Symbolism in Tess of the D'Urbervilles

2360 Words5 Pages

Symbolism in Tess of the D'Urbervilles In Tess of the D'urbervilles, Hardy uses symbolism effectively to

foresee what is going to happen in the future, to show a specific mood

he wants to portray, and to put across his opinion. He also uses the

roles of rustic characters in the book, and makes them as a whole

special, and emphasises the fact that they work hard. He shows them in

a pleasant light, that makes them appear better than urban dwellers,

they are shown as being friendly and sympathetic.

Tess of the D'urbervilles, which I may refer to as Tess, was published

in 1891, in Victorian Britain. It was published weekly in an English

Newspaper, and at the time, came into a lot of conflict, as these type

of stories were not written about. It was thought inappropriate that

Hardy wrote about rape, even though it was subtle, and it was unheard

of to have a child without being married, so many people looked down

on Hardy's writing.

Also the names that Hardy gave the phases in his book, such as "maiden

no more" were considered inappropriate and received much criticism.

However this did not effect Hardy's style and choice of writing, and

the next book that he published, " Jude the Obscure" which was also

his last book caused even more disapproval, which was a novel on

conflict between carnal and spiritual life, this made Hardy realise

that he was not being very successful at writing novels, and chose to

write poetry instead.

Hardy's style of writing was i...

... middle of paper ...

...e. As hardy

referred to Tess' life ahead as being grey. " Before a grey country of

which she knew nothing."

Which is how Hardy makes it easy to tell by colour and the seasons

what will happen in the future. Another colour that is also very

important and is used a lot is red, red is a danger sign, warning of

what is to come. It is referred to when Alec feeds Tess strawberries,

by the red of the strawberries, and placing flowers on her. This

should have started alarm bells sounding in Tess' mind about the

danger that Alec was, but they didn't, as Tess was oblivious as to

what was going on.

The colour red was also used to describe Alec D'urberville's house, as

a "crimson brick lodge" which was forewarning Tess that something bad

would happen here. This is how colour can be used effectively to show

what is to come.

Open Document