Nature in 'Tess of the D'Urbervilles' and Wuthering Heights

Pastoralism in ‘Tess’

Tess working - manual labour in Trantridge, Marlott, Talbothays and Flintcombe Ash - “farmer’s wife”, knows the craft

Idyllic life - “cows will show a fondness for a particular pair of hands”

“the fields are never dry”

“secluded world”

Tess as a “fresh milkmaid”

Angel’s pursuit of pastoralism - “wonderfully free of the chronic melancholy which is taking hold of the civilised forces”, “he had casually mentioned something to her about pastoral life in ancient Greece”

Machinery (vs nature) - “red arms of the reaping machine”, “the red tyrant”, the train unstoppable force of industrialisation - “whirl of material progress” - anti-pastoralism

CONTEXT: Hardy - machinery being invented in agriculture that subverts/ hinders the idyllic notion

Pastoralism in ‘W.H.’

Heatchliff’s manual labour - “insisted he should labour out of doors… as hard as any other lad on the farm”

W.H. + Yorkshire, contrasts Liverpool, - moors as idyllic - “a beautiful country… so completely removed from the stir of society”

Paganism in nature in ‘Tess’-

“Phases” symbolise phases of the moon - lunar cycles used as guides for planning and harvesting, celebrations and fetility

Angel refers to Tess as “Artemis” and “Demeter”, both nature goddesses

May Day dance in Phase the First - “The May-Day dance”, an old fertility ritual that “linger only in a metamorphosised or disguised uniform” - establishes Tess’ link with Nature

Stonehenge as a sacrificial altar - “the heathen temple”

“I think you are lying on an altar”

Sacrificed “to the sun”

Paganism in nature in Wuthering

Neither C1 nor Heathcliff will be permitted into heaven so nature is their paradise

Catherine and Heathcliff’s rejection of a traditional Christian heaven but rather wish to return to the moors and each other in death - dream in Chap 9, “they flung me out; into the middle of the heath”

Wander as ghosts in the moors - return to nature in death “he has seen two on ‘em… on every rainy night, since his death”

CONTEXT: Bronte herself was a rather unorthodox Christian, leaning into paganism, therefore would also have potentially rejected the Christian ideas of heaven

Nature and religion in ‘Tess’

Talbothays as Eden, Tess and Angel “as if they were Adam and Eve”

“red and yellow and purple hues”, “thistle milk”, “sticky blights” - Angel is playing the harp

Nature is their paradise, as Tess will not be able to enter the Christian version of heaven - “do you think we shall meet again after we are dead?” - Rejection of traditional Christian paradise, instead looking to nature

“Tess eating in a half-pleased, half-reluctant state whatever d'Urberville offered her” - forbidden fruit, connotations to the Fall

CONTEXT: Hardy moved away from the Christian teachings of his boyhood and became an agnostic

Nature and religion in W.H.

C2 and Linton’s discussion on what heaven looks like to them:

Linton’s - “bees humming dreamily among the bloom”, “larks singing”, “blue sky”, “bright sun”, “cloudlessly” - orderly and peaceful

Cathy’s - “rocking in a rustling green tree”, “west wind blowing”, “bright white clouds”, “long grass”, lots of wild birds - wils and uncultivated

Nature + characters in ‘Tess’

Tess - “fresh and virginal daughter or nature”

“peony mouth”

“like a fascinated bird” - birds throughout, pheasants in Chap 41 - “With the impulse of a soul who could feel for kindred sufferers as much as for herself, Tess’s first thought was to put the still living birds out of their torture”

Pathetic fallacy - “growing fog” in the Chase, summer in Talbothays - “it was impossible that the most fanciful love should not grow passionate”,

Rain in Wellbridge - “It soon began to rain. "That cock knew the weather was going to change," “

Winter at Flintcomb-Ash - “starve-acre plaace”, “sublime in its dreariness”

“Nature, in her fantastic tricleery, had set a seal of maidenhood upon Tess’ countenance”

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

“some spirit within her rose automatically as the sap in the twigs”

"She felt akin to the landscape"

“fresh and virginal daughter of Nature”

Tess as some sort of Nature goddess

Nature + characters in W.H.

C1 relates love to nature - “foliage” vs “rock”

“a moonbeam from lightning”, “frost from fire”

Dream - cast out of heaven into the moors - “they flung me out into the middle of the heath on the top of Wuthering Heights”

Pathetic fallacy - “growling thunder”, “great drops”, “violent wind” (storm)

Listing birds, “I should know it amongst a thousand” (going mad)

Grave - “half buried in heath”

C2 - both her and C1 find escapism in the moors - C2’s games of fairies and “the Fairy Cave”

“I know where I wish to go; where a colony of moor game are settled: I want to see whether they have made their nests yet.” - birds + the moors like her mother (cyclical, gothic conventions)

“and said she was that day an Arabian merchant, going to cross the Desert with his caravan” - escapism in the moors from small, confined world

Planting flowerbeds at W.H. - “planning an importation of plants from the Grange”

“sticking primroses in his porridge”

Pathetic fallacy (change in seasons)

Hareton - link between nature and modernisation/ civilisation - “gold put to the use of paving-stones”