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Phase the First (Joan Durbeyfield (Takes advantage of Tess’s naivety as a…
Phase the First
Joan Durbeyfield
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Manipulates Tess into going to the d’Urbervilles by saying she needs to do it for the family and the horse (makes her feel guilty)
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Tragic Elements
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Hamartia: Tess’s hamartia is her being a woman in a Victorian society, alongside her naivety and innocence (represented through her ‘white’ dress etc.)
Fate = Prince dying, external factors such as society’s views, sense of determinism
Hubris: given to male characters (John, Alec)
Tess fell asleep because of her hubristic father getting drunk from celebrating his ties to the d’Urbervilles (thus she got little sleep and then prince died)
Domestic tragedy- about the human condition, how humans affect / interact with other humans
Colour as a Theme
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Prince’s “crimson droplets” of blood splash her “white” dress from head to toe showing the loss of innocence in a violent manner (crimson blood connotes violence and impurity while “white” connotes innocence and purity)
Alec is associated with the colour “red”- red strawberries, the “red coal of a cigar” when he rapes her, he notices her “red” lips etc. which implies he is like the devil (this motif is maintained throughout the novel)
At the May dance, Tess wears a “red” ribbon and a “white” dress which shows she’s marked
“White hart” renamed “blackmoor”- White= innocence while black connotes ruin, darkness, corruption. Adumbrates her downfall.
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Idea of oppositions
“I’ll stand on this side of the wire netting, and you can keep on the other; so that you may feel quite safe” shows social and gendered divides. Dichotomy between male and female; rich and poor; good and evil; innocence and corruption. “Cage” = Alec is like an animal, sheltered in his upbringing much like Tess, yet Tess is good, and he is not.
Tess is sober while her friends are drunk (chapter 10) shows divide between classes (Alec isn’t drunk either, and comes to save her) = vulnerable
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Intrusive narration
Hardy is ‘telling’ not ‘showing’ (the sarcasm in ‘faithfully presented by Thomas Hardy’ on the cover, and the fact that phase the first is so adamantly named ‘the maiden’)