Phase the Fifth: The Woman Pays Tess Phase the Fifth: The Woman Pays
Setting and tone becomes ever gloomier - pervasive pessimistic sense of tragedy Structurally – the second half of the novel (the first phase of this after the pivotal fourth) The first half of the novel saw Tess fluctuate between hope/optimism/pro-activity and despair/passivity Tess’s confession is her peripeteia - there is no going back once she has uttered the words: the tragic trajectory is set and can only lead to her death
Gothic conventions The isolated site of the doomed honeymoon, the d’Urberville mansion, is grey and dark, The presence of portraits (ugly) add to the feeling of Gothic disquiet. Lots of shadow, with light used merely to contrast dark. Even the outside is shadowy and evil. Events: the sleepwalking Angel carries the passive Tess to a graveyard, where he places her in a stone coffin.
Hardy heightens his condemnation of society’s double standards Mainly reflected in Angel’s actions and attitude Actions: Angel has had a sexual relationship with a woman (lust/short term) just as Tess had sexual relationship with a man (undesired on Tess’s part) Attitude: Angel expects Tess to understand and forgive (acceptable for men?) yet he cannot even begin to understand Tess, let alone forgive.
Tess becomes passive and submissive to her husband offering to be his slave kneeling in front of him allowing him to carry her to a grave and even offering to kill herself.
Angel’s sleepwalking should be viewed as a metaphor he lives in a dream world: invents his own idea of religion idealises Tess dangerously so that in this phase it is not Tess who has changed but his perception of her (pathos for Tess) Unaware of his own prejudices - condemning the aristocracy for their cruel treatment of women, yet he is cruel and cold to Tess and to Izz Huet.
Setting of Flintcomb-Ash depicted as a frozen, harsh world winter time Contrasts with the idyllic world of Talbothays The coldness and harshness reflects Angel’s treatment of Tess Note the harsh sounds - “t” and the hyphen = disjointed , contrasts with the fluid and soft “Talbothays”
Sense of tragedy increases Full of foreshadowing about death through symbols and motifs: the pheasants the portraits the coffin graveyards winter setting
Hardy strengthens his message about fate His deterministic thesis is established no matter how they fight, people (Tess - can never regain her virginity) cannot escape what has been determined for them
Yet, Hardy also condemns society for Tess’s ills church aristocracy a double-standard for men and women. How can fate be at issue? Hardy is writing in the tragic genre and using its conventions, yet he has a modernist perspective in challenging the accepted norms and values of late Victorian society.