Introduction main part

II. DISCUSSION

In TessoftheD’UrbervillesHardy firmly establishes the imaginative reality of Wessex. The novel contains many examples of faithfully recorded local geography and rustic life in which Hardy renders the sights and smells of the countryside with such evocative sensuousness or surrounds daily tasks with such intimate tenderness. Hardy’s descriptions cover that of the landscape, the occupations, rural superstitions, markets and fairs of Wessex.

2.1 Description of the Landscape

Tess of the D’Urbervilles contains elaborate descriptions of the Wessex landscape, and as Tess’s abode or the place of her work keeps changing, the landscape changes too.
The opening chapters pertain to Tess’s life in the place of her birth. Tess lives in the village of Marlott which lies amid the north-eastern slopes and undulations of the beautiful Vale of Blackmoor. The vale is an engirdled and secluded region whose acquaintance can best be made by viewing it from the summits of the surrounding hills. The village of Marlott is a small town easily managed by visitors and townsfolk alike. It is enclosed by hills, lying under a blue haze―the cradle of innocence. The vast countryside of the novel, the rich farmland or the poorer farm areas, outlines an important part of nineteenth-century English agriculture, one where the newly founded Industrial Revolution has yet to take hold. It is a fertile and sheltered tract of country, and is bounded on the south by the bold chalk ridge that embraces the hillocks of Hambledon, Buldarrow, Nettlecombe-Tout, Dogbury, High Stoy, and Bubb Down².
Here, in the valley, the world seems to be constructed upon a smaller and more delicate scale the fields are mere paddocks, so reduced that from this height their hedgerows appear a network of dark green threads overspreading the paler green of the grass.
The landscape changes when Tess goes to Talbothays situated in the Valley of the Great Dairies which presents a different scene altogether: It was intrinsically different from Blackmoor Vale
The river itself, which nourished the grass and cows of the renowned dairies, flowed not like the streams in Blackmoor. The Froom waters were clear as the pure River of Life shown to the Evangelist. (Hardy, 1991:132-133)
The wide misty setting of Talbothays dairy is oozing fatness and warm ferments, where the rush of juices can almost be heard below the hiss of fertilization and that happy green tract of land where summer has been liberal in her gifts―the sensual dream, the lost paradise. We have marvelous colour photography of the two vales, the one she is leaving and the one she goes to the valley of the Great Dairies, watered by River Froom. The Froom waters are portrayed as clear as the pure River of Life shown to the Evangelist.
The setting of Talbothays, where Tess experiences her greatest happiness, is lush, green, and fertile. Talbothays is portrayed as a beautiful place in a rich agricultural region of southern England³.
the valley in which milk and butter grew to rankness, and were produced more profusely, if less delicately, than at her home―the verdant plain so well watered by the river Var or Froom. (Hardy, 1991: 132)
The life of the dairy, with milking, churning butter, and making cheeses are so charming. The reader is also informed that at Talbothays, in the Valley of the Great Dairies, milk and butter grow to rankness and are produced in profusion. The scenery here is cheering enough; the air is bracing and ethereal; the water of the Froom River is clear and pure.
The landscape then changes to Flintcomb-Ash, the land which is in complete contrast to the luxuriance of Talbothays. It is the land where Tess passes a grim winter in Angel’s absence. It is Tess’s next place of work which is situated on the irregular chalk-table, or plateau which stretched between the valley of her birth (the Blackmoor Vale) and the valley of her love (the Valley of the Great Dairies where she falls in love with Angel Clare). The atmosphere and the climate of Flintcomb-Ash are portrayed in the following quotation:
…towards the second evening she reached the irregular chalk table-land or plateau, bosomed with semi-globular tuniuli-as if Cybele the Many-breasted were supinely extended there-which stretched between the valey of her birth and the valley of her love. (Hardy, 1991: 320)
Here the air is dry and cold. There are few trees. The soil is stubborn. The onset of the winter here is described by Hardy as if he were a painter showing us the season in all its moods⁴.
Then one day a peculiar quality invaded the air of this open country. There came moisture which was not of rain and a cold which was not of frost. (Hardy, 1991: 328)
The starved uplands of Flintcomb-Ash with their ironic mimicry of the male sex organ (“myriads of loose white flints in bulbous, cusped, and phallicshapes”), and the consuming ruin of the Swede field―the mockery of impotence, the exile. Flintcomb-ash, on the other hand with part of the name being “ash”, is mired in mud, rocks, poor conditions, and near starvation. Marian, formerly at Talbothays, has come to Flintcomb for work and she describes the Flintcomb-Ash farm as a “starve-acre place” where corn and swedes are all they grow, and there is no exaggeration in this description.
Then, when Tess is journeying to Emminster in order to try to meet Angel’s parents, Hardy gives us a vivid picture of the scenery which she sees on the way. The description of the scenery can be seen in the following quotation:
Still, to start on a brisk walk, and on such an errand as hers, on a dry clear wintry morning, through the rarefied air of those chalky hogs’-backs, was not depressing. (Hardy, 1991: 337)
The mention of the names of the landmarks here adds to the realism of the description:
Keeping the vale on her right, she steered steadily westward; passing above the Hintocks, crossing at right angles the high road from Sherton-Abbas to Casterbridge, and striking Dogbury Hill and High Stoy, with the dell between them called the Devil’s Kitchen...The second half of her journey was through a more gentle country, by way of Benvill Lane. (Hardy, 1991: 337)
Finally, when Tess is reunited with Angel for a short period of five days or so, we are taken into the depths of the New Forest. That is a rural forest park in Hampshire:
The changes of the weather were their only events, the birds of the New Forest their only company. (Hardy, 1991: 437)
Tess enjoys her short-lived happiness in an ideal environment till she and Angel arrive at Stonehenge where, after spending a night, she is taken into custody.
Stonehenge is a place of religious sacrifice. This ancient prehistoric monument of standing stones is located in Wiltshire’s England. It constitutes one of the most famous sites in the world. Stonehenge is composed of earthworks surrounding a circular setting of large standing stones and sits at the centre of the dense complex of Neolithic and Bronze Age monument in England, including several hundred burial mounds. It is a heathen temple older than the D’Urbervilles.