An analysis of the ways in which Thomas Hardy creates suspense in Chapter 56 of “Tess of the D’Urbervilles” with reference to Edgar Allan Poe’s “The Tell Tale Heart”.

Robert Townsend Coursework Essay.

Tess of the D’Urbervilles was written by Thomas Hardy, born in the 19th century. He wrote many important novels such as the mayor of Casterbridge. Tess of the D’Urbervilles is a story set in Victorian times and is about a young girl called Tess who has a tragic and troublesome life, Tess manages to get involved with a man called Alec Stokes. Tess gets pregnant with this man and she leaves for a neighbouring village when the baby is due to be born. She has the baby, but it dies. After this Tess leaves Alec and finds love elsewhere with a man called Angel Clare. Angel is completely different to Alec, Angel is respectful, he doesn’t know about the dead baby or Alec. But on the wedding night Tess decides to tell angel about her past and this leads angel leaving her and Tess goes back to Alec.

Chapter 56 begins with Alec and Tess staying in a hotel. Having persuaded to Tess to live with Alec again, Tess seems forced into being with Alec, She knows he’s an evil person and his character is portrayed as a stereotypical bad person or evil person in the story. Although she knows she can have a respectable life if she stays with him.

This section starts in a 3rd person view because instead of getting the main characters we get to find out what the landlady of the hotel, Mrs Brooks is doing. This is the first appearance of the character in the novel so its already is giving a little suspense to the readers in that they don’t know the character and they don’t know what Tess is doing. I t also gives the reader a sense of detachment from Tess and a slightly different view of the surroundings and story line. Because this character is new the reader can easily think as themselves being the character looking into the story. At this point in the story Angel Clare visits the hotel, this again gives a sense of suspense because the readers think that Angel and Alec in the same place might lead to trouble.

Mrs brooks is a new kind of woman for the Victorian age, because previously the people of this time were very religious and all Mrs brooks is after is a profit, this is very un-religious of the time and shows a change in societies attitude. She seems to have little interest in Angel, all she wants is for him to stay and give her money, and otherwise she doesn’t care. Although she is also a bit of a gossip and is interested in her customers business. This is shown in the next section, when Angel and Tess are speaking to each other, without them knowing Mrs Brooks is eavesdropping on them. Hardy says that Mrs brooks can hear fragments of the conversation and doesn’t actually give the conversation until later, he then goes on to tell the reader about where Mrs brooks is in the building, this delays the information and stops the reader from finding out what they want to know, what Tess is saying. By changing the subject, Hardy again creates suspense and makes the reader want to read on.

This is a preview of the whole essay

The next section starts with Mrs Brooks climbing the stairs, eager to hear more of the story, Hardy writes this so he can get the story across to the reader, but then he again delays the information by telling where everyone is “the first floor, containing Mrs Brooks best apartments, had been taken by the D’Urbervilles…” this is suspense, instead of giving the reader the action it is just delayed again. “The back room was in silence, but from the drawing came sounds” suggests that the hotel was silent except for the noise coming from Tess’s room, making it sound dramatic. Finally after this a little more story is slipped into view. “Low note of moaning” sounds very suspicious and then we hear a simple “O-O-O” this has no real importance to the story and was put in the text to confuse the reader. Although the moaning is very weird and also adds more suspense before giving the story away.

The next section starts with Mrs Brooks looking through the key hole to Tess’s room. Hardy delays the story once again by describing what she can see through the keyhole, “…breakfast table, which was spread for a meal. Also a chair beside” This again gives the reader irrelvent information but still makes the reader want to read on. The image of Tess is then revealed, it describes her as kneeling down, giving her a kind of begging or praying image, pleading for something. It then goes on to describe that Tess’s head is bowed and her hanging in shame. This gives the reader negative feelings for Tess. Also it could be a reference to Jesus, the way he looked when he died. This would have been included because for the Victorian audience, religion is a big and major part of life. So Victorian readers would instantly see this as a symbol to a suffering Jesus. After this Tess speaks on her own. Not necessarily to any person in the story but more to the reader. This is called a soliloquy: when someone stands on there own and talks mainly about how they feel.

Finally the reader knows what’s going on in the story, this is reliving for the reader.

This section begins with the continuation of the sad speech which Tess is giving to the readers and Alec. Mrs Brooks is still listening and looking through the keyhole on to this conversation, this is again for the story to be told. Also the whole idea of Mrs Brooks doing something she shouldn’t be doing also adds to the suspense, even though you hardly know the character, the reader still doesn’t want her to be caught by Alec or Tess. Tess then bites her lips so hard they bleed; this is perhaps a hint to the murder that is coming up later in the chapter. It’s a symbol showing that everything isn’t alright and that the story may get bloody and gruesome. In the section Tess is given a snake type figure and quality. There is also very long and complex syntax in this section. Most of the wording needs supporting words. These are called subordinate clauses. The list of these increases the tensions because they’re fast and short: “snake like...” “Head on chair” “head to door” “pain in face” “lips bleeding” “eye lashes sticking to cheeks” All these make Tess seem like a very tragic and sad person, it increases the pathos of Tess. People feel sorry for her and want to read on to see if she gets better.

The next paragraph starts with the reader being told that “there were more and sharper words from the man” this gives suspense and tension by again not actually giving the words spoken by Alec. After this, sounds are presented to he reader “a sudden rustle” again Hardy tries to give suspense to a ‘quiet’ scene. As the tension builds Mrs Brooks suddenly thinks that Tess or Alec is going to leave their room, so she dashes down the stairs. Again Hardy is messing with the reader’s minds by telling them that something is going to happen but doesn’t. Mrs Brooks goes downstairs regardless of anyone leaving the room; the reason for this is so the story can continue. Because a murder is about to happen up stairs Mrs Brooks would be in the wrong place and if Hardy just described a murder it wouldn’t be exciting. Also it would never be allowed to be published in the Victorian era. Mrs Brooks has also moved back down stairs to start doing normal work and chores. This has been placed in the novel because the reader thinks that everything has returned to normal and nothing drastic is going to happen. The normal working has also been put in to delay the action, instead of telling us what Tess and Alec are doing, Hardy just describes Mrs Brooks doing her sewing and “waiting for her lodgers to ring, to clear the breakfast”

Then above Mrs Brooks the floor boards start creaking and a door is heard opening and closing, this obviously adds to the suspense and is very common in the murder genre of writing. They are codes and conventions of the murder genre.

It also states “...hat and black feather a veil was drawn” The veil is a sign or symbol of death and tragedy and gives the reader a clue into what has happened. But after this more suspense is built up with the continuation of Mrs Brooks doing her daily chores.

The next section has a massive build up in tension and suspense; Mrs Brooks looks up at the ceiling and sees a red patch or dot, this red dot slowly grows larger. It is revealed to the readers as blood. This red dot on a white ceiling is also a symbolic in that it shows Tess as being red, the colour of passion and this passion or Tess has now been released and set free. Then the suspense is ruined when Mrs Brooks confirmed the red substance to be blood. A ‘dead’ silence is described; this is personification and also hints at the murder

Then the silence is broken with a regular beat of dripping. “Drip, drip, drip” The whole paragraph has very short sentences and delays the information a lot.

Mrs Brooks then runs out into the street, this is summed up in three quick sentences using the rule of three to create suspense for the reader. It then describes the scene of Alec’s dead body being found, the sentences in this section are very complex and there is suspense in that it just describes the breakfast on the table instead of giving information on the murder. The description of the body and the wound is very violent for the Victorian age.

I will now compare and find differences between Tess and Tale tell heart. The tell tale heart was written by Eagar Allen Po and is about someone who murders an old man for his treasure; a mysterious eagle eye. The person in the story is mentally disabled and tries to convince the reader that he isn’t crazy. Because this story is more modern, it has far more graphic and violent images described. The beginning of the story is very confusing and offers much suspense to the reader, but instead of suspense in a set area like in Tess, tell tale heart gives the reader no clue on what the settings are. Also in tell tale heart we get the story from a first person view, the main crazy character. This means it could be biased in that the story is made up entirely from the one point of view. The person is very self contained and refers to ‘I’ much too often and the rule of three is used like hardy did: “boasting again, not the man that bothering him, it’s the eye. A different form of suspense is used to hardy in form of the ticking of a clock “the minute hand moves faster than his...” this ticking creates tension in that he has a certain amount of time to finish his job. The symbols in Hardy’s text refer to the murder genre, as in tall tale heart the symbols point to more of the horror genre. In tell tale heart for example there are things like the murder setting, “is black as pitch” giving a gothic evil kind of image and how the madman refers to the murder as God like and very powerful. The syntax near the end is full of short sentences similar to Hardy’s, these sentences mirror the fast paced and panicky actions which are going on in the story.