An exploration of the importance of setting in 'Tess of the D'Urbervilles' by Thomas Hardy

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An exploration of the importance of setting in ‘Tess of the D’Urbervilles’ by Thomas Hardy

and ‘The Shipping News’ by Annie Proulx

Setting is used powerfully in both ‘Tess of the D’Urbervilles’ and ‘The Shipping News’, and is, in my opinion, pivotal in rendering these two novels so resonant and beautiful. It is employed to expand and reinforce the moods of each phase of the narrative, as well as marking these different phases. The setting generates the atmosphere in which the characters exist, but more profoundly, it is used to symbolise and intensify the feelings and experiences of the protagonists.

Although written at different times by authors with very different literary styles, and set in places of extreme contrast– tranquil, lush Wessex set against grimy, degenerate New York, then bleak Newfoundland - the novels share a remarkable degree of similarity.

        Both novels feature people with uneasy minds, people who are somehow unlike their peers, people who are searching ultimately for a sense of belonging. These characters, Tess and Quoyle, are strongly influenced by the ancestral myths which haunt their surroundings. They are trying to understand themselves in the context of these myths, and to understand the forces that have shaped their lives. Tess Durbeyfield discovers that she is a ‘belated seedling’ of a decayed aristocratic family, the D’Urbervilles. She is fooled into thinking that in finding her noble family, she will find love and nobility of spirit. Her story is one of disillusionment, when she realises too late that this nobility and pride of spirit she so craves is only to be found within her, and not in the outside world. She needs a sense of belonging; but receives only physical and emotional violation, and further alienation.

Quoyle desires to comprehend ‘the mysteries of unknown family’, the dark lives of the ‘big wild boogers’ that are his Newfoundland ancestors; he needs to define his place amongst these treacherous, primitive people. Unlike Tess, however, he finally discovers a sense of acceptance of his past, and an assurance of his own individuality in the context of his family history.

Proulx’s use of symbolism is especially apparent in the place names within ‘The Shipping News’. The first chapter is introduced with a definition of a ‘Quoyle’ – a coil of rope ‘that may be walked upon if necessary’. Similarly Quoyle is a downtrodden, tyrannised character. His surname is the only name he is given throughout the book, a name that, significantly, connects him only to his ancestors and allows him no individuality. Quoyle’s town of residence before he moves to Newfoundland is ‘Mockingburg’. This name is representative of Quoyle’s experience there; it is a place that has served to emphasise his alienation and his lack of physical appeal: ‘a great damp loaf of a body…Eyes the color of plastic. The monstrous chin…’ It is a place where Quoyle lives a detached, unfulfilled and lonely life, a life that is indeed a mockery. It is no co-incidence, therefore, that Proulx chose Newfoundland as Quoyle’s new home; it proves to be the place where he rediscovers himself, a place where he is metaphorically reborn. However, this new place is no idyll, it is savage and harsh. The lives of its habitants are governed by the often-destructive elements; reflected in the place names - Capsize Cove, Desperate Cove, Hell Rock - names that imply existences punctuated by hardship, danger and misery. This is a place where people rely on the sea to survive, yet often die whilst using its resources. The intrinsic link between people and elementary forces, especially the sea, is demonstrated by the name ‘Wavey’.

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The relationship that Wavey and other inhabitants of Newfoundland possess with nature is one of struggle and opposition, whereas Tess is fundamentally linked to the landscape, but in that she is a natural being, a fragment of her natural environment. Hardy narrates her life in phases, like the moon. He employs landscape throughout his novel as a mirror image for his protagonist’s emotion. Her blissfully detached, unworldly childhood is set in the sleepy, warm Vale of Blackmoor, her magical love affair with Angel is set in the Eden-like, fertile valley of Talbothay’s dairy and her abject desolation and isolated sorrow ...

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