Preview

How Does Hardy Present the Character of Tess in the First Three Chapters?

Good Essays
Open Document
Open Document
860 Words
Grammar
Grammar
Plagiarism
Plagiarism
Writing
Writing
Score
Score
How Does Hardy Present the Character of Tess in the First Three Chapters?
How does Hardy present the character of Tess in the first three chapters?

Tess is presented as a member of a poor agricultural family. Despite her modest background, Tess is portrayed as anything but ‘simple’. Instead, Hardy presents her as a young, hugely diverse women through a series of paradoxical contradictions. The tragic trajectory of the novel is evident from the introduction of Tess as a victim of her social circumstances and gender.

Hardy portrays Tess’s character as pure and innocent but also on the verge of women-hood. Through the use of colour imagery, hardy presents Tess’s darker persona,’ red ribbon’. The connotations of the colour red suggest, love and lust, portraying Tess as a voluptuous character. The author also uses colour imagery again that express a contrasting side to Tess.’ white company’. the connotations of the colour white represent, innocence and purity, painting Tess as a young girl. Furthermore, Hardy’s chapter title, ‘The maiden’ reinforces Hardy’s message of Tess being young and pure. Hardy does this to illustrate to the reader the diversities of Tess’s character and to highlight the underlying notion that Tess is vulnerable. This also reinforces the mixture of elements to her character and may foreshadow her future vulnerability when she encounters men.

Thomas Hardy also alleges Tess’s character, primarily innocence, through the description of the landscape. The symbolism used, highlights Tess’s innocent state and purity,’ secluded region’. This is symbolic of Tess’s vulnerability and innocence and also to suggest that Tess is on her own. The euphemism ‘untrodden’ suggests Tess’s purity and virginity. Hardy gives the impression that Tess is a vulnerable character, he does this to foreshadow coming events. It is Tess’s vulnerability that puts her in unfortunate circumstances later in the novel. Hardy portrays Tess as a victim on all fronts. She is exposed as a young girl who is growing up quickly, almost too quickly and

You May Also Find These Documents Helpful

  • Good Essays

    The Lottery Essay

    • 557 Words
    • 3 Pages

    The plot of this story was surprising and unexpected at the same time. In the beginning, the scene is described as: “Clear and sunny, with the fresh warmth of a full-summer day.” Ironically, this makes the reader think this is going to be a positive story. Later, we shockingly find out that: “Someone’s life is going to be over.” This clearly tells us that someone is going to die in this story. Finally, in the end Tessie screams: “It’s not fair, it isn’t right!” Lastly, the story ends and we then know that Tessie has been killed. These three significant changes that transpire during the plot make it a more compelling story.…

    • 557 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Scarlet Letter- Pearl

    • 1218 Words
    • 5 Pages

    Pearls have always held a great price to mankind, but no pearl had ever been earned at as high a cost to a person as Nathaniel Hawthorne’s powerful heroine Hester Prynne. Her daughter Pearl, born into a Puritan prison in more ways than one, is an enigmatic character serving entirely as a vehicle for symbolism. From her introduction as an infant on her mother’s scaffold of shame to the stormy zenith of the story, Pearl is an empathetic and improbably intelligent child. Throughout the story she absorbs the hidden emotions of her mother and magnifies them for all to see, and asks questions nothing but a child’s innocence permit her to ask, allowing Hawthorne to weave rich detail into The Scarlet Letter without making the story overly narrative. Pearl is the purest embodiment of literary symbolism. She is at times a vehicle for Hawthorne to express the irrational and translucent qualities of Hester and Dimmesdale’s illicit bond at times, and at others a forceful reminder of her mother’s sin. Pearl Prynne is her mother’s most precious possession and her only reason to live, but also a priceless treasure purchased with her life. Pearl’s strange beauty and deeply enigmatic qualities make her the most powerful symbol some feel Hawthorne ever created.…

    • 1218 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    Tom Brennan

    • 4567 Words
    • 19 Pages

    time for the way Tom’s mother, Theresa or Tess, is behaving – Tess has withdrawn from…

    • 4567 Words
    • 19 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    Pearl: Scarlet Letter

    • 2882 Words
    • 12 Pages

    Pearl makes us constantly aware of her mother’s scarlet letter and of the society that produced it. From an early age, she fixates on the emblem. Pearl’s innocent, or perhaps intuitive, comments about the letter raise crucial questions about its meaning. Similarly, she inquires about the relationships between those around her—most important, the relationship between Hester and Dimmesdale—and offers perceptive critiques of them. Pearl provides the text’s harshest, and most penetrating, judgment of Dimmesdale’s failure to admit to his adultery. Once her father’s identity is revealed, Pearl is no longer needed in this symbolic capacity; at Dimmesdale’s death she becomes fully “human,” leaving behind her otherworldliness and her preternatural vision.…

    • 2882 Words
    • 12 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Good Essays

    In writing Tess of the D’Urbervilles, Hardy uses all of the morals and values present in the Victorian era to base the plot of the story on. In the novel, the most recurring theme is most likely that of purity being determined by self-sacrifice, not by forceful actions. Tess is a woman that is pure at heart, very loving of those around her. She cares for all of her family and goes off on her own to help support the family. In the Victorian era, the woman’s sole purpose was to be the caretaker of the family, a role that Tess willingly takes on due to her loving nature. The purity of her soul is immense, but according to Victorian virtues, this purity is solely determined by chastity. When Alec D’Urberville takes advantage of Tess, she loses her Victorian purity. She feels wretched, cursed to never find true love. Tess, however, finds this love just three years later on a dairyfarm, when she falls in love with Angel.…

    • 679 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    How does Hardy use language and poetic form to convey meaning and ideas in ‘Wagtail and Baby’?…

    • 912 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Powerful Essays

    Tess pays in many ways throughout the novel and often Tess’ misfortune is related to male superiority within the society. She is the embodiment of the tragic figure and when Hardy writes ‘President of Immortals’ saw the protagonists life as a ‘sport’ showing Tess’ life was always determined by an omnipresent force. The diction ‘sport’ reflects the fleeting interest that these Gods had with Tess, and that her struggle was merely a pastime. Moreover, the contrast in significance between “Gods” and “Tess” demonstrates her vulnerability. It is clear that Tess’s tragic journey was something she was ‘doomed to receive’; but the bildungsroman is written in such a way that the reader is left wondering whether the course of Tess’s life would have changed had she not been treated ‘so monstrously’ by the ‘cruel, cruel’ men she met along the way. Alec, the archetypal seducer in Victorian melodrama, after his violation of Tess’ virginity, doesn’t realise his sin. The fact he doesn’t realise his sin shows how Hardy presents the idea of sin of males to females and how they differ under this society. What’s more he blames Tess for tempting him with her beauty and she, as a consequence, is paying…

    • 1801 Words
    • 5 Pages
    Powerful Essays
  • Good Essays

    Edith Wharton’s story is influenced by Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter according to Lewis (1975). Wharton uses red as a symbol of the passion Ethan longs for, but never receives. Red is the color of blood, ruddiness, good health, and liveliness. Zeena, Ethan’s wife, has none of these qualities, yet Mattie Silver, Zeena’s cousin, has all of them. In appreciation of Zeena, Wharton uses red for warmth for Mattie, and white for Zeena because she is very cold, the setting in opposite symbolism of Mattie’s attraction. She also does this to symbolize Mattie’s temptation to Ethan, her red…

    • 586 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Nathaniel Hawthorne uses the color red to represent passion, the need for beauty, and individuality in The Scarlet Letter. In the story, Hester Prynne, a young woman living in a Puritan community during the mid-17th century, is convicted of adultery and forced to live her life in a state of exile, branded by the Puritans through the embroidery of a scarlet A on her chest. Her and her child Pearl live in the outlying forest and are constantly ridiculed and shunned by the people of her town. Hester’s punishment, the scarlet letter, is representative of passion. The rosebush in front of the prison Hester was held in is a symbol of a need for beauty in the suppressed Puritan society. Pearl’s red dress is used to show her individuality as an uncorrupted child of nature. Thus the author uses the color red as a metaphor for vital aspects of human nature that the Romantics idealize, but the Puritans view as a mark of shame.…

    • 706 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    The major story line behind Tess of the d’Urbervilles is the tragic life of Tess. Because she accidentally kills Prince, the family Horse, she must help her family make money (TD 22-24). This leads to her meeting an Alec d’Urberville (TD 28) who ends up raping her and impregnating her (TD 58 and Phase 2). Because of this, later on in life when she meets the man of her dreams, she is viewed as being impure and ghastly (TD 181-183). Her life is miserable and she faces much self-loathing. Because of all of these misfortunes, Tess undergoes exposure to the psychology of guilt.…

    • 975 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    The poet’s purpose of writing this poem was to reflect and acknowledge his guilt for the mistreatment of his late wife. The persona reflects and contemplates on his behavior towards his wife while she was alive ‘Her who but lately – Had shivered with pain’ and his yearning to be reunited with her again ‘Would I lay there – And she were housed there! – Or better, together… We both, - who would stray there’ Hardy acknowledges that his love was lost – his mistreatment to his late wife ‘Her who but lately – Had shivered with pain’ and was found again, unfortunately too late…

    • 531 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Better Essays

    Mr Harvey - Lovely Bones

    • 1775 Words
    • 8 Pages

    Most of the character’s in Alice Sebold’s The Lovely Bones, are strongly characterized and bring qualities that we, as readers, can relate to and understand, helping us to empathize with the family and Susie. There is one character however, that of George Harvey, Susie’s rapist and muderer, who is purposefully characterized in a way that most members of society could not begin to understand. Cruel, calculating, cold and cunning, Mr Harvey is the very symbol of evil in The Lovely Bones and helps to show the audience how real and present evil is. This itself, is a confronting and distressing thought, that there is people in society such as him, that may be hidden right next door. But Sebold, a past rape victim herself, uses Mr Harvey as a symbol of evil in this way to create awareness in her readers.…

    • 1775 Words
    • 8 Pages
    Better Essays
  • Good Essays

    Tess, or as Jack calls her Tessie-T, has some interesting feelings. Tess is a very strong hearted, thick skinned, young teenage girl whose life got turned upside down. Tess loves to have fun with her best friend Isabel, and keep track of what mug Mr. Holdsworth- Tess’s favorite (math) teacher- uses each morning. Some problems that Tess have result in a change of life so big that she goes mute for a good while. Tess found out that her mother had a sperm donor and her life then spun out of control. Tess goes mute to keep her life somewhat together and calm, excluding herself from the world. Tess later confessed because she is honest and genuine. When she talked to her Mum and Dad, Tess felt relieved and loved. Tess’s personality changed throughout the novel for better, and…

    • 1634 Words
    • 7 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Tess is brought up in the countryside, in a typical rural environment where the children are not obligated, or in most cases rich enough, to go to school therefore children are brought up and taught by their parents. This causes Tess to be uneducated in topics such as personal safety and naïve in areas such as men. Her innocence could be blamed on this lack of education because she is often lead away easily by male characters such Alec. Tess does not see how men can manipulate women nor is she even aware of her own personal safety. Therefore this absence of knowledge causes significances in the novel because Tess’ downfall is her inexperience; which causes her to be led so easily and finding herself in unpleasant situations such as her rape.…

    • 657 Words
    • 3 Pages
    Good Essays
  • Good Essays

    Tess Durbeyfield becomes a victim of the inadequate men surrounding her: John Durbeyfield, Alec Stoke d’Urberville, and Angel Clare, because they do not…

    • 880 Words
    • 4 Pages
    Good Essays