Tess of the d'Urbervilles - Themes and Quotes

Theme of Fate and Free Will

History determines the future, but there's no control. Different characters have different interpretations on fate. Is the tragedy caused by fate or freewill?

Fate and Free Will Quotes

"Complete Fortune-Teller" (CH3)

"It was my fate, I suppose" (CH8)

"some of Tess D'Urberville's mailed ancestors rollicking home from a fray had deal the same wrong" (CH11)

"It was to be" (CH11)

"they had deserved better at the hands of Fate" (CH43)

"decrepit families postulate decrepit wills" (CH35)

"I couldn't help your seeing me again!" (CH56)

Theme of Memory and Past

John wants to live in the past but Tess is continually re-living the family history while trying to run away from it. Does she hold on or escape?

Memory and Past Quotes

"The forests have departed, but some old customs still remain" (CH2)

"It had walked for hundred of years" (CH2)

"Ideal and real clashed" (CH2)

"Pedigree, ancestral skeletons" (CH2)

"Pooh - I have as much of mother as father in me!" (CH16)

"Druidical mistletoe was still found on age old oaks" (CH5)

Theme of Women and Femininity

Angel idealises Tess as an "every woman", not an individual. In his mind, she represents eternal and universal femininity. Tess has a unique relationship with nature that men don't have, she is more in touch with the outdoors.

Women and Femininity Quotes

"It had walked for hundreds of years, and it walked still." (CH2)

"beautiful feminine tissue" (CH11)

"when she becomes part and parcel of outdoor nature" (CH14)

"flower-like mouth and large tender eyes" (CH14)

"the milk oozed forth and fell in drops to the ground" (CH16)

"She was no longer a milkmaid, but a visionary essence of woman" (CH20)

"call me Tess" (CH27)

"he could see delicacy above the sunburn" (CH27)

Theme of Man and Natural World

Men are more like industry and modernisation, whereas women are more involved with the natural world and can immerse themselves in with nature.

Man and Natural World Quotes

"The house was overrun with ivy" (CH9)

"Above them rose the primeval yews and oaks of the Chase" (CH11)

"Her flexuous and stealthy figure became an integral part of the scene" (CH13)

"the bastard gift of shameless Nature who respects not the civil law" (CH14)

"Thus Tess walks on; a figure which is part of the landscape; a field-woman pure and simple"

Theme of Justice and Judgment

If Tess isn't responsible for her actions, why is she continually punished? Critics call Hardy sadistic for constantly punishing Tess for sins out of her control.

Justice and Judgment Quotes

"She had been made to break a necessary social law, but no law known in environment in which she fancied herself such an anomaly." (CH13)

"But now that her moral sorrows were passing away a fresh one arose on the natural side of her" (CH14)

"her sole idea seemed to be to shun mankind" (CH13)

"their whispered remarks to one another upon her strange situation" (CH41)

"outside humanity, she had at present no fear" (CH41)

"why she have been punished so persistently?" (CH51)

"Justice" was done, and the President of the Immortals had ended his sport with Tess" (CH59)

Theme of Contrasting Regions

The struggle between new modernisation and retaining the old countryside - the mail cart kills Prince.

Contrasting Regions Quotes

"bad weather is apt to engender dissatisfaction with its narrow, tortuous and miry ways." (CH2)

"everything looked like money" (CH5)

"They crept along towards a point in the expanse of shade before them at which a feeble light was beginning to assert its presence" (CH30)

"fearing towns, large houses, people of means and social sophistication, and of manners other than rural" (CH41)

"He was in the agricultural world, but not of it" (CH47)

Theme of Marriage

Marriage is a social convention, a practise invented by the people. It's learnt. What's a social marriage and a natural marriage? Who is Tess' natural husband?

Marriage Quotes

"And if he don't marry her afore, he will after" (CH7)

"the perfection of masculine beauty, his soul the soul of a saint, his intellect that of a seer." (CH31)

"I should carry you off then as my property" (CH32)

"She was Mrs Angel Clare, indeed, but had she any moral right to the name?" (CH33)

"I'll always be ugly me now, because Angel is not here" (CH42)

"If you are any man's wife you are mine!" (CH47)

Theme of Time

Sudden changes affect time. Times are always changing for the modern girl, their day to day lives are untouched, then a mail cart appears out of nowhere and ruins them.

Time Quotes

"Phases of her childhood lurked in her aspect" (CH2)

"When they were together the Jacobean and Victorian Ages were juxtaposed" (CH3)

"his life's blood was spouting in the stream" (CH4)

"She philosophically noted dates" (CH15)

"two silent reconstructive years for Tess Durbeyfield" (CH16)

"Tess was carried along upon the wings of the hours, within the sense of a will" (CH32)

"Older than the centuries, older than the d'Urbervilles!" (CH58)

Theme of Sex

Hardy leaves out sexual detail, but it's still there. Tess is sexually attractive and it was recommended that Hardy make her less "succulent".

Sex Quotes

"'Well my big beauty, what can I do for you?'" (CH5)

"A fullness of growth made her appear more of a woman than she really was" (CH5)

"He could see absolutely nothing but a pale nebulousness at his feet" (CH11)

"Why didn't you tell me there was danger? You did not help me!" (CH12)

"rubbing off upon her naked arms" (CH19)

"upward lift in the middle of her red top lip was distracting, infatuating, maddening"

"sex takes the outside place in presentation" (CH27)

Theme of Nature

Tess is a pure, fertile unfallen Eve. She is in-tune with nature and tries to defect from modernity.

Nature Quotes

"forests depart"

Theme of Paganism

Tess embodies pagan innocence, a natural English goddess. She is a "new sprung child of nature". She's always intact with nature, she lies down on Stonehenge (Hardy's temple) and has a sacrificial role. She's punished like Jesus.

Paganism Quotes

"club-walking"

"May Day dance"

"Artemis and Demeter"

"new sprung child of nature"