Justice/ injustice in 'Tess of the D'Urbervilles' and 'Wuthering Heights'

Fate in ‘Tess’

“The Complete Fortune Teller” - superstition/ fate - “When they were together the Jacobean and the Victorian ages were juxtaposed” - “I tried her fate in the Fortune Teller”

“A blighted one”

“splashes from face to skirt in crimson drops”

“like a puppet”
“She had hoped to be a teacher at the school, but the fates seemed to decide otherwise”

“She regarded herself in the light of a murderess” (Chapter 4, Tess about Prince, however 'murderess' could forebode later events)

“where was Tess’s guardian angel?”

D’Urberville coach - motif

“the only person in the world who had any shadow of right to control her actions” (her mother)

'Tess sat up in the coffin' (chapter 37, foreboding Tess's death)

'She flung herself upon an oblong slab' (Like a coffin, similar to sleepwalking, Tess's destiny already decided)

“Why am I on the wrong side of this door”

'd'urbervilles figure darkened the window' (blocking the light, haunted by Alec, foreshadows misery to come)

"plaything of the immortals"

"why didn't you stay and love me when I was sixteen"

“It is too late!” - timing

“Justice was done, and the President of the Immortals had ended his sport with Tess.”

“And the D’Urberville knights slept on.”

Hardy as a didactic narrator

Fate in W.H.

Cyclical nature of generations - fated to repeat itself

BUT C2 and Hareton break the cycle

Death in ‘Tess’

Death of Prince - “pointed shaft of the cart had entered the breast of the unhappy Prince like a sword” - “‘Tis all my doing - mine!”

Death of Sorrow - “Poor Sorrow’s campaign against sin, the world, and the devil was doomed”

“that fragile servant and soldier breathed his last”

“she, for one, did not value the kind of heaven lost by irregularity”

Death of Alec’s mother - converts to Christianity

Death of her father - leaves them homeless - sudden and unexpected, reversal of mum and dad’s fate

Death of Alec - “The oblong white ceiling, with this scarlet blot in the midst, had the appearance of a gigantic ace of hearts” - tess has played the winning card, taken revenge

“I owed it to ‘ee, and to myself, Angel”

Death of Tess - “I am ready.”

“Justice was done, the President of the Immortals had ended his sport with Tess.”

“And the D’Urberville knights slept on”

Death in W.H.

Death of Old Mr Earnshaw -

Death of Catherine -

Death of Hindley - “God will not have the satisfaction that I shall “, but Hindley dies of natural causes - ambiguity of natu

Death of Isabella -

Death of Edgar -

Death of Linton -

Death of Heathclliff -

Societal expectations in ‘Tess’

'she had been made to break a necessary social law, but no law known to the environment in which she fancied herself such an anomaly'

“perhaps in that country of contrasting scenes and notions and habits the conventions would not be so operative which made life with her seem impracticable to him here”

“condemnation under an arbitrary law of society that had no foundation in nature”

“misery had been generated by the conventional aspect, and not by her innate sensations”

“a guilty woman in the guise of an innocent one”

“Once victim, always victim - that is the law!”

“Poor, wounded name” - “A pure woman”

Societal expectations W.H.

Religious injustice ‘Tess’

“THY DAMNATION SLUMBERETH NOT”

“suppose your sin was not of your own seeking?”

Baptism - reclaiming religious power - “The ecstasy of faith almost apotheosized her”, but Sorrow still dies - “that bastard gift of shameless Nature who respects not the civil law”

“The greater the sinner the greater the saint'“

“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!”

Holy cross - “‘Tis a thing of ill omen, Miss.”

“Poor, misnamed Angel”

“do you think we shall meet again after we are dead”

Religious justice W.H

Joseph’s religious hypocricy

C1 -