Tess of the dUrbervilles

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Tess of the d’Urbervilles Excerpt Essay In the following excerpt from Thomas Hardy’s novel Tess of the d’Urbervilles (1891), Hardy describes a young woman who leaves her parents’ home to wor... k on a dairy farm. Hardy’s narrator depicts Tess Durbeyfield’s character as a tenacious and innocent lady. While Tess is being appreciative about the nature and society, the insignificance of her individuality allusively shown the moment she’s arrived on the dairy farm. Hardy incorporates literary devices such as metaphor, simile, imagery, and foreshadow to characterize the relationship between Tess Durbeyfield and the new environment of her workplace. Hardy’s narrator used simile to describe Tess’s insignificance by comparing her to a non-human being. While she was being a pure innocent individual who appreciated the surrounded natures, Tess seems, “like a fly on a billiard-table of indefinite length, and of no more consequence to the surroundings than that fly”. Seemingly, Hardy chose a fly to represent Tess because she is spiritually homeless and an independent woman who has to survive on her own. Also, this refers to Tess as someone that is not getting recognition for her presence. Furthermore, this tells that the consequence of leaving her home and becoming an independent resulted in solitary and insignificancy. For a matter of fact, the comparison of Tess and the animal is foreshadowing the insignificance of Tess’ existence. Secondly, Hardy’s narrator shows that even Tess’ beauty was not appealing to others, “It was not the expression of the valley's consciousness that beautiful Tess had arrived, but the ordinary announcement of milking-time — half-past four o'clock, when the dairymen set about getting in the [Show More]

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