As Hardy writes in the third-person we never know exactly what Tess is thinking but it allows us a wider overview of the characters and settings.
The weather also represents Tess’ emotions and state of mind. For instance ‘Her hopes mingled with the sunshine’ showing how bright her hopes were. This use of pathetic fallacy is effective because he also uses this to show us what Tess’ mood at times, rather then just telling us directly. This allows the reader to get a clear sense of the scenery and Tess’ emotions at the same time.
Mr Crick the dairy owner is an important person at Talbothays. He is kind and warm to Tess and makes here feel welcome there, ‘…he received her warmly; inquiring for her mother and the rest of the family-’. He lets her have a drink of the milk. This again is a symbol of new beginnings as the first drink a newly born baby will be milk.
The people Tess meets at the dairy are all also extremely nice. They seem to represent a background against which we and Angel can appreciate Tess’ qualities. They are unable to hate Tess even though she is the one Angel loves, when they all love him too. They also add to the happy atmosphere at Talbothays. Izzy and Marian are later also supportive of Tess at Flintcomb Ash.
The most important person Tess meets at Talbothays is Angel Clare. Angel is described as a bit of a rebel. We know he is from a wealthier background than Mr Crick because Mr Crick is obliged to call him ‘sir’. He is the son of a parson and he is studying farming methods. We learn that he is the youngest of three brothers and has disappointed his father by rejecting the church as a career. He feels free to do and say what he likes. When he first sees Tess he finds her attractive and has a feeling he has seen her before. Tess recognises him as the young man who had joined in the club dance at Marlott. She is relived when he does not recognise her.
Tess finds herself being happier at the dairy than she had been in a long time and is enjoying the company of Angel.
One morning in the butter will not seem to churn and someone mentions there is a superstition that it can be caused by someone in the dairy who is in love. Tess feels faint and leaves the room and the butter then starts to churn. The dairymaids start to believe that Angel is in love with Tess. Their relationship and feelings for each other are reflected in the images of their natural surroundings. These images suggest to the reader how their relationship is progressing, ‘The season developed and matured’. Their relationship was doing the same thing. Hardy uses images of fertility and the heat that affects them both. When Angel goes over to Tess to tell her of his love he feels overcome by the heat of the day and his passion for her. Tess’ uncertainty whether to tell Angel about her past is mirrored in the heaviness of the weather.
Hardy also makes many references to colours. These symbolize the tone and sentiment of what is happening in Tess’ life. Through out the story he associates red and white when something bad is about to happen. He also uses different colours to imply different things. E.g. ‘violet or pink dawn’, this shows the reader the passion between Tess and Angel. They both rise early in the morning and work together from dawn until dusk. The colours in the sky at these times of day are very romantic colours.
As autumn approaches the relationship between Tess and Angel is shown clearly in the way Hardy writes about the changes in the environment. ‘Amid the oozing fatness and warm ferments…………..there were impregnated by their surroundings’. This paragraph proposes the sexual feelings they have for each other. He also describes them as two streams coming together as one.
Eventually Tess agrees to marry Angel but she is troubled by the fact that he does not know about what Alec had done to her. She writes to her mother who advises Tess not to tell Angel. She decides to tell him anyway and writes him a letter. She later finds out Angel never read the letter and attempts to tell him herself before it’s too late. But she never gets a chance. Hardy gives us a hint that Tess’ happiness cannot last when he writes about the afternoon cock crowing three times as they leave the dairy after they are married. This was considered a bad omen.
On their wedding night Angel tells Tess of some immoral behaviour when he was younger and living in London. Tess feels relieved and takes the opportunity to confess about her own past. Angel admits what happened was not her fault but they must part for a while. They spend the night in separate bedrooms. In the 19th century it was important to men to marry a ‘pure’ and virginal woman. Although as modern readers we think that Angel reacts strongly to Tess’ revelation, in Victorian times this reaction would have seemed understandable because society was much more judgemental about scandals and reputations. It is ironic that Angel liked Tess for her maturity and yet the reason she is so mature is the reason he leaves her. He gives her some money and goes home to see his parents and later leaves for Brazil. Tess too goes back to her parents but feels she cannot stay there and needs more money. She leaves for Flintcomb Ash where Marian, one of the dairymaids from Talbothays is working.
In contrast to Talbothays, Flintcomb Ash is cold, dismal, and unwelcoming. The seasons when Tess is at these places are opposites too.
Tess’ journey to the farm is surrounded with elements of death and disaster such as a few dead pheasants ‘…several dead pheasants lay about, their rich plumage dabbled with blood….’ This again is a reference to blood staining purity as can be found many times throughout the story.
These incidents are symbolic because they echo Tess’ life. She has been forced to leave because she her self had been tainted. The winter days are also shortening symbolising her diminishing hope that Angel will forgive her. On her way she decides that she no longer wants her beauty, as it has been her beauty that has caused her so much pain. She snips off her eyebrows and ties a handkerchief around her face to cover up her delicate features.
In stark contrast to Talbothays, the landscape of the farm is harsh and dull, ‘Here the air was dry and cold, and the long cart roads were blown white and dusty…There were few trees, or none…’ there is none of the goodness, beauty and richness in the land here that was seen at Talbothays ‘the single fat thing on the soil was Marian herself’ and Tess’ life is in the same state. There are also other similarities between Tess’ life and the descriptions of Flintcomb Ash. ‘Cobwebs revealed their presence on sheds and walls where none had been observed till brought out into visibility’. This refers to Tess’ secret about Alec.
Hardy uses colours such as white and grey to reflect the barren landscape, ‘the whole bush or tree forming a staring sketch in white lines on the mournful gray of the sky and horizon’. Tess doesn’t see a colourful future ahead of her.
Tess’ state of depression is personified in the descriptions of the birds from the north that fly to Flintcomb Ash for the winter, ‘ …gaunt spectral creatures with tragical eyes’. These birds have come from cruel, unkind places just like Tess has done psychologically in her past.
The workers at the farm are described as being ‘enshrouded in Hessian ‘wroppers’-sleeved brown pinafores’. This time the harshness of the landscape is reflected in their clothes, as a coarse dull fabric. They are heavily contrasted with the dairy workers in their different attitudes. At Talbothays they were bright and full of life. They were a group of friends. Here they are dreary and lifeless and more isolated in their work.
Farmer Groby is very different to Mr Crick because he doesn’t like Tess or make her feel welcome, ‘…but now I think I’ve got the better of you’. When she was engaged to Angel, Farmer Groby had recognised Tess from Tantridge and insulted her. Angel had then punched him. Tess does not want to apologise to him and so he wants revenge.
The threshing machine is used to represent the harsh and uncomfortable conditions of the farm. We also see Hardy’s view of the Industrial Revolution in this extract. He talks about the machine as a ‘red tyrant that the women had come to serve’-red being a colour associated with devils and evil. He thinks that industry is ruining the country landscape and doesn’t belong there. These descriptions also convey a sense of Tess’ depression at having to serve the machine and other people in her life.
She is forced to be a slave to the machine because they have to keep feeding it wheat. This echoes her situation in life because she has been a slave to men all her life. She has never been free of them.
It is important that Alec should reappear at this stage in Tess’ life because she is already at the lowest point she has ever been at in years. She doesn’t feel like things can get worse since she has lost the only man she cares about.
In conclusion, these two different places are important because as Tess’ life changes and progresses through good and hard times they offer us an overview of her feelings and the stages in the story. They contrast so that we feel for her.
