Love Foreshadowed in Tamed Nature Setting in Tess of the DUrbervilles - Literature Essay Samples

Thomas Hardy, in Tess of the DUrbervilles, takes great pains to relate the characters to their surroundings, especially in the parallelism between Tess emotional disposition and her physical environment. It is not surprising, therefore, that the two interpersonal relationships which are the most important to Tess life have their origins in a fertile garden and a lush grazing meadow, places where Man tames Nature but cannot escape being affected by Her himself. The timbre of Tess relationships with both Alec DUrberville and Angel Clare is very clearly foreshadowed by the nature of the places in which both relationships were founded.The first relationship which affected Tess was that with her false kinsman, Alec DUrberville. The rakish Alec becomes enamored of his Coz when she first visits the DUrberville house in Trantridge, and within minutes of meeting her is plying her with all the fruits of the garden on the estate. When he tries to have her eat a strawberry from his hand, a l overs act, she protests: No no! she said quickly, putting her fingers between his hand and her lips. I would rather take it in my own hand.' However, he insists and she acquiesces in a slight distress. After the first strawberry, though, she continued on eating in a half-pleased, half-reluctant state whatever dUrberville offered her. He showers her with flowers, giving her roses to put in her bosom, affixing a few to her hat, and heaping them in her basket, in the prodigality of his bounty.Alecs acts and Tess responses to them in the garden foreshadow two events later in the book. First, Alecs seduction of Tess can be seen in the strawberry scene. Tess response to the inappropriate advance is rejection at first, but later she gives way and is half-pleased by Alecs advances. Alecs unholy bachelor union with Tess, although he did force himself on her by circumstance, did involve a degree of seduction, just as with the strawberry, and Hardys words on Tess situation with Alec a fter the night in the Chase were that she had been stirred to confused surrender awhile. This can be interpreted to mean that Tess stayed with him and surrendered herself to his advances for a period of a few weeks after the night in the woods. Also, Alecs profusion of flowers foreshadows his persistent encomium of her and promises to help her family when he confronts her near the end of the book. This foreshadowing makes the scene set Alecs garden very important to telling the reader the nature of Alecs amorous relationship with Tess in a way marginally socially acceptable to the 19th century.The second relationship which affected Tess was that with Angel Claire. Her experience with him at Talbothays Dairy before his profession of love amid the oozing fatness and warm ferments of the Var Vale can be summed up in one passage in which the two were walking in the meadows just after dawn. The summer fog is the chief metaphor for Tess and Angels love. The fog is described sometime s as localized, with dark-green islands of dry herbage where the cows had lain down for the night and other times as more general, and the meadows lay like a white sea, out of which he scattered trees rose like dangerous rocks. But the fog invariably melted away in the sun, leaving diamonds of moisture.like seed pearls on Tess and then leaving her without the fogs mystical quality, the dazzlingly fair dairymaid only, who had to hold her own against the other women of the world.This description of the vale and the fog can be read to foreshadow the nature of Tess romance with Angel. The fog is more ethereal than the sensuous flowers and strawberries of Alecs garden, and so are Tess relations with Angel, begun so promisingly in the fertile vale, until their brief time together near the end of the book. Sometimes the fog is so thick that only the birds can fly through it, and dangers (the trees) loom. Such is Angels time in Brazil, when only winged prayer and letters could pass to T ess love. Even when the fog is less thick, only bits of green lively love can be seen. Such is the passionate, but brief love that Tess has with Angel during their courtship and before she tells him her secret. And when the fog is dissipated by the bright sun of Tess truth, it eventually reveals her beautiful to Angel across the sea, but by the time she came back for her, it had been dissipated, had left her but a normal woman for too long, and she had gone back to Alec as a result of necessity and his persuasion. This foreshadowing is not so obvious as that of Alecs garden, but Angels love was more Shelleyan than Byronic, as befits an ascetic like Angel.These two passages of Tess of the DUrbervilles, each no more than two pages long, go a long way towards intimating to the reader the nature of Tess relationships with her two lovers. These scenes from tamed nature, a garden and a grazing meadow, are characteristic of Hardy, who used setting throughout Tess both to foreshadow pl ot, as seen above, and shine light on his characters. This book, a classic in English literature, is richer for its authors use of setting._Essay:: This essay concerns itself with Tess of the DUrbervilles. I ask that my name not be mentioned in connection to this essay on your website, if that is possible.