Tess is also described as ‘nature personified’ in this extract, as she seamlessly blends into her surroundings. The “minute diamonds of moisture” that hung from Tess show that all things natural are attracted to her, that she is adorned by natural beauty and that she is inextricably linked to nature. The “seed pearls” of moisture that are in Tess’ hair along with the diamonds on her eyelashes imply that she is precious and beautiful, as diamonds and pearls are precious gems. However, “When the day grew quite strong and commonplace…Tess lost her strange ethereal beauty”. When the sun rises and shines over the dairy, it takes away the strange, unearthly mystery that has been hanging over the landscape, exposing what it is really like and the true natural beauty of the place. Tess, who held the ethereal beauty, returns to being the “dairymaid only” her teeth, lips and eyes that had “scintillated in the sunbeams” now returned to their normal state and she returns to being a normal, beautiful dairymaid. Hardy is suggesting that Tess’ lesser state is still one of immense beauty and that beauty can be found in the simplest people and environment. The day break elevates her era further as there are not many people who are still beautiful when the revel light hits them.
Although it is not directly stated in this extract, it is clear from the description that at this point in the novel Tess is at her happiest. Her feelings for her husband-to-be, Angel Clare, are surfacing and she is falling in love while surrounded by other dairy workers who thrive in the natural setting. Her marriage to Angel looks like it is to be perfect and eternal, Tess’ previous encounter with Alec, however, comes back to haunt her. The landscape here is very fragile and could be destroyed very easily, like Tess’ happiness and the environment of England.
In contrast, the second extract I have chosen describes life at Flintcomb Ash, an industrialised farm where nature has no foothold to be able to assert itself. The very name of the farm, connoting hard, abrasive flint and the dirty, burned ash of a furnace, evokes a harsh and unsympathetic environment. Society’s idea of ‘progress’ is shown here through the malignant environment, battling against and conquering nature. Throughout the whole extract everything is described as being rushed and unsustainable by humans. The “invisible velocity” and “high pressure” of the machine at the farm shows the sheer force and power that the machine has and the impossible working conditions that farm workers have to endure to get the job done with maximum efficiency and profit.
Within the first line of the extract the reader is given an impression of the machine operator:
“he stood apathetic beside his portable repository of force, round whose hot blackness the morning air quivered.”
In this quotation there are many words and phrases that have negative connotations, implying that the machine operator does not care how the job gets done, as long as it gets done. Standing “apathetic beside his portable repository of force” shows that he has little or no emotion about the workers and the conditions they have to work in or the landscape and he is detaching himself from both completely. Hardy’s dismay at industrialisation is also reflected in the threshing machines portability. It can be taken everywhere and spread across the land, ruining the natural landscape that Hardy so dearly loved. Personification in “The morning air quivered” shows that even the very substance life depends on fears the machine and is intimidated by it. This reinforces the implication that the machine is unnatural if it is in discord with the most natural of substances – the very air we breathe. This feeling of detachment is reinforced throughout the passage as the machine operator detaches himself from the environment. He does not know the land he is farming or what he is harvesting as it could be “corn, straw, or chaos … it was all the same to him”. Use of the word “chaos” leaves the reader in no doubt of Hardy’s dislike of the machinery; his opinion of Hell is represented in it as anarchy and bedlam. Overall this passage evokes a sense of greed and detachment from the surroundings; the “engineer” does not care as long as the job gets done.
Speed of work plays an important role in both extracts, in particular the second one. At Talbothay’s Dairy, the sun determines the workers meal times and these are proper occasions of rest and nourishment, both spiritually and physically, enabling the dairy folk to work to the best of their abilities. In contrast, at Flintcomb Ash the machine was “stopped for half an hour” for breakfast and the workers ate a “hasty lunch” whilst not leaving their positions on the machine. The work was constant with almost no time to eat; the workers were enslaved by the machine, rather than served by it. When the time came for their evening meal, “the inexorable wheels continu(ed) to spin” further reinforcing the idea of slavery to the machine as it never afforded any peace. “The revolving wire-cage”, with its connotation of imprisonment, emphasises the slavery of the workers even more, showing further Hardy’s dislike of machinery and it domination of both people and the environment.
Hardy further shows the reader his dislike for the mechanisation of farm labour by writing about the men talking about “the past days” of farming when everything was “effected by hand-labour”. Despite this process being slower, Hardy believes it “produced better results”: society can think that ‘progress’ has been made with the industrialisation of farms across England but many people still think that tradition should triumph over ‘progress’.
Hardy’s dislike of industrialisation is most prominently shown when he writes,
“…a preparatory hitch or two, which rejoiced the hearts of those who hated machinery”
This reflects Hardy’s own mistrust of machinery more obviously than anywhere else in the novel as it is what he truly feels about industrialisation and the removal of traditional methods.
Significantly, Flintcomb Ash, which represents industrialisation, is where Tess suffers the most in the novel. She is rejected by her true love, Angel, and continually pursued by Alec, for whom she has no feelings other than dread.
Hardy’s intentions when writing this novel were to protest about the impact of social conventions at the expense of natural humanity. Hardy made the point that man-made, industrialised forces were imposing on God’s perfect, natural land and everything linked with nature. He also made people aware, especially his upper class readership, that they had no right to treat people of lower classes with disrespect and prejudice. Hardy uses the example of Tess being overpowered by Alec and then condemned by society to make this point. Hardy makes these protests less directly than a modern reader might expect to reduce the offence and anger it would inevitably cause to the upper classes, his very readers.
Through the analysis of these two extracts, it is obvious that Hardy was shocked and angered by the ever more threatening industrialisation of farming and the ruination of the beautiful, natural and calm landscape in which he lived. He shows this through the contrast between the pain and suffering that is felt by both Tess and the natural environment when she is at Flintcomb Ash, and her happiness and fulfilment whilst at Talbothay’s Dairy.
