(c)2024 BookRags, Inc. All rights reserved.
Tess is a girl of the working class with a family that hates to work, so when they learn that her father is the descendant of the noble family, the d'Urbervilles, they send Tess to a rich "relative" in nearby Tantridge to get money or marry well so that her parents will be taken care of. Tess goes because her parents make her feel she must although she thinks it's wrong of them to ask for money. This meeting with Alec d'Urberville, one of the "relatives" seals her dreadful fate. He is attracted to Tess and takes advantage of her when she comes to Tantridge to work at d'Urberville manor and she returns home ruined. Alec promises to take care of her if she ever needs anything, but she dislikes him so much that she'd rather suffer than have any contact with him.
Soon Tess bears a child she names, Sorrow, and the child dies only days after it is born. Tess, without the support of her shiftless family, leaves home to try at independence again knowing now to be wary of men. She goes to Talbothay's dairy and falls in love with Angel Clare, the son of a pastor who is learning about farming at the dairy. Although she thinks herself unworthy of such a sweet man because of what happened to her, Tess and Angel fall in love and decide to get married. She refused his proposals for quite a while trying to find a way to tell him about her past with Alec d'Urberville, but she couldn't do it. It is important to her that he knows everything about her so that she knows he loves her for herself and not for who he thinks she is, so shortly before they are supposed to be married, she writes him a letter and slips it under the door of his room. He never gets the letter because it is stuck under the edge of the carpet. Tess realizes this mistake on the morning of their marriage, and she is not given an opportunity to tell him before they are married.
That night he confesses that he's had one sexual encounter that he couldn't bring himself to tell her about and she forgives him, knowing that he'll forgive her what happened with Alec. But when she tells Angel about it, the way he feels about her changes completely. He feels betrayed and tricked, so they agree to separate, although Tess loves him greatly.
He goes to Brazil to try his hand at farming there, and Tess works at hard job after hard job rather than asking his family for money as he'd instructed her when he left. While she's working herself to the bone, she encounters Alec d'Urberville again and he begins visiting her, relentlessly trying to convince her to marry him. She finally gives in when her family is evicted from their home after her father's death and they have nowhere to go. Alec provides them a home, and Tess agrees to be his wife.
Angel then returns from Brazil and comes to find her, knowing that he has treated her unfairly. When he finds her, she is distraught that the only man she ever loved has come back, and once again, Alec d'Urberville is standing in her way. She stabs Alec with a carving knife, and she and Angel spend a week together hiding out and being as they were before they were married. Then Tess is captured and executed, and Angel marries her younger sister, Liza Lu. After she met Alec d'Urberville, there was nothing Tess could do to change fate. All that happened to her was meant to be.
Marlott: The English village where Tess is born and raised.
Tantridge: The English village where Alec d’Urberville and his mother live. Tess travels there to work for them.
Talbothay’s Dairy: Tess goes there to work after the birth and death of her baby and meets Angel Clare, Izz Rheutt, Marian, and Rhetty.
Emminister: The English village where Angel Clare’s family lives.
Kingsbere: The English village where the ancient d’Urberville family lived, owned land, died, and is buried. Tess and Angel stay in a manor there after they are married, and Tess’s family tries to move there after her father dies.
Letter: Tess wrote the letter explaining what happened between her and Alec d’Urberville and slipped it under Angel’s door, but he never got the letter because it had slipped beneath the carpet.
Legend of the d’Urberville carriage: Story about one of the ancient d’Urberville family who killed someone in a carriage. The story says that d’Urbervilles see the carriage just before something bad happens to them.
Flintcomb Ash: Farm where Tess goes to work for the man from Tantridge. She works in the fields in winter and does back breaking labor there along with Marian and Izz because she’d rather work there than go ask Angel’s parents for money.
Sandbourne: The resort city on the Thames River where Tess is living as Alec d’Urberville’s wife. Angel comes there to find her and learns that she is married. She kills Alec in a hotel in Sandbourne.
Quote 1: "I don't know; but I think so. They sometimes seem to be like the apples on our stubbard-tree. Most of them splendid and sound - a few blighted." Chapter 4, Pg. 25
Quote 2: "I won't sell his old body. When we d'Urbervilles was knights in the land, we didn't sell our chargers for cat's meat. Let 'em keep their shillings! He've served me well in his lifetime, and I won't part from him now." Chapter 4, Pg. 29
Quote 3: "Thus, the thing began. Had she perceived this meeting's import she might have asked why she was doomed to be seen and coveted that day by the wrong man, and not by some other man, the right and desired one in all respects, . . ." Chapter 5, Pg. 37
Quote 4: "Out of the frying pan into the fire!" Chapter 10, Pg. 66
Quote 5: "But some might say, where was Tess 's guardian Angel ? Where was the providence of her simple faith? Perhaps, . . . he was talking, or he was pursuing, or he was in a journey, or he was sleeping and not to be awaked . . .. As Tess 's own people down in those retreats are never tired of saying among each other in their fatalistic way: 'It was to be.'" Chapter 11, Pg. 71-2
Quote 6: "THY, DAMNATION, SLUMBERETH, NOT. 2 Pet. ii. 3," Chapter 12, Pg. 78
Quote 7: "My life looks as if it had been wasted for want of chances! When I see what you know, what you have read, and seen, and thought, I feel what a nothing I am!" Chapter 19, Pg. 124
Quote 8: "I can't bear to let anybody have him but me! Yet it is wrong Tess him, and may kill him when he knows!" Chapter 28, Pg. 175
Quote 9: "Yes; at that dance on the green; but you would not dance with me. O, I hope that is no ill-omen for us now!" Chapter 30, Pg. 188
Quote 10: "[t]hat it would always be summer and autumn, and you always courting me, and always thinking as much of me as you have done through the past summertime!" Chapter 32, Pg. 199
Quote 11: "[he] did not mention it because [he] was afraid of endangering [his] chance of [her], . . . the great prize of [his] life." Chapter 34, Pg. 221
Quote 12: "You are very good. But it strikes me that there is a want of harmony between your present mood of self-sacrifice and your past mood of self-preservation." Chapter 35, Pg. 226
Quote 13: "I agree to the conditions, Angel; because you know best what my punishment ought to be; only - only - don't make it more than I can bear!" Chapter 37, Pg. 249
Quote 14: "nobody could love 'ee more than Tess did! . . . She would have laid down her life for 'ee. I could do no more." Chapter 40, Pg. 265
Quote 15: "You, and those like you, take your fill of pleasure on earth by making the life of such as me bitter and black with sorrow; and then it is a fine thing, when you have had enough of that, to think of securing your pleasure in heaven by becoming converted!" Chapter 45, Pg. 303
Quote 16: "How can I pray for you, when I am forbidden to believe that the great Power who moves the world would alter his plans on my account?" Chapter 46, Pg. 314
Quote 17: "'You have been the cause of my backsliding,' he continued, stretching his arm towards her waist; 'you should be willing to share it, and leave that mule you call husband forever.'" Chapter 47, Pg. 325
Quote 18: "Remember, my lady, I was your master once! I will be your master again. If you are any man's wife you are mine!" Chapter 47, Pg. 326
Quote 19: "O why have you treated me so monstrously, Angel ! I do not deserve it. I have thought it all over carefully, and I can never, never forgive you! You know that I did not intend to wrong you - why have you so wronged me? You are cruel, cruel indeed! I will try to forget you. It is all injustice I have received at your hands!" Chapter 51, Pg. 350
Quote 20: "[t]oo late, too late!."Chapter 55, Pg. 371
Quote 21: "his original Tess had spiritually ceased to recognize the body before him as hers - allowing it to drift, like a corpse upon the current, in a direction disassociated from its living will." Chapter 55, Pg. 372
Quote 22: "O, you have torn my life all to pieces . . . made me be what I prayed you in pity not to make me be again!" Chapter 56, Pg. 374
Quote 23: "[T]he President of the Immortals, . . . had ended his sport with Tess . And the d'Urberville knights and dames slept on in their tombs unknowing." Chapter 59, Pg. 390
Chapter 4
Fatalism 1: Fatalism is an important part of the story because it is what perpetuates the action. The decisions that Tess makes and the things that happen to her in the beginning of the novel begin a domino effect that cannot be reversed. Her fate is already chosen and all she can do is live through the events that happen to her. The first view of fatalism is when Joan believes that she has read Tess's fate in an astrological book. According to the book, Tess is going to marry a gentleman. It sounds like a happy fate, and it turns out to be true, but Tess marries a gentleman that makes her life miserable, and she doesn't marry him until every chance for happiness seems to have passed her by.
Fatalism 2: Tess presents for the first time her view that the world she lives in is spoiled and rotten. This is a continuing view for Tess, especially in light of the events that unfold in her life.
Chapter 5
Fatalism 3: The author often incorporates fatalistic speeches into the text, and this is the first time we see that happen. He points out that this moment, the meeting of Tess and Alec, has set into motion events that cannot be changed.
Chapter 11
Fatalism 4: When Tess is seduced, it is only one event fulfilling the sad destiny set into motion when she and Alec met on her first visit to Tantridge. It is meant to be, good or bad. Unfortunately for Tess, it's mostly bad.
Chapter 12
Fatalism 5: Tess's mother takes a fatalistic view of what has happened to Tess. Instead of being upset that her daughter was taken advantage of, Joan seems to think that it was meant to happen, so they should just make the best of the situation and move on.
Chapter 24
Fatalism 6: Tess realizes that her love for Angel and his love for her is inevitable. She decides that there is little she can do to stop it, so she is going to quit standing in the way of it (or at least try not to).
Chapter 34
Fatalism 7: Tess believes that things between she and Angel will be okay because his history is the same as hers, but what she doesn't realize is that telling him about Alec is going to change her relationship with Angel forever, and she will not be able to change it back to the way it was when they were so happy together.
Chapter 46
Fatalism 8: Tess tells Alec that she doesn't feel that her prayers move God because He already has His plans made and what she wants makes no difference because she is not important enough for Him to change them.
Chapter 55
Fatalism 9: Tess has given up on happiness, love, and Angel and seems to feel that her life can continue without her seeming to be an active participant. She is going through the motions of living, letting her body do what it was destined to do without bringing her emotions or her soul into it. She is hollowed by what she has endured, but her fate must be fulfilled, so she continues living without feeling.
Chapter 58
Fatalism 10: Tess accepts what's going to happen to her as the natural end to the events that started when she went to Tantridge so long ago. Her joy is that she and Angel were reunited, if only briefly, and that he loves her again. Everything else that has happened to her, no matter how unfair, fades away in light of that love. Because of this feeling, she gives Angel to her younger sister, knowing that they will make each other happy because she is the best aspects of Tess that he loved so well.
Chapter 59
Fatalism 11: Tess's life has reached its fated end, and no one outside of her family and Angel are any the wiser or at all affected. Her small life, so tangled and tortured, is over and the world remains unchanged. Her story was only a small one, significant on a small scale, and she was a plaything for God, and nothing more really. Even Angel and Liza Lu will go on without her. So Tess and her d'Urberville heritage lived her life for very little purpose in the grand scheme of things.
Chapter 3
Sacrifice 1: Tess makes many sacrifices throughout the novel. Sometimes she is doing it because she is forced, and sometimes her sacrifices are because she's doing what she feels is the right thing. Several times the sacrifices that she makes are for her family. In this instance, she is sacrificing her time to play mother to her younger siblings so that her parents can go drink at the pub.
Chapter 6
Sacrifice 2: Tess does not want to go work for Alec d'Urberville in Tantridge because she doesn't feel right about the situation. Despite her misgivings, her family pushes her to go, and she sacrifices her better judgment to please her family.
Chapter 12
Sacrifice 3: Tess ends up sacrificing her innocence and virginity because her family wants her to go try to get money from their "relatives."
Sacrifice 4: Tess's sacrifice goes unnoticed and unappreciated because her mother considers what happened to her "part of nature," so Tess made this great sacrifice for nothing.
Chapter 21
Sacrifice 5: Tess is willing to give up her chance with Angel because she thinks that the other girls deserve him more because they are unspoiled and innocent. She feels that it would be fairer to the girls and to Angel if she had nothing to do with him because she is so unworthy of him. She even half-heartedly tries to get him to like the other girls.
Chapter 27
Sacrifice 6: Tess continues to try to deny Angel although she loves him. She is trying to protect him, the other girls, and maybe even herself, because she feels that he deserves someone as pure as he thinks Tess is.
Chapter 28
Sacrifice 7: Tess finds it impossible to give Angel up, although she believes it is the right thing to do. She loves him too much to let him go, so she changes the pattern of self-sacrifice and tries to be selfish by allowing herself to love Angel and to accept his love in return.
Chapter 31
Sacrifice 8: Tess yo-yos back and forth between her desire to have Angel and to give him up for the good of the other girls and Angel himself. Their kindness makes her feel as if she should give him up again, but his persistence makes it difficult for her.
Chapter 35
Sacrifice 9: Now that Angel sees her so differently, Tess is willing to do anything to make him care for her again, even going so far as to offer to kill herself. All she wants is for Angel to love her as he did before he knew about her past.
Chapter 37
Sacrifice 10: Angel insists that they separate, so, to make it easier for him, she goes along with everything he says although it's killing her to be pushed away. She sacrifices her feelings to make it easy for him to mistreat her because what he's doing to her is hypocritical and unfair, but she takes it.
Chapter 38
Sacrifice 11: Tess hardly has enough money to take care of herself and her parents have been cruel to her by insinuating that she is a tramp, but she still leaves them with half of the money that Angel gave her before they split up.
Chapter 50
Sacrifice 12: Tess makes the greatest sacrifice she can for the good of her family by giving up her right to Angel and her hope that he'll come back for her so that she can marry Alec d'Urberville to provide for her family.
Chapter 58
Sacrifice 13: Tess essentially sacrificed her life to be with Angel when he finally came back for her. She knew that if she killed d'Urberville, she'd be executed, but she did it anyway so that she could be with Angel with nothing between them. She gave up her life for love of Angel Clare, a man who had abandoned her because another man had taken advantage of her.
Tess Durbeyfield, the pretty and conscientious daughter of John Durbeyfield, is with other young girls at the dance on the village green. Angel Clare and his older brothers take a break from their walking tour of the countryside to watch the girls dancing on the green at Marlott, and Angel joins in. He dances with several girls before he has to leave to catch his brothers who have gone on without him. As he's leaving, he sees Tess for the first time and regrets not seeing her sooner so that he could have danced with her. He cannot stay to dance, however, so he leaves without ever speaking to her, little knowing that he will see her again. He looks back from the top of the hill and sees that Tess is the only one not dancing and thinks that he has hurt her feelings, which he had, but he walks on.
Tess is a little worried when she's at the dance and sees her father taking a carriage home; it's a luxury her family can't afford. She leaves the dance early to go home and make sure everything is okay. Joan Durbeyfield, Tess's mother, is excited to tell her eldest child of the news that John Durbyfield is a d'Urberville. Durbeyfield himself is down at the pub telling the townspeople the news, and Joan makes an excuse to go and get him. Tess watches her younger siblings. She is more of a parent to the children than either of her parents. It begins getting late, and knowing that her parents will not come home soon on their own, Tess sends Abraham, her younger brother, to fetch them. Time passes and they still haven't come home, so she has to lock the younger children in the cottage and fetch her parents and brother on her own.
D'Urberville, in his mother's name, sends a letter to Tess offering her a job at the manor in Tantridge taking care of the chickens and finches. Tess doesn't want to go there, although she isn't quite sure why she feels that way. She tries to find work in Marlott with no success. D'Urberville stops by her family's house one day while she is out job-hunting and tells the Durbeyfields how impressed he is with Tess and how much his mother wants Tess to work for her (although his mother has no idea what's going on). Joan thinks this means that Mrs. d'Urberville is going to take Tess in and claim her as a relative and marry her to Alec. Tess doesn't feel so sure that this is an accurate interpretation of the job offer, but her family guilts her into going to work there despite her reluctance.
Tess's first day at the d'Urberville manor she is introduced to Mrs. d'Urberville and is treated no differently than any other servant. Mrs. d'Urberville instructs Tess to whistle to the bullfinches that Mrs. d'Urberville treats as pets and Alec surprises Tess as she's practicing her whistling in the garden. He seems to harmlessly advise her on how to improve her whistling, and although his advice works, she still doesn't trust him or like him much.
In the days that follow, Alec makes it a point to spend time around Tess alone so that he can get her used to his presence and wear down her guard. He even calls her "cousin" when no one else is around to make himself seem less a threat to her. Tess isn't fooled, especially when she notices his boots peeking beneath the curtains in the room where the bullfinches are kept. Her whistling becomes so distracted that Alec knows she must be aware of his presence, so he doesn't hide there anymore. Tess checks throughout the room everyday before she begins her whistling just to be sure he's not there.
Tess is walking back to her parents' home in Marlott four months after leaving for the d'Urberville manor in Tantridge and only two weeks after Alec d'Urberville seduced her. She is saddened and disgusted by what happened, and her innocent view of the world is gone because of what he did to her. Alec catches up with Tess in a carriage and insists on driving her the rest of the way home if she refuses to come back to Tantridge with him, which she does. She agrees to ride with him because she has nothing left to fear from him. He's already taken from her what she wanted to protect anyway. He seems sad that she does not love him, but he doesn't seem to feel any remorse for what he did to her. She notices his indifference to her sadness and explains to him that she really had no idea what he was doing until it was too late. Only after her sincere explanation does he seem to understand how he's wronged her, but even then, he's not all that sorry for taking advantage of her. He offers her money to try to compensate her, but she is too proud to take it. He tells her that if she needs anything, he'll be in London and she can write to him there for anything, but she wants nothing from her fake cousin.
Alec drops Tess at the edge of town as she wishes, and a young man who is traveling the countryside painting scripture on the sides of barns walks along with her. When he paints one barn along her path, his chosen scripture, "THY, DAMNATION, SLUMBERETH, NOT. 2 Pet. ii. 3," Chapter 12, pg. 78 makes her feel more guilty despite the fact that her sin was not her doing. The artist mentions that Mr. Clare, a fiery preacher, is preaching in her village, but Tess wants only to go home.
Joan Durbeyfield is surprised to see her daughter come home. When Tess brokenly explains what happened with Alec, Joan is angry that her daughter did not force Alec to marry her, if for no other reason than the good of the family. But Alec never meant to marry Tess and she doesn't want him anyway, so that wouldn't have worked out. Tess feels angry with her mother for never telling her what happens between men and women so that she might have protected herself, but Joan's excuse is that she thought it might scare Tess away from Alec and ruin her chances of marrying him. Joan tells Tess that sex is part of nature and nature pleases God, so she must make the best of the situation. There is no pity for Tess's situation.
Topic Tracking: Fatalism 5
Topic Tracking: Sacrifice 4
Old friends come visit Tess that afternoon, expecting that she's a lady now, or soon will be. Joan plays along so that even Tess gets a little caught up in the attention and forgets what's happened to her, forgets that no gentleman is going to marry her, especially now that she's been ruined. In the months that follow her return to Marlott, Tess is quite depressed and leaves the house very little except at twilight when she goes outside and feels as close to peace as she can. She is pregnant.
Not long after having the baby in August, Tess becomes a thresher. She works in the fields in an attempt to snap out of the funk she's been in and regain some independence. She remains somewhat isolated from the other workers, and at noon, Liza Lu, her younger sister, brings Tess food from home and the baby to nurse. Tess seems ashamed of the child, but she seems to love it as well, and the people of Marlott make it a point not to shame Tess because they think it a shame that such a thing should happen to a girl as kind as Tess.
Shortly after the baby is born and Tess begins working in the field, her baby becomes ill, which is no surprise because it was so small and weak to begin with. Tess becomes distraught when she realizes that she's not had her child baptized, but her father refuses to allow her to call a pastor because he self-righteously feels that she's brought enough shame on their house already. Tess decides to baptize the baby, Sorrow, herself. The child dies the following morning and Tess convinces the preacher to allow her to bury the baby in an undesirable corner of the town cemetery where other ungodly people are buried. She makes a cross and leaves flowers on the grave on her infant son.
A year passes and Tess marks the important days - her birth, her humiliation, the birth and death of her child - and she notes that the only other significant date in her life she does not yet know is the date of her death. Wishing to find some place to start over where no one knows of her past, she finds out that a dairymaid is needed at Talbothays in a village south of her home. She decides to go there hoping that her innocence and happiness will return.
Tess arrives at Talbothays dairy where she's going to make her second attempt at independence. It has been between two and three years since she came home from Tantridge ruined by her encounter with Alec d'Urberville. At the age of twenty she has risen from her depression and hopes to begin life anew and she is optimistic. The land that she is moving to is the land of her d'Urberville ancestors, but she no longer considers that part of her life important.
When Tess finds Talbothays, she begins work immediately. As she is milking the cows she notices a young man who does not quite fit in although he is milking cows just like everyone else. The dairyman refers to the young man as "sir" and the man is dressed nicer than the other dairy workers. The young man seems soft-spoken and has a thoughtful manner about him, and the other dairymaids tell her that he is Angel Clare, son of Parson Clare in the village of Emminister. Angel is learning about all the branches of farming before he begins his own farm, and he keeps his distance from the dairy workers because he's always lost in his own thoughts. When he stands up, Tess recognizes him as the young man who stopped and danced with the girls of Marlott, except for her. She worries for a moment that he may somehow recognize her and know of her past, but she soon sees that he does not know who she is.
Tess sleeps above the milk house with three other dairymaids, Marian, Izz Rhuett, and Rhetty.
Angel's parents expected him to be a minister like his father and brothers, but much to his parents' dismay, he didn't agree with all of the harsh doctrines of the church as his father and brothers did, so he could not be a clergyman. His father did not send him to college since he was not going to do God's work. Angel tried to learn a profession in London, but he found after a short time there and a brief encounter with an older woman that city life was not for him. There is little left for him but farm life, which is fine with Angel because he will be free to do things his way and to think as he chooses.
At Talbothays, Angel sleeps in the attic above the dairymaids and although he takes meals with the other dairy workers, the dairyman's wife seats him at a separate and slightly removed table because he is of a higher class than the dairy workers.
Angel finally notices Tess one morning as she speaks of a fantasy she has of leaving her body and looking down at the world as she lies in the grass at twilight. His attention embarrasses her, so she looks down as he studies her from across the room. He thinks there is something familiar about her, but he can't place her and doesn't really try to. He's just intrigued by a dairymaid who thinks such interesting things.
Days go by and Tess and Angel get to know each other better. Tess is worried about saying something stupid and ruining his opinion of her, and Angel is curious how someone as young as Tess has such a melancholy view of the world and life. Their love begins when he goes out of his way to help her out with her chores at milking time and she overhears him playing his harp in the garden and he catches her listening. The more time they spend together, the more their interest and affection grows. She respects his intellect and looks at him as almost god-like because he is so knowledgeable. His education makes her feel how lacking and unworthy she is. She tells him, "My life looks as if it had been wasted for want of chances! When I see what you know, what you have read, and seen, and thought, I feel what a nothing I am!" Chapter 19, pg. 124
Angel sees in Tess the questioning disillusion he felt toward the world himself earlier in his life. Tess considers telling Angel of her heritage as a way to impress him, but the dairyman warns her that Angel thinks lowly of noble families because they live on reputation only.
It is one of Tess's duties to wake the dairyman and the dairymaids at 3 a.m. to begin the workday and she and Angel are often the first ones out of the house. In the pre-dawn moments, Angel and Tess are alone together and Angel thinks Tess is mystical, like a goddess before the sun comes up. When the sun rises, she returns to being the pretty milkmaid. They are falling in love and Tess is the happiest then that she has ever been or will ever be.
The following day Tess makes it a point to call Angel's attention to Izz and Rhetty expecting him to turn his attention to one of them. Believing that it's better for all involved if he loves one of them, she makes it a point to avoid him after that so that she's not in the way of the other girls.
Angel arrives back at Talbothays just as the nap hour of the afternoon is ending and he catches Tess alone downstairs. He hugs her and tells her that he's come back so soon just to see her. He helps Tess skim the milk from the morning and they are alone together. He asks her to marry him and Tess refuses him as she's sworn to herself and Marian, Izz, and Rhetty, that she would although she wants nothing more than to marry Angel. Angel asks if she loves him, and she admits that she does, but she insists that she does not want to be married. He thinks she is just startled or is being coy, although it's unlike her, so he promises to give her time before asking her to marry him again. She tells him that she is too lowly for him and that his parents would be unhappy with her as his wife, which he denies in spite of its truth.
To change the subject, Angel tells Tess about his father's encounter with Alec d'Urberville, and although he does not say the name, Tess knows from his description that Angel is talking about Alec. Angel has no idea that bringing up Alec will only harden Tess's resolve to refuse Angel because he knows nothing of her history with Alec. So after he tells Tess the story, he, thinking he is bringing up a new subject, asks Tess to consider marrying him, and she refuses to even consider marrying Angel because her history with Alec is fresh in her mind.
Angel asks her again why she won't marry him if she loves him as she seems to, and he refuses to accept the excuse that she is from a different social class because it does not matter to him whether she's lower class or middle class. She agrees that she will tell him what makes her unworthy of him on Sunday, and he almost mocks her in agreeing to wait because he does not believe that anyone who looks and acts as innocent as Tess could be anything but spotless. He thinks that the experience that she's worrying over will be something quite trivial that she's blown out of proportion.
Tess, meanwhile, is so anxious that everyone leaves her alone for the rest of the week. She feels the inevitability of giving in to Angel's proposal, but she thinks that it's unfair to him to let him marry her without knowing the full story of her life. Yet she is greatly tempted to marry him and be happy until he finds out about Alec. She is torn about what to do and says, "I can't bear to let anybody have him but me! Yet it is wrong Tess him, and may kill him when he knows!" Chapter 28, pg. 175
Although Tess had been ready to give in to Angel and agree to marry him, a story told at the dairy reinforces her resolve to refuse Angel's proposal for his own good. The story she heard was about a man who married a widow for her money only to find out once they were married that when she married him, she had forfeited the money.
From summer to September Angel subtly works on Tess, refusing to be turned down. He wins her over bit by bit and the day comes when he tells her that if she does not accept, he must leave Talbothays dairy. Tess asks for time to think during the day. That afternoon Tess and Angel take the milk to town in the wagon so they can be alone to talk.
Tess feels more urgently that she must tell Angel about Alec when they are shopping together and some man from Tantridge recognizes her. The stranger makes a comment about the rumors about Tess's reputation and Angel punches him. The man then says that he had mistaken her for someone else to make peace, but he knows that he's right about her.
Topic Tracking: Coincidence 10
When they return to the dairy, Tess writes a letter explaining what happened with Alec d'Urberville and slips it under Angel's door before she can change her mind. She waits to see what he has to say about it, but he never brings it up and the way he treats her does not change at all. As a result, she thinks he has forgiven her and she is relieved. It only occurs to her on the morning of their wedding that he might not have gotten the letter, so she goes up to his room to look for it. The letter is stuck beneath the carpet at the edge of the door. He never got it, and it is too late to tell him because they are preparing to leave for the wedding. She tries to tell him that she needs to tell him all her flaws, and he promises that they'll talk about it after the wedding.
They have their small wedding, and Tess notices that the carriage that is taking them back to the dairy and then to their new rooms at the manor is dark and scary-looking. Angel makes some reference to a legend about the d'Urberville family and carriages, but she doesn't know the story. Angel thinks it's a bad time to tell her that one of her ancestors killed someone in a carriage and the story is that d'Urbervilles see the carriage before something bad happens to them, so Tess goes on ignorant of the story but dreading having to tell Angel about Alec and her past.
As Tess and Angel are leaving the dairy, a rooster crows in the afternoon, and all the dairy workers are disturbed because country people believe that to be a bad omen.
Tess's story drastically changes the way that Angel feels about her. He feels that he's not even with the same woman he loved because she does not truly exist. He thinks she is manipulative because she did not tell him of her history before they were married. She offers to do whatever he wants her to do and he says, "You are very good. But it strikes me that there is a want of harmony between your present mood of self-sacrifice and your past mood of self-preservation." Chapter 35, pg. 226 Angel blames her lack of morals on her heritage and upbringing, and although he acknowledges that Alec took advantage of her, he still thinks less of her. Tess, in desperation to please him, offers to drown herself or be his servant, his slave, anything, but nothing works to console him because he was in love with his image of her and not herself.
As Tess sleeps that night, she is awakened when Angel comes into her room. He is sleepwalking as he does when he is stressed. He wraps her in a sheet like a corpse and carries her body to the abandoned abbey near the manor. He lays her in a stone coffin and kisses her mouth as if saying goodbye. She does nothing to disturb him because this sleepwalking, grieving affection is the most attention she's had from him since she told him about her past. She leads him back home and he does not mention the walk the following morning, so she says nothing of it either.
They leave the manor together so no one is suspicious, and they stop by the dairy to pick up their few remaining possessions. Although they try to pretend nothing's wrong, the dairyman's wife thinks they seemed odd together.
Tess and Angel part ways at a village not far from Marlott. Angel tells Tess not to come to him unless he sends for her. He says he may come back for her, but he doesn't know yet. He promises to write and let her know where he is. She agrees to everything he says, saying "I agree to the conditions, Angel; because you know best what my punishment ought to be; only - only - don't make it more than I can bear!" Chapter 37, pg. 249 Angel gives her money and tells her to write to his parents if she needs more. As Tess walks away, Angel wishes that she would look back and wave, but she is too hurt by his cruelty to do so.
To draw no further attention from men, Tess wraps her face like she has a toothache and cuts off her eyebrows. She wants no attention if it's not from her husband. She makes her way to Flintcomb Ash, the place where Marian works, and is hired on at the same farm. Marian is sympathetic to Tess about Angel, and Tess insists that no one is to know that she's married or who her husband is because she thinks that he would be ashamed of her.
Marian and Tess dig turnips in the fields until it snows, and then they are sent into the barn to husk and stack sheaves of corn, difficult labor for women. Izz shows up at the farm to work there after getting a letter from Marian as well, and the three of them are together again without Rhetty because she's still not doing well.
While they're working in the barn, Tess recognizes two of the women as the Queen of Spades and her sister from Tantridge, the women who picked the fight with her the night that Alec d'Urberville seduced her. The women don't recognize her.
That is not the only Tantridge connection, however, because when the farm owner arrives to check their work, Tess is dismayed to see that it is the man from Tantridge that she and Angel encountered in the inn and that she ran from on the road only days before. He treats her poorly as a way of getting back at her for the way Angel hit him at the inn and the way she ignored him on the road only days before.
Topic Tracking: Coincidence 12
Tess has to stay late to work more because she works a little slower than the other women, so Marian and Izz stay to help her. While Tess is resting at one point, Izz tells Marian about her encounter with Angel. Then when Izz goes to rest, Marian tells Tess about it. Tess is crushed that Angel would do such a thing, but she thinks it is her own fault for not writing to him so that he knows she is waiting for him. She tries to write him a letter that night, but she doesn't know what to say. She knows he does not love her, or he would have come for her or written to her. He wouldn't have asked Izz to go with him to Brazil.
Tess, driven to near desperation by what she's learned, decides to go to Angel's parents to find out news of him. She begins the thirty-mile walk at 4 a.m. on a Sunday morning and arrives before church is out. She hides her walking boots in a hedge at the edge of town and puts on the pretty shoes Angel gave her before they were married so that she will look presentable to her in-laws. She is very nervous about meeting them, so instead of waiting at their home, she goes back to the edge of town to wait for a while so that she will not interrupt their lunch. Before she makes it through town, however, church lets out and people are in the streets. Behind her on the road two young men walk and talk together and they sound like Angel, so she realizes that they are his brothers. As they walk past her to catch up with Mercy Chant walking alone in front of her, Tess overhears them say what a shame it is that Angel went and married some lowly dairymaid when he should have married Mercy.
Tess, expecting that the whole family feels that way, is crushed and decides to return to the farm immediately, but before she can get her walking boots, Angel's brothers have noticed them in the hedge and taken them to give to someone needy in their village.
Halfway back to the farm, Tess passes a barn where some fiery preacher is talking about his past sinful ways and how he was changed by the words of one elderly pastor he was cruel to. Tess recognizes the voice as that of Alec d'Urberville.
Topic Tracking: Coincidence 13
Tess stands paralyzed as Alec quotes scripture and only when she moves as she prepares to leave does he notice her among the crowd. He falters in his speech and she leaves as quickly as possible. He catches up with her on the road and tells her that he wishes to convert her, but she doesn't buy into his piety because it's too drastic a change. She tells him,
"You, and those like you, take your fill of pleasure on earth by making the life of such as me bitter and black with sorrow; and then it is a fine thing, when you have had enough of that, to think of securing your pleasure in heaven by becoming converted!" Chapter 45, pg. 303
He swears he's changed his ways, but he does worry that seeing her might be too much temptation and might stir up old feelings. He asks her to cover her face with her veil so that she might not tempt him and makes her swear that she won't intentionally tempt him. She appeases him just to get him to go away because she likes him even less than she did before and he leaves her.
Tess is sitting in the window of her parents' cottage at night thinking of how she's moving the family to Kingsbere the following day. Alec rides up and she doesn't even notice him until he taps on the window. She tells him that she thought she'd heard a carriage pass, but she paid no attention to it, so she wasn't looking for him. He takes that opportunity to tell her the d'Urberville legend about how the carriage is a bad omen for d'Urbervilles.
Alec offers her family the cottage she lived in at Tantridge while she tended birds there, but Tess refuses the offer.
When Alec finally leaves, Tess writes another letter to Angel that says:
"O why have you treated me so monstrously, Angel! I do not deserve it. I have thought it all over carefully, and I can never, never forgive you! You know that I did not intend to wrong you - why have you so wronged me? You are cruel, cruel indeed! I will try to forget you. It is all injustice I have received at your hands!" Chapter 51, pg. 350
Joan Durbeyfield knows that Alec stopped by while she was gone, but Tess won't tell her what he wanted until they are settled in Kingsbere the following day.
Tess is beginning to feel that, as much as she dislikes Alec d'Urberville, he is the only husband she has ever had, physically and financially. Her resistance is weakened by his persistence and Angel's indifference.
Angel goes to Flintcomb Ash because that is where her loving letter was sent. While he's there, he finds out that she did not tell anyone that she was married, and she did not use his name. He also learns how hard she worked on the farm there and sees that she must've needed money and was too proud to ask his parents for it. He feels awful for the way that Tess had to live while he was gone.
He tracks her to Marlott, where she went to tend to her parents, and in trying to find out where they've gone to next, he stumbles across the burial plot of Tess 's father in the churchyard. He's buried as "Sir John Durbeyfield," and the church caretaker enjoys explaining to Angel that for all his high family tree, Durbeyfield's headstone isn't even paid for. Angel learns that Joan is in Tantridge, and as he's leaving town, he pays the mason for Durbeyfield's headstone.
When he finally finds Joan, she sheepishly tells him that Tess is in Sandbourne, so he heads in that direction after making sure that Tess's mother doesn't need anything.
Angel is leaving town, but he can't stand still long enough to wait for the train, so he starts walking in the direction of home. Tess, running behind him, finally catches him. She tells him that she's killed Alec so that he can't come between them again. Angel isn't sure if Tess is delusional or serious, so they begin walking through the woods just in case. They find a vacant manor house to hide in and Angel has gotten enough food to last them for days. They have little more than a vague idea of lying low for a while and then going to a port town and leaving the country to escape Tess's crime.
Angel and Liza Lu walk hand in hand away from the prison, leaving the city quickly. They look serious and intent. The bell of the town tolls 8 a.m. as they hurry away. When the reach the top of a hill outside the town, they turn and look back in time to see a black flag raised above the prison. They know that Tess has been executed and they kneel together there before they walk away hand in hand. "[T]he President of the Immortals, . . . had ended his sport with Tess. And the d'Urberville knights and dames slept on in their tombs unknowing." Chapter 59, pg. 390