Not only does Hardy use pathetic fallacy to represent the future, however, but he could also be using it to represent the past experience where Tess was raped by Alec. Tess’ rape occurred in similar situations with the deserted, lonely, dark, mysterious surroundings with the air full of uncertainty. Because of this, Hardy could appear almost cruel towards Tess as her being alone with Angel could be a point in her life where she could really “move on” on her past bad experiences but Hardy tries to prevent this by providing a strong, constant reminder to her in the form of fog. As mentioned earlier, the fact that the fog is in the middle of summer makes it very unexpected which would make both the reader and characters question why the fog is there and would emphasise Hardy’s apparent “reminder”.
Hardy describes the fog as being in “layers” which could represent all the different levels of meaning for the fog being there. The fog is also described as being “woolly” which suggests to the reader that it is thick, untidy in appearance and dry. The next part of description is vital in revealing the hidden meanings behind the fog. Hardy says that the fog is “apparently no thicker than counterpanes…” which is saying that if you were looking down on the fog from a distance it would appear very thin and smooth, whereas where Tess and Angel are, it is dense and thick and the “apparently” represents the pair having no knowledge of the ‘big-picture’ of the fog.
The descriptions then move on to the conditions of the ground below them, perhaps the only direction they could see. There were patches of ground Hardy calls “islands” where the cows had been sleeping and obviously disturbed some of the ground. This too could represent the patches on Tess’ mind of her past where there is some “disturbed ground” amongst surrounding clean, untouched ground.
All the “islands” were linked by a “serpentine trail” where “the cow had rambled away to feed”. This could represent the fact that all of Tess’ past bad experiences, or “patches” are all linked together in some way or another like the horse and cart crash that led her to working for Alec and then Alec taking advantage and raping her.
In the next paragraph, Hardy starts with “Or perhaps the summer fog was more general…” This is where he provides another explanation for the meaning of the fog knowing that the reader had started to suspect from the previous paragraph was the fog actually meant. In this paragraph, Hardy describes the fog as though he is above it looking down. He describes it as being a “white sea, out of which the scattered trees rose like dangerous rocks.” The first description was how the fog appeared on the surface without delving any deeper and this description is a long metaphor on the surface before searching for the real meaning. So even though both descriptions are very different in terms of context, they both have the same meaning. This time, the white, smooth fog that is the sea is the same as the undisturbed, smooth ground from the previous description, both representing Tess’ background and the trees that “rose like dangerous rocks” represent the bad experiences in Tess’ life, just like the disturbed ground did. The sea being described as white also adds the idea of innocence to the areas of Tess’ background that have not been disturbed by people such as Alec.
Half way through this paragraph, Hardy begins to describe the direct affects the fog is having on Tess. Or her appearance to be precise. He ignores the fact that Angel is also in the fog and just focuses his attentions, once again, purely on Tess. Hardy describes the dew from the fog that is clinging to Tess’ eyelashes as “minute diamonds”. This creates the sense of how such a simple thing as dew can be converted into something so luxurious by just being in the presence of Tess Durbeyfield. In the next sentence Hardy informs the reader that as time passes and the day matured the dew on Tess dried and then she “lost her strange and ethereal beauty…” This could be implying that since Tess was raped and then months have passed, some of her beauty, perhaps in her innocence, had been stolen from her by Alec and it was fading away.
