THE SYMBOLIC MEANINGS OF THE SETTINGS IN

TESS OF THE D’URBERVILLES

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[Abstract] Setting is the essential part of a novel. In Tess of the D’Urbervilles, settings are not only the background but also have the symbolic meanings which imply the main character, Tess’ nature, mind and situation. The changing of setting suggests the changing of Tess’ fate. This article will analyze the symbolic meanings of the settings.

[Key words] setting symbolic meaning Tess

Introduction

Tess of the D’urbervilles is one of the novels called “Characters and Environment” of Thomas Hardy. For many readers, Hardy’s crowning achievement is his creation of Tess Durbeyfield who has become one of the most memorable women characters in all of literature. She is once child and woman, strong and fragile, masterful and timid. She exists in time while she remains timeless. To stress Tess’ tragic fate and her personality, Hardy uses a lot of depiction of the settings. Through these settings and their symbolic meanings, readers can predict Tess’ fate and have a more profound understanding of the whole novel. The author of this paper will analyze the symbolic meanings of the settings from the following aspects: the color, the bird imagery, the places, the seasons and the natural sceneries.

In western culture, the color red always implies blood, violence and crime. All through this book there are flashes of the color red. At the beginning Tess “wear a red ribbon in her hair” ① . When Alec is around, the red tends to become more overwhelming----his house is red. Tess sees that “the crimson brick lodge came first in sight”, “It was … and of the same rich red color …” (P20). From this, we can see that the D’Urbervilles’ house “formed such a contrast with”(P20) the village environments around. And Alec is the kind of people who like seeking pleasure. That the beautiful and simple girl, Tess, comes here to seek a job is very dangerous. The color red just strengthens this point. There are also another several color imageries in the book. The old horse Prince which Tess’ family depend on drives to the post carriage. “from the wound his life’s blood was spouting in a stream”, Tess “became splashed from face to skirt with the crimson drops”(P37); when she leaves Trantridge, she meets a man. The man stops at a gate, and in a large red letters on the middle bar of the gate he paints some words from the Bible. “these staring vermillion words”, “entered Tess with accusatory horror”(P85) as if they accuses her; after Tess kills Alec and leaves The Herons, Mrs. Brooks finds “the oblong white ceiling with this scarlet blot in the midst, had the appearance of a gigantic ace of hearts”(P369). From the details above, we can see that the color red implies crime and lust, sets off the tragic atmosphere of Tess’ bad situation by contrast. Just from the color red, we can predict Tess’ unfavorable fate. Besides, the red seems to become associated with anger (when Tess hits Alec in the face with a glove and makes him bleed). So, I would approach it from the point of view that the color red represents passion----originally lust, crime and then hate.

Tess’ tragedy in her early years tells her: “the serpent hisses where the sweet birds sing”(P81). When Tess first sees the birds and hears the joyful songs of the birds, Tess knows nothing about her situation. Then, Tess is a simple, carefree girl. This also is the basic point why she can be seduced by Alec. But, the Nature shows an indifferent attitude towards her misery, which is reflected by the singing of the birds. So after she suffers a lot, when she sees “Under the trees several pheasants lay about”, “all of them writhing in agony”(P271), she knows “the birds had been driven down into this corner the day before by the shooting party”. “With the impulse of a soul who could feel for kindred sufferers as much as for herself, Tess’ first thought was to put the still living birds out of their tortures, and to this end with her own hands she broke the necks of as many as she could find, leaving them to lie where she had found them”(P271). Tess takes the birds’ misery as her own. She says: “Poor darlings----to suppose myself the most miserable being on earth in the sight o’such misery as yours!” “her tears running down as she killed the bird tenderly”(P271). From these two scenes, it is obvious that bird imagery just represents Tess herself, and is associated with Tess’ mood. Tess is chased by the indifferent forces of Nature, just like a bird driven by the hunter.

III

The changing of the places symbolizes the changing of Tess’ fate. Tess starts her life-long journey from Blackmoor Vale. She goes westwards Wessex. She comes to Trantridge, but is seduced and raped by Alec. Then she comes to the beautiful Talbothays, falls in love with the idealist Clare. After having been abandoned by her husband, passing through many places ,Tess reaches the barren and deserted Flintcomb-Ash, southwest to the Blackmoor Vale. There, she is exploited and insulted by the bully farmer. Even, Alec pesters her constantly. Having no way out, Tess is taken to Sandbourne, a seaside resort in the south of Wessex by Alec. She is forced to be his mistress. At the end, after she kills Alec, she and Clare flee Sandbourne. They abscond to the north and are surrounded by the police in Stonehenge. In her life-long journey, Tess returns home twice because of her love and marriage. She wants to seek the comfort and protection. But the fate pushes her farther and farther from her home. The farther she is away from home, the more miseries she encounters. No matter where she goes, the east or the west, the adversity always accompanies her.

The action through the book is associated with the seasons of the year. It reflects the changing of Tess’ mind and situation. Tess goes to the D’Urbervilles in the spring. Then, Tess is simple and full of hope towards a promising life; two or three years later, again comes the spring, Tess revives and goes out to seek job again. Also just in spring and summer, Tess and Clare fall in love with each other in the beautiful Talbothays and spend the happiest time there in their life. But the date of their marriage is New Year’s Eve----the day of the replacement of the present year and the new year. It symbolizes the turn of Tess’ fate. And the barren winter, just after the eight-month parting of Tess and Clare, is the time of her misery. Her life, her fortune seems always to follow the course of the year, improving with the spring, declining with the autumn.

Also in this novel, the development of Tess’ mind is tied to the descriptions of the natural scenery. Every description of the natural scenery is to enclose some course of the development of Tess’ spirit. Every image has strong power to move the readers’ feelings. At the beginning the wind valley echoes with Tess’ simple life; the dark wood in Trantridge heightens Alec’s ruin to Tess; Tess goes back to the hometown. “The midnight airs and gusts, moaning amongst the tightly-wrapped buds and bark of the winter twigs, were formule of bitter reproach”(P91) as if it wants to show its “irremediable grief at her weakness”(P91); and the scene of “a particularly fine spring” and “the stir of germination”(P103) reflects the recovery of Tess’ spirits; the prosperous grasses and the running crooks in Talbothays set off Tess’ love towards Clare and the happy life like Eden by contrast; the winter scenery of Flintcomb-Ash shows Tess’ disappointment and desolate mood; then when approaching the coming of Tess’ death, the ancient Stonehenge melts with Tess’ unfortunate experience. One is the altar used to offer a sacrifice to the God of the Sun.. the other is the victim of traditional morality and the regulations of the society. Hardy do not just give a simple description of Nature, but the character’s inner world.

Summery

Setting in Tess is not merely a backdrop against which the action takes place, but is rather an integral part of the book. The descriptions of setting make an important contribution to our understanding of the characters and the action. All the settings in the novel strengthen the point that Tess is a tragic character. The symbolic meanings of the setting lead us to the miserable fate of Tess. On the whole, Tess of the D’uebervilles is full of the sorrow of aesthetic feeling and existence. She fulfills her perfect but short life through agony.

Notes:

① . Thomas Hardy, Tess of the D’Urbervilles, Oxford University Press,1994, P20.

Page references to this book in my following paper are to be given in brackets.

Sources:

Ackerman, Robert. Thomas Hardy’s Tess of the D’Urbervilles, Simon & Schuster, 1962.

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Hardy, Thomas. Tess of the D’Urbervilles, Oxford University Press,1994.

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曾令富，《象征与神话原理: “德伯家的苔丝”中的环境描写》，《外国文学评论》，1994年第四期。 Copy Rights 2000®,All Rights Free, Email yekeyu@163.net