• Connotations of the word, Phase?
• Normally associated with the waxing and waning of
  the moon
• Phases of the moon from its first appearance as
  a slender crescent to fullness and then to its
  broken appearance as it comes to the end of its
  cycle

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Phases / Cycles of the Moon and stages of
Womanhood

• Traditionally, these phases of the moon connote /
  have been associated with the major stages of the
  life of a woman
• (1)Maiden, (2) Wife, (3) Old Woman
• The first two phases The Maiden and Maiden No
  More symbolically represent the first stage of
  Tesss life, as maiden.

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• The next three stages
• The Rally The Consequence and The Woman
  Pays
• represent the second, that of a wife
• The last two phases
• The Convert and Fulfillment
• represent her decline

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Philosophical Asides

• Along the way of the narrative in its structured
  phases from 1 to 7
• We have, along side the narrative, Hardys
  Philosophical Asides or philosophical
  broodings, or brooding, bleak, ironic reflective,
  philosophical commentaries
• Part of his reaction as observer of the action
• Perception and reflection kept separate

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Setting and Season

• Tess and her family live in the village of
  Marlott village in the Vale of Blackmore
• Tess meets Angel Clare in Talbothays in the
  Valley of the Great Dairies
• Flintcomb Ash is where she spends the winter,
  abandoned by Clare
• Each setting supports the mood of the action
  which takes place there

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Literary Purpose of Landscape

• These landscapes have a literary purpose
• Each provides the frame and background for the
  phases / stages in Tesss life
• Which take her farther and farther away from the
  more safe and secure shelter of her home in
  Marlott
• Hardy thus uses setting / landscape, and season
  in a symbolically suggestive way

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From Chapter 16 The Vale of Little Dairies and
Blackmoor Vale

• The Vale of Blackmoor is portrayed as static,
  unchanging, luxuriantly beautiful.
• There the water-flower was the lily, the
  crowfoot here.
• Referring to the clear, rapid waters of the river
  Froom
• The symbol of the Valley of Blackmoor is the
  lily, symbolizing Tesss purity, and innocence

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Chapter 5 Chance, and Joans blissful ignorance

• We must take the ups wi the downs, Tess, said
  she
• and never could your high blood have been found
  out at a more called-for moment.

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Different Parents points of view in Hardys TD
Lawrences WL

• I dont like my children going and making
  themselves beholden to strange kin. Ch 5
• I dont quite like my children going away from
  home, said the haggler. As the head of the
  family, the rest ought to come to me.
• But do let her go, Jacky,
• Hes struck wi heryou can see that. He called
  her Coz! Hell marry her, most likely, and make a
  lady of her, and then shell be what her
  forefathers was. Chapter 6

• Will Brangwen (father of Ursula and Gudrun) to
  Rupert Birkin in Chapter 19. Moony
• But Id rather see my daughters dead to-morrow
  than that they should be at the beck and call of
  the first man that likes to come and whistle for
  them.
• They have got themselves to please, and if they
  can help it theyll please nobody but themselves.

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The colour Red and its Symbolical Suggestiveness

• For an artist as visually sensitive as Hardy,
  Colour is of great critical significance.
• One colour in particular strikingly catches our
  eyes throughout the entire novel
• The colour, RED.
• Colour of blood
• Connotations?
• Associated with beauty, passion, sex, violence,
  rage, destruction, and death

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• In one set of circumstances, blood and the
  spilling of blood can mean
  sexual passion and the creation of
  life
• In another, blood and spilling of blood can mean
  murderous passion
  and death.
• After the death of Prince, Chapter 4 Tess is
  constantly encountering the colour red.
• When she approaches the dUrberville house, we
  read

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The colour Red and its Symbolical
Suggestiveness Chapter 5

• The crimson brick lodge came first in sight, up
  to its eaves in dense evergreens
• It was of recent erectionindeed almost newand
  of the same rich, red colour that formed such a
  contrast with the evergreens of the lodge.

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• Mysteriously, inevitably, this house will play a
  part in Tesss destiny
• For this red house contains her future rapist,
• And another red house later on contains her final
  executioner, where she is hanged
• Red is symbolically suggestive the red marks
  the houses of sex and death

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Middle of Chapter 5

• He Alec had an almost swarthy complexion, with
  full lips, badly moulded, though red and smooth
• Despite the touches of barbarism in his contours
• Tesss sense of a certain ludicrousness in her
  errand was now so strong
• And her general discomfort at being here, her red
  rosy lips curved towards a smile much to the
  attraction of the swarthy Alexander

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Chapter 5

• Tess wished to abridge her visit as much as
  possible but the young man was pressing, and she
  consented to accompany him. He conducted her
  about the lawns, and flower-beds, and
  conservatories and thence to the fruit-garden
  and green-houses, where he asked her if she liked
  strawberries.
• Yes, said Tess, when they come.

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From Chapter 5

• They are already here. DUrberville began
  gathering specimens of the fruit for her, handing
  them back to her as he stooped and, presently,
  selecting a specially fine product of the
  British Queen variety, he stood up and held it
  by the stem to her mouth.
• Nono! she said quickly, putting her fingers
  between her hands and her lips. I would rather
  take it in my own hand.
• Nonsense! he insisted and in a slight distress
  she parted her lips and took it in.

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Chapter 10 Saturday Night Disco

• A good laugh from behind Tesss back, in the
  shade of the garden, united with the titter
  within the room. She looked round, and saw the
  red coal of a cigar Alec dUrberville
  was standing there alone. He beckoned to her, and
  she reluctantly retreated towards him.
• Well, my Beauty,
• what are you doing here?

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Omniscient Narrators Voice and IRONY Chapter 5

• Parson Tringham had spoken truly when he said
  that our shambling John Durbeyfield was the only
  really lineal representative of the old
  dUrberville family existing in the country, or
  near it
• he might have added, what he knew very well, that
  the Stoke-dUrbervilles were no more
  dUrbervilles of the true tree than he was
  himself.

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Simon Stoke (merchant) and Stoke-dUrbervilles
Chapter 5

• Conning for an hour in the British Museum the
  pages and works devoted to extinct, half-extinct,
  obscured, and ruined families appertaining to the
  quarter of England in which he proposed to
  settle, he Simon considered that dUrberville
  looked and sounded as well as of them and
  dUrberville was annexed to his own name for
  himself and his heirs eternally.

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Name, Fortune, and Nature Ch 5

• Of this work of the imagination poor Tess and
  her parents were naturally in ignorancemuch to
  their discomfiture
• indeed, the very possibility of such annexations
  was unknown to them
• who supposed that, though to be well-favoured
  might be the gift of fortune, a family name came
  by nature.

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A little later in Chapter 5 we read

• Alec
• But, Tess, no nonsense about dUrbervilleDur
  beyfield only, you knowquite another name.
• Tess
• I wish for no better, sir, said she with
  something of dignity.

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End of Chapter 7 Further Irony

• Joan Durbeyfield always managed to find
  consolation somewhere
• Well, as one of the genuine stock, she ought to
  make her way with en, even if she plays her
  trump card aright. And if he dont marry her
  afore he will after. For that hes all afire wi
  love for her any eye can see.
• Whats her trump card? Her dUrberville blood,
  you mean?
• No stupid her faceas twas mine

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Additional Symbolism The Fog Chapter 11

• She was silent, and the horse ambled along for a
  considerable distance, till a faint luminous fog,
  which had hung in the hollows all the evening,
  became general and enveloped them. It seemed to
  hold the moonlight in suspension, rendering it
  more pervasive than in clear air.

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• You cannot walk home darling, even if the air
  were clear. We are miles away from Trantridge, if
  I must tell you, and in this growing fog you
  might wander for hours among these trees.
• As to your getting to Trantridge without
  assistance, it is quite impossible for, to tell
  the truth, dear, owing to this fog, which so
  disguises everything, I dont quite know where we
  are myself.

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• He Alec touched her with his fingers, which
  sank into her as into down. You have only
  that puffy muslin dress onhows that?
• by this time the moon had quite gone down, and
  partly on account of the fog The Chase was
  wrapped in thick darkness, although morning was
  not far off.

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Narrators Philosophical Aside and Tone End of
Phase the First

• Darkness and silence ruled everywhere around.
  Above them rose the primeval yews and oaks of The
  Chase,
• But, might some say, where was Tesss guardian
  angel? Where was the providence of her simple
  faith? Perhaps, like that other god of whom the
  ironical Tishbite spoke, he was talking, or he
  was pursuing, or he was in a journey, or he was
  sleeping and not to be awaked.
  Echoes a text
  from Kings in the Bible

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Explanation of Biblical Allusion

• The narrator is referring to the Hebrew prophet
  Elijah, who chides Ahabs people for worshipping
  a false god (Baal) and mocks them when
  their god fails to produce fire upon their
  request
• Cry aloud for he is a god either he is
  talking, or he is pursuing, or he is in a
  journey, or peradventure he sleepeth, and must be
  awaked. (1 Kings 1827)

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Follow up Tutorial on TD

• Assignment matters
• Use of Symbolism
• Reading Dialogue and Subtext

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Assignment Questions based on the death of Prince
episode Ch 4

• Discuss the effects of the writing in this
  passage, showing how far and in what ways the
  novels characteristic methods and concerns are
  evident here.
• OR
• Discuss the effects of the writing in this
  passage, considering the critical significance of
  the episode described here in your reading of the
  novel as a whole.

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Analysis of Question

• Discuss the intended effects of the writing
  (diction, syntax, imagery, symbolism, narrative
  method, use of dialogue etc) in this passage
• Showing how far to what extent
• And also in what ways techniques used
• The novels characteristic methods
• And characteristic concerns
• Are evident here in this passage

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• Essay Introductory paragraph
• Must state thesis
• For a literature essay
• The central framework of ideas

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• Topic sentence (central idea)
• Selected quotation / illustration
• Analysis of quotation(s)
• Conclusion of paragraph
• NB Conclude with a statement showing the
  relevance (how it is linked) to the controlling
  idea(s) of your essay

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Abraham looking up at the stars

• He leant back against the hives, and with
  upturned face made observations on the stars,
  whose cold pulses were beating amid the black
  hollows above, in serene dissociation from these
  two wisps of human life. He asked how far away
  those twinklers were, and whether God was on the
  other side of them.

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Interpretative Analysis Stylistic Analysis

• Diction
• The renewed subject, which seemed to have
  impregnated the whole family, filled Tess with
  impatience.
• The mute procession ltpast her shouldersgt of trees
  and hedges became attached to fantastic scenes
  ltoutside reality,gt and the occasional heave of
  the wind became the sigh of some immense sad
  soul, conterminous with the universe in space,
  and with history in time.

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• Then, examining the mesh of events in her own
  life, she seemed to see 1) the vanity in her
  fathers pride, 2) the gentlemanly suitor
  awaiting herself in her mothers fancy to see
  him as a grimacing personage, laughing at her
  poverty, and her shrouded knightly ancestry.
  Everything grew more and more extravagant, and
  she no longer knew how time passed.

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Reading Dialogue in the novel

• Reading and hearing voices in Dialogue?
  (spoken language)
• Like eavesdropping on a conversation taking place
  among strangers
• Is the conversation engaging?
• When we humans speak, we are not merely
  communicating information,
• but attempting to make an impression, and achieve
  a goal.

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Dialogue and Subtext

• And sometimes we are hoping to prevent the
  listener from noticing what we are not saying,
• Which is often not merely distracting but,
• We fear, as audible (hearable) as what we
  really are saying.
• As a result, dialogue usually contains as much or
  even more subtext than it does text. More is
  going on under the surface

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Dialogue Hardys tender sensitivity to the human
voice

• Did you say the stars were worlds, Tess?
• Yes.
• All like ours?
• I dont know but I THINK so. They sometimes
  SEEM to be like the apples on our stubbard-tree.
  Most of them splendid and sounda few blighted.
• Which do we live ona splendid one or a blighted
  one?

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More Dialogue

• You was on the wrong side, he said. I am bound
  to go on with the mail-bags, so that the best
  thing for you to do is to bide here with your
  load. Ill send somebody to help you as soon as I
  can. It is getting daylight, and you have nothing
  to fear.
• Tis because we be on a blighted star, and not a
  sound one, isnt it, Tess? murmured Abraham
  through his tears.

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• Mesh a fine network of small holes and threads
• I find Hardys imagery to be very suitably and
  effectively chosen. For example in the sentence,
  Then examining the mesh of events in her own
  life The word mesh is very apt in this
  instance because it makes the reader see more
  graphically and vividly and indeed appreciate the
  extent to which Tess is entangled, caught up by
  the criss-crossing of various, all-coming-to-the-
  fore events that are affecting her life, and the
  way these are presented to her consciousness in
  those moments of reflection.

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Fog as symbol

• Fog standardly is suggestive of some sort of
  confusion
• Authors tend to use fog to symbolically suggest
• That a person / people cannot see clearly
• That matters under consideration are somehow
  murky

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• Suggestive of sexual impropriety
• Haze suggestive of the passions of pagan nature
• The darkness that contributed to the loss of the
  family horse
• Symbolically suggestive of the darkness that
  shrouds Alecs conquest of Tess

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• On the night of the rape episode at the dance,
  everything is in a mist like illuminated
  smoke
• There is a floating, fusty debris of peat and
  hay stirred up as the panting shapes spun
  onwards.
• Everything together seems to form a sort of
  vegeto-human pollen.

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• The implication being that it becomes part of a
  basic natural process
• in which Tess is caught up simply by being alive,
  fecund, and female.
• DUrberville is that figure, that force, at the
  heart of the haze, the mist, the smoke,
• waiting to claim her when the dance catches her
  up.

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• What happens to Tess is a continuation of this
  blurred narcotic, foggy atmosphere
• Hardy has the rape take place in a dense fog,
  while Tess is in a deep sleep.
• Her consciousness and perception are alike
  engulfed, blinded, and obliterated in this veil
  of confusion.