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death - Coggle Diagram

- - - - "I am ready"
        
        irectness conveys her calm surrender, highlighting her emotional exhaustion and fatalism.
        
        acceptance of death, symbolizing her resignation to an inevitable and final fate.
        
        death was often viewed as an unavoidable fate, particularly for women like Tess, whose lives were shaped by societal pressures and moral judgments.
  - - - "as she closed her eyes, it was not regret any longer but a sensation of abundant peace that washed over her."
        
        Mariam's death is a release from her life of abuse, pain, suffering, and hatred. Her death is an opportunity for Laila's freedom which is enough to give her peace and comfort.
        
        Before this moment, Mariam has lived through so much pain and injustice—abandonment by her father, an abusive marriage, and the weight of being a "harami". She has fought for love and belonging, especially in her relationship with Laila, but much of her life has been marred by sorrow. Yet, in this final moment, there is a sense of reconciliation with her life’s hardships
        
        signals her final release from the physical and emotional torment she endured throughout her life. It adds an emotional weight to her death, which is not just an end, but a moment of transcendence
- - - - "Tis all my doing"
        
        prompts the acceptance of her parents wish for her to go to the D'Urbervilles to seek a portion of the family fortune. This shows the true significance of the death of Prince as it forces Tess to help her parents as she feels she killed prince and 'ought to do something'.
      - Tess tells abraham that they live on a "blighted star"
        
        Princes death proves the fragility of life as poor working families (and therefore the lack of stability they need to have a successful living) and shows them as a victim of fate and the 'blighted' world they live on.
      - Prince's death also highlights the consequences of Tess's parent's irresponsible actions by sending out a 15 year old out with only her younger brother for company in the early hours of the morning. The fact that Tess feels she 'could go if Abraham could' go with her only highlights her young age and the fact that she feels incapable to have her own responsibility
        
        Hardy could be showing his distaste for the injustices of poverty stricken people during the 19th and early 20th centuries and the lack of responsibility Tess's parents had which increases sympathy in the reader for Tess and the plight of the working class.
      - "splashed from face to skirt with crimson drops"
        
        It can also be said that the driving of the stake into Princes body prophesises the rape of Tess in the forest. This seems almost paradoxical as in the novel both Tess and Prince are presented as innocent creatures that are victims to man and the modern world; as Prince (described as rickety as the old cart he pulled) is impaled by a modern mail cart and Tess is plagued by the presence of Alec D'Urberville.
        
        further involves her in the accident and forebodes her actions later in the novel
  - - - "They buried Nana in a corner"
        
        Mariam has lost the only consistent person in her life
        
        Nana has been neglected in life and death, and frowned upon by all due to her being shunned by her husband, having a baby out of wedlock and having undiagnosed epilepsy
      - It is Nana's death which causes Mariam to realise how "Nana had spoken the truth" about Jalil
        
        -Past tense verb, her death is truth and real, Mariam didn't want to believe it
        
        -After Nana's death Mariam understood everything she ever said, Nana had to die for Mariam to understand
      - 'Now all those familiar things were gone. Nana was dead and she was here,'
        
        -Loss of home and love
        -Feels she doesn't belong and is alone in the world
- - - - This child is the living representation of her sin: during the first part of the chapter it exists only as a symbol and not as an actual person, receiving a name only before its death. Even the name that Tess gives her infant child, Sorrow, represents the aftermath of her sin. Nevertheless, if Sorrow represents Tess's guilt over her weakness with Alec d'Urberville, Tess's reaction to her child is significant. At first Tess claims to detest the child, yet grows accustomed to it as a part of her, accepting this sin as inherent in her with a profound sense of self-loathing
      - "where all unbaptised infants, notorious drunkards, suicides, and others of the conjecturally damned are laid"
        
        This shows how there is a clear division in society with sinners and people who lived a good life, literal divisions in where they lay when they pass over. Shows how the blame is placed upon Tess when her impregnation is not her fault, she is held responsible for Alec's decisions, fate is written based on the circumstances of the family
        
        The isolated positioning of sorrow in the grave yard is emblematic of the isolation of people who are institutionally illegitimate within society. Because of the theocratic influence on society, people who do not match the expectations of the Church, are outcast and isolated from the rest of Victorian society (suggesting the theme of the other).
        
        The use of nettles suggests some twisted manipulation of nature to symbolically show how those who do not conform to the Churches expectations or are deemed institutionally illegitimate will upon death face eternal suffering inflicted by God.
        
        This could be Hardy criticising God's use of Hell to punish those who do not choose to sin like Sorrow and Tess but are inherently forced to by their isolation within society.
  - - - "It swelled and swelled until all the loss, all the grief, all the loneliness and self-abasement of her life washed away."
        
        Mariam being pregnant has given her purpose, comparison to Nana.
        Foreshadows that it's too good to be true, death and loss will return to her.
        
        Mariam’s miscarriages are not just personal tragedies—they symbolise how society robs women of purpose and identity. Her moment of hope is short-lived, showing how deeply the societal devaluation of women (especially childless women) is embedded in her psyche.
      - "The grief washed over her, swept her up, tossed her upside down."
        
        Metaphor, fluidity of water shows everchanging grief cycles
        
        Grief comes and goes but it is always there as a back thought, influence of the past on the present
        
        The metaphor of water reflects the uncontrollable nature of grief, paralleling how Mariam is at the mercy of societal tides. The repeated cycles of loss mirror how women are continually subjected to emotional and social erosion by a system that values them primarily for their ability to bear children.
      - "she believed that the baby had been an undeserved blessing"
        
        highlights Mariams self-depreciating nature. Mariam believes she doesn’t deserve happiness, mirroring how women are dehumanised by a patriarchal society that conditions them to feel unworthy of joy, even in motherhood.