"Life is not fair" is one of the most commonly used idioms in the world today. As recurrent as it is now, it has also been a quite common theme for contemplation throughout history. This unfairness is always blamed on someone or something, but often this blame is misplaced, which is unfair in itself. In Tess of the D'Urbervilles, Thomas Hardy depicts the injustice of life and the effects of mislaid blame through his use of imagery and diction.
Hardy uses imagery throughout the novel in order to explicitly define the ways in which life is unjust. This injustice is first displayed at Prince?s death, then again at his burial. Hardy chooses specific words to enable the reader to see exactly what is happing. He describes the mail-cart to be ?speeding along?like an arrow.? He explains that the mail-cart had ?driven into her slow and unlighted equipage,? and now the horse?s ?life?s blood was spouting in a stream and falling with a hiss into the road.? (Hardy 22). The descriptive words, such as ?speeding,? ?arrow,? ?driven,? ?unlighted,? ?spouting,? and ?hiss? allow the reader?s senses to capture the enormity of the situation. This quote also helps the reader to envision the misery of the situation. Tess is only attempting to help her family by bringing the hives to market to draw some income them. Her desire to help her family backfires with Prince?s accidental death, as he was their only form of income. The desperation induced by Prince?s death is shown when Hardy explains that Mr. Durbeyfield worked harder than ever before in digging a grave for Prince. Hardy states that the young girls ?discharged their griefs in loud blares,? and that when Prince was ?tumbled in? the family gathered around the grave (Hardy 24). Hard...
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...cept her. ?Unadvisable? gives the impression that Angel does not really care one way or another. All of this is unfair to Tess, as Alec?s decision to rape her was not her fault in any way. Also, Angel?s sexual history is more promiscuous than Tess?s, and yet he sees only her flaws. Hardy uses specific word choices and diction to thoroughly inform the reader of the injustice of Tess?s circumstances.
In Thomas Hardy?s novel Tess of the d?Urbervilles, Hardy accurately exemplifies the injustice of life, along with the effects of misplaced blame through his use of diction and imagery. It is a well-known that life is not fair. It is also quite common that blame for this unfairness is pinned on the wrong subjects, an act which is unfair as well. Whether one is blaming himself, another or a superior power for said injustices, blame is not always given where it is due.
With this, his last novel, Hardy is moving away from the convention of the "inner life of the characters to be inferred from their public behavior" (Howe 513), so, although Sue...
The novels of Thomas Hardy are intricate and complicated works whose plots seem to be completely planned before the first word is ever actually formed on paper. Though I have no proof of Hardy’s method of writing, it is clear that he focuses more on plot development than characterization in the novels Far From the Madding Crowd, Tess of the d’Urbervilles and Jude the Obscure. The advantages of this can be easily seen in the clever twists and turns that occur in the novel which hold the reader’s interest. But the main reason Hardy uses this method, especially in the tragedies Tess and Jude, is to present a moral argument to the reader through actions done by and to the main characters of the novels. By mapping out the turning points ahead of time, Hardy is able to control the course of his writings, and they emerge as a social criticism. But in doing this, the characters are condemned to a literary predestination. Hardy concentrates more on forcing the characters to carry out these actions than allowing their personalities to become fully and freely developed. Females perform most of the necessary but unlikely actions, and Hardy blames any erratic behavior on woman’s natural inconsistency. Thus, in reaching for a high literary purpose Hardy inadvertently stunts the development of the main female characters.
...l that when prompted by inordinate greed, overwhelming power, and conspicuous injustice, man reveals his inhumanity towards his fellow man. These seemingly basic human ideas seem to have a very inhuman effect on the character in the novel, causing them to become tragic shadows of humans with little knowledge of what is right and what is wrong. Whether in the French Revolution or in modern society, when these negative changes take root and grow, man loses the simple morals he was born with and does not see his neighbor as an individual. For in the end, it is Sydney Carton or those types of people who in one single act redeem humanity. Quite simply, it is, “A far, far better thing that I do, than I have ever done; it is a far, far better rest that I go to than I have ever known”(293).
Later, Hardy implies that she is raped. ‘Feminine tissue, sensitive as gossamer’ displays Alec’s unconscious urges to control such a virgo intacta. The sibilance in this phrase contributes to Alec's presentation as a predator she is also described as ‘blank as snow’, a tabula rasa, a form of innocence Alec physically destroys. These factors, along with the traditional norms of wedding days, culminate to create a grotesque parody of a wedding night. The moon’s later description as ‘tarnished’ is symbolic of how Tess’ has been physically abused by Alec, although it also exposes a disrupted parallel between the moon’s 28–day cycle, and Tess’ menstrual cycle due to the development and birth of Sorrow.
Charles Dickens adds understanding and meaning to the theme of revenge, by using the metaphors wine-cask, fountain, and knitting. Dickens uses these metaphors as symbols to not only explain revenge and the cause of it, but to depict what the effect of it can be on other people. He wants us to both understand reason behind the revenge in the novel, but also take notice to extremes that it can reach. The metaphors Dickens uses adds meaning and personalities to key characters who contribute to the theme of revenge. With the use of metaphors and the beautiful writing style of Charles Dickens, readers not only get a mind blowing story but also a lessons that apply to everyday life.
Thomas Hardy often alludes to his heroine as the "soft and silent Tess." "Soft" certainly insinuates her beauty, which Harrtainly insinuates her beauty, which Hardy stresses as her downfall. However, it seems that Tess's silence is the all-pervading reason for her tragedies. "The two men she encounters in her life steal her voice: one with violence, the other with his own language"(Jacobus 47). Tess struggles with the damage that these men cause until redeeming herself through innocence.
The disposition and temperament of a character is revealed to a reader by the author throughout any work of literature, but a vast portion of the characterization occurs in specific instances at certain key points in the plot of a novel or play. This excerpt about Jude and Sue, from Thomas Hardy's Jude the Obscure, exposes significant insights into their true intentions and emotions of themselves, others, and life in general. This author engenders a unique persona for each of the inhabitants of these two houses by utilizing a forlorn tone and gruesome diction, alongside symbolism that emulates the current situations in which the two characters find themselves ensnared.
In Jude the Obscure, Thomas Hardy presents the characters Jude Fawley and Sue Bridehead, who violate the conventions of the repressive Victorian society while attempting to follow their natural instincts. By studying the novel, one sees that Hardy's intentions in doing this are to arouse the reader's sympathy for the characters, and to join in their ridicule of the codes of conduct they are breaking.
Prince’s death, the rape and her arrest all happen to her whilst asleep. The community and her unsupportive parents’ cold treatment towards Tess following these events emphasize the hegemonic male perspective of society towards women. Furthermore, Hardy shows how women are seen by society through the male gaze as sexual objects, as Tess is blamed for Alec’s lack of self-control. He attempts to justify his cruel actions as he calls Tess a “temptress” and the “dear damned witch of Babylon” (Hardy 316), yet he later says that he has “come to tempt [her]” (340). Tess is also objectified by Alec when he says that if Tess is “any man’s wife [she] is [his]” (325). The narrator’s repeated sexualized descriptions of Tess, such as her “pouted-up deep red mouth” (39), further demonstrate how women are commonly seen through the male gaze in
Throughout the novel, Dickens employs imagery to make the readers pity the peasants, have compassion for the innocent nobles being punished, and even better understand the antagonist and her motives. His use of personified hunger and description of the poor’s straits made the reader pity them for the situation caused by the overlord nobles. However, Dickens then uses the same literary device to alight sympathy for the nobles, albeit the innocent ones! Then, he uses imagery to make the reader better understand and perhaps even feel empathy for Madame Defarge, the book’s murderous villainess. Through skillful but swaying use of imagery, Dickens truly affects the readers’ sympathies.
Ian McEwan reflects such truths in his novel 'Atonement ', surrounding the morals of Briony Tallis, wherein her single mistake led to immense consequences. While in the further stages of her life, the unpleasant truths that the author has made the reader aware of are found in acceptance of miss accusation, and the ramifications of war. Thus, texts prompt us to become aware of fundamental truths of our humanity that may be unpleasant, heightening our understanding of what it means to be
The poem's major theme seems to be this sense of the world being ruled by a hostile and blind fate, not by a benevolent God pushing all of the buttons. This is clearly stated within the poem itself as Hardy writes "If but some vengeful god would call to me / From up the sky, and laugh: 'Thou suffering thing, / Know that thy sorrow is my ecstasy, / That thy love's loss is my hate's profiting!' / Then would I bear it, clench myself, and die, / Steeled by the sense of ire unmerited; / Half-eased in that a Powerfuller than I / Had willed and meted me the tears I shed. / But not so." (Hardy, Longman p. 2255: ll. 1-9). As you can see, this poem shows that Hardy has indeed lost all faith in a benevolent God that deals out suffering and joy to his creations as he willfully deems they deserve and need. Instead of this idea of a benevolent God up above pulling all of the strings of the world and dealing out everyone's personal fate, Hardy believes fate is...
Unlike Hardwig’s poem Hardyd’s lacks any type of reverence or fear of the suffering he undergoes. In fact he mocks both the idea that suffering is something meted out by God and the idea that a man can do anything to effect the amount of suffering he experiences through out his life. In a sense the two author’s while expressing similar ideas, the idea of personal struggle and suffering, are in contention in a very similar way that religion and enlightenment ideas were during the Victorian period.
Clarke, R. (n.d.). The Poetry of Thomas Hardy. rlwclarke. Retrieved February 1, 2014, from http://www.rlwclarke.net/Courses/LITS2002/2008-2009/12AHardy'sPoetry.pdf
Hardy’s novels are ultimately permeated upon his own examination of the contemporary world surrounding him, Tess’s life battles are ultimately foreshadowed by the condemnation of her working class background, which is uniquely explored throughout the text. The class struggles of her time are explored throughout her life in Marlott and the preconception of middle class ideals are challenged throughout Hardy’s exploration of the rural class. Tess of the D’Urbervilles revolves around Hardy’s views of Victorian social taboos and continues to be a greatly influential piece from a novelist who did not conform to the Victorian bourgeois standards of literature.