Lecture 8 Tess of the DUrbervilles Tess l

Lecture 8 Tess of the D’Urbervilles

Tess l A Pure Woman l Faithfully presented by Thomas Hardy l ‘…Poor wounded name! My bosom as a bed Shall lodge thee. ’ – Shakespeare

l l Hardy asks his readers not to blame Tess too much And to believe in her innocence All his ‘arguments’ bend toward a single theme Tess is a pure woman

Analytical Commentary as opposed to Narrative Commentary All these young souls were passengers in the Durbeyfield ship—entirely dependent on the judgment of the two Durbeyfield adults for their pleasures, their necessities, their health, even their existence. Narrative Commentary re- syntax l Simply narrates / tells what the sentence means. Analytical Commentary l Analyzes insightfully what does this sentence do. l By examining how the form and structure emphasizes meaning to achieve intended effect.

Textual Analysis and Textual Evidence l l l l For instance, we can look for evidence of gender issues in the text of the novel We can only discuss what is actually in the text Avoid making unsupported assumptions Do not say, Tess is like this because she is a woman Only make the deduction if there is textual evidence Avoid analyzing the history of Hardy’s life and the history of Victorian culture, rather than the narrated fictional world of his novel Base all insights on analysis of the text itself

Lecture Focus l l l l Latinate Diction Central Concerns revisited Commentary on the character of Tess: How she is represented in Phase the Third The metaphor of the ‘Ache of Modernism’ and Tess a creature of Nature And the Symbolical Suggestiveness of the Sun The narrator’s commentary, and voice The force of these passages

Latinate Diction l l Sensuous appeal in the quality of Latinate words; the fullness and richness of the vowels; the force and strength of the consonants the elevated effect suits the dignity and importance of the subject-matter of the novel Suited to the metaphysical nature of its themes: nature of love; conflict of the heart; good and evil; and especially tragedy; < weightier > < solemn >. Latinate style is associated with education and sophistication; more < esoteric > < learned >

Must seize upon some strain or strand in the work of art that is actually there l l l l The theme of feminine premarital sex The crucial and crude issue of female virginity The injustice of the taboo of chastity and virginity The novel’s unmasking of the destructiveness of the taboo of virginity The irrational worship of female virginity; (which has not vanished from human culture) The struggles of sexuality within Nature and Civilization Life is much sadder and tragic than it should be.

Ch 19 Would you like to take up any course of study—history? ‘I don’t want to know anything more…’ ‘Why not? ’ l Because what’s the use of learning that I am one of a long row only—finding out that there is set down in some old book somebody just like me, and to know that I shall only act her part; making me sad, that’s all. The best is not to remember that your nature and past doings have been just like thousands’ and thousands’, and that your coming life and doings ’ll be like thousands’ and thousands’.

From Chapter 19 ‘What, really, then, you don’t want to learn anything? ’ l ‘I shouldn’t mind learning why—why the sun do shine on the just and the unjust alike, ’ she answered, with a slight quaver in her voice. l l ‘But that’s what books will not tell me. ’

Note the narrator’s commentary l l ‘Tess, fie for such bitterness!’ Of course he spoke with a conventional sense of duty only, for that sort of wondering had not been unknown to himself in bygone days. And as he looked at the unpracticed mouth and lips, he thought that such a daughter of the soil could only have caught up the sentiment by rote.

Commentary l l l In this interchange Tess is challenging Angel not to let her life play out to nothingness. She also compares herself to “the poor Queen of Sheba in the Bible, thus showing her learning while telling Angel she feels impoverished next to his wealth of reading. This is followed by a hint that there is never enough good men to match the number of women: “more ladies than lords”

Hardy as narrator then provides an encompassing comment on her life l By offering his own perspective of the potential relation between unfortunate bodily experiences, < and > the development of intelligence l “…experience is as to intensity, and not as to duration”: l

Note the antithetical structure and natural imagery ‘Tess’s passing corporeal blight had been her mental harvest. ’ Commentary: l She has a more developed mind by now, capable of historic speculation l It is more personalized and more complex than her earlier fantasy concerning blighted planets. l

‘The Ache of Modernism’ aches Tess; and Pessimism [Chapter 19 Hardy as narrator further suggestively comments that she is expressing in her own way “the ache of modernism” In this famous metaphor [Image] l He combines a sharp bodily feeling [the Ache] with a broad cultural meaning [Modernism] l There appears to be some quality all along in Tess’s life that reaches beyond any local meaning within her immediate surroundings. l But does Angel appreciate her thinking? l

What is the force of these passages? l l They compel the reader to experience and empathize with what Tess is going through In a more personal, and painful way And make you want so much that her life will not be wasted; end up as a wasted life That her life will be one of fulfillment, and future happiness.

Moving on: In Chapter 20 we read l l l She looked ghostly, as if she were merely a soul at large… 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. He called her Artemis, Demeter, and other fanciful names half teasingly, which she did not like because she did not understand them. ‘Call me Tess, ’ she would say askance; and he did.

Seeing Tess another way, through another kind of imagery l l l Clare is in love but retains what is typical about his character. ‘She looked ghostly, as if she were a soul at large. ’ A non-physical spiritualized essence This vision arises from the vestiges of Angel’s religious upbringing. In Angel’s eyes, Tess loses her physical / bodily dimension and takes on a spiritual dimension

Classical allusions l l l During such spiritualized encounters Clare tries to name her with chaste feminine titles from ancient Greek mythology Such as Artemis and Demeter Showing how he so easily confounds / mixes up his pagan Hellenism with surviving elements of his acetic Christianity.

Tess no Goddess The passage then changes direction quite decisively: ‘Call me Tess. ’ Effect? l In an instant, Tess becomes erotic and natural rather than exotic and spiritual. l She is a woman of the earthly soil l not a Goddess of the heavenly sky. l Tess is inescapably flesh and blood. l And when the sun comes up, she is once again a physical milkmaid, not a divine essence l

l l l “her teeth, lips and eyes scintillated in the sunbeams, and she was again the dazzlingly fair dairymaid only. Soon after, we hear from the dairyman the story of a seduction of a young girl. “none of them but herself seemed to see the sorrow of it” And immediately, we read, “the evening sun was now ugly to her, like a great inflamed wound in the sky” Sex as a natural instinct can also lead to misery

The Sun and the Symbolism of Light l l l When we first see Tess with the other girls at the May Day dance We must recall: They are all bathed in sunshine. They are represented as creatures of the sun, warmed and nourished by its natural power of sustaining life, both human and terrestrial. At Talbothays Dairy, we are compelled to notice the sun is at its most active. Suggestively reinforcing her association with Nature

The Symbolical Suggestiveness of— the pre- Dawn Time of Day? l l l Tess and Angel rise very early, before the sun They seem to themselves “the first persons up of all the world. ” The light is still “half-compounded, aqueous” As though the business of creating animated forms of life has not yet begun They are compared to Adam and Eve

l l We notice when Tess is getting involved with the superior power of a male character The atmosphere is represented as misty… On this occasion, it is a cold mist, the sunless fog, which precedes the dawn It is in this particular light of a cool, “aqueous” whiteness, Tess appears to Angel as a “visionary essence of woman”

Sunday l l l < and > Sun day The hot weather of July… Hot steaming rains fell frequently… The sexual atmosphere gets more dense, and more intense Which cause a flood, blocking the women’s way to church on a primal “Sun’s-day” A day “when the flesh went forth to coquette with flesh while hypocritically affecting the business with spiritual things” [Implied Comment on Christian Church Culture? ]

l l After the long chapter on their deepening relationship The narrative of their attraction-within-nature Cumulates rapidly and forcefully through four shorter chapters (20 – 23), to the end of this Phase where Angel embraces Tess And Angel tells Tess how he loves her

Interpretative Analysis: The “resistless tendency” is toward a sexual union within Nature l Whereby Hardy as narrator-commentator comments on the seriousness of such a juncture in the lives of two people: “something had occurred which changed the pivot of the universe for their two natures… [something] based upon a more stubborn and resistless tendency than a whole heap of so called practicalities. [ Effect? ]

The aura of a sensual world, (reminiscent of Hellenic paganism), l is built up powerfully and poignantly in the Talbothays section. l This aura thereafter disappears l after the crashing failure of Angel’s human acceptance of Tess as a sexual woman l