1264 words | 3 Pages
“At an Inn” is a poem written by Thomas Hardy, a composition showcasing Hardy’s longing for another woman who is not his wife, Florence. In this work, Hardy focuses on the misinterpretations of the nature of the two’s relationship from strangers at an inn. He...
1025 words | 2 Pages
The breakdown of a relationship is presented in many ways throughout both ‘Neutral Tones’ by Thomas Hardy and ‘Modern Love’ by George Meredith. For example, they both explore themes of memory, and loss (of love). I will be exploring and comparing both poems to each...
995 words | 2 Pages
The question of fate is one that has been posed by human beings throughout the ages. Are our lives determined by that which is “bound” to happen, or is it simply by random chance? Thomas Hardy addresses this question in his poem “Hap,” which expresses...
1111 words | 2 Pages
The poems under study are Neutral Tones (“NT”) and I Look Into My Glass (“Glass”). Both poems focus on loss of a different kind: “Glass” expresses the loss of Hardy’s youth; “NT” focuses on the death of Hardy’s estranged wife, it grieves the loss of...
1081 words | 2 Pages
Psalm 142, verse 2: “No man cared…” This Biblical verse applies perfectly to “In Tenbris”, a poem written out of despair for the society Hardy in which lived. He expresses his pity and contempt for the materialist citizens and power hungry rulers. The rhyme scheme...
902 words | 2 Pages
Thomas Hardy wrote “The Shadow on the Stone” after his wife’s death, and the ghost he mentions is his wife’s. The poem focuses on the realities of time and death. The poet’s feelings are complex, which is reflected in the complex rhyme scheme of the...
1981 words | 4 Pages
‘In my memory / Again and again I see it strangely dark / And vacant of a life but just withdrawn.’ Edward Thomas’s The Chalk Pit suggests a number of ways of considering the correlation between memory and writing. The line is at once visually...
1650 words | 4 Pages
Men have learned to harness nature, but they have yet to transcend it. The laws of nature powerfully affect human behavior, and these laws are often antithetical to those of society. Thus the conscientious human being is constantly in flux—at once pulled by primal and...
2113 words | 5 Pages
Hardy’s novels are grounded in a realist portrayal of a society defined by constant advancement. The preceding Enlightenment era developed a sense of shedding traditional values in pursuit of intellectual evolution, and this only accelerated into the constant striving for progress of the Victorians. “Modernity”...
2107 words | 5 Pages
In Tess of the d’Urbervilles, Thomas Hardy primarily showcases man’s inability to elude fate. Society’s constraints highlight the futile nature of attempting to change the course of one’s life, for the inability to transcend one’s social classes mirrors the impossibility of transcending one’s destiny. Similarly,...
2081 words | 5 Pages
Andrea Dworkin, claimed that, ‘Women have been taught that, for us, the earth is flat, and that if we venture out, we will fall off the edge’, this is shown within both novels as the female characters are presented as being controlled within society. Hosseini...
2989 words | 7 Pages
A key theme in both Charles Dickens’s Great Expectations[1] and Thomas Hardy’s Tess of the d’Urbervilles[2] is cruelty. Both authors treat this cruelty in such a way as to expose the flaws of a society in which the powerful, either in terms of class, physical...
762 words | 2 Pages
Constituting one of the dominant symbols in Thomas Hardy’s classic work Tess of the D’Urbervilles are the continually reappearing birds. The birds symbolize varying degrees of freedom, foreshadowing the events of Tess’s life and frequently paralleling them as well. Tess encounters birds in the wild,...
1582 words | 3 Pages
In Tess of the d’Urbervilles, heredity governs life. Through the narrative voice and the character’s responses, Thomas Hardy explains how Tess’ “slight incautiousness of character inherited from her race” (71) defines her life. More specifically, traits from her parents and her family legacy follow throughout...
1008 words | 2 Pages
Thomas Hardy once said, “A Plot, or Tragedy, should arise from the gradual closing in of a situation that comes of ordinary human passions, prejudices, and ambitions, by reason of the characters taking no trouble to ward off the disastrous events produced by the said...
777 words | 2 Pages
Some of the most readable and critically acclaimed social commentaries in the English language, such as Charles Dickens’ Tale of Two Cities and Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice, employ a fascinating protagonist and numerous sarcastic intrusions. Thomas Hardy similarly produces a beautiful novel in Tess...
801 words | 2 Pages
Indubitably, Thomas Hardy’s ‘Tess of the D’Urbervilles’ is largely reminiscent of the archetypal Grecian tragedy; evoking an overwhelming sense of pity/catharsis for the female protagonist. However, the constituents of said ‘tragedy’; though in essence prevalent throughout, are discordant throughout the majority of Hardy’s novel. It...
819 words | 2 Pages
In Thomas Hardy’s tendentious Victorian novel, Tess of the D’Urbervilles, Hardy uses a format akin to that of a tragic hero to critique the double standards of Victorian society. His heroine, Tess, challenges Victorian standards by maintaining her innate purity and refusing to be defined...
1117 words | 2 Pages
As the various facets of a diamond reflect light according to the viewing perspective, so humans also possess multi-faceted aspects of personality. Hardy’s Victorian novel presents an interesting character study of Alec Stoke-d’Urberville, the lascivious rake who violates his ‘cousin,’ converts to a fiery preacher,...
2626 words | 6 Pages
Thomas Hardy’s Tess portrays a central character who is at the mercy of both circumstance and fate. Tess, by Victorian definition, is a fallen woman and, as such, not accountable for her own fate. Numerous critics — Rosemary Morgan, Norman Page, and Terrence Wright among...
1366 words | 3 Pages
Upon reading Thomas Hardy’s Tess of the D’Urbervilles, one may notice that references to pagan goddesses and ancient religions of the past are strewn throughout the book. These allusions range from the affectionate names of endearment by which Angel Clare refers to Tess, such as...
935 words | 2 Pages
Thomas Hardy, in Tess of the D’Urbervilles, takes great pains to relate the characters to their surroundings, especially in the parallelism between Tess’ emotional disposition and her physical environment. It is not surprising, therefore, that the two interpersonal relationships which are the most important to...
993 words | 2 Pages
Courtship is the behaviour in which, normally, the male attempts to persuade the female into a romantic relationship or marriage. In ‘Persuasion’ by Jane Austen, as well as ‘Tess of the D’Urbervilles’ by Thomas Hardy, courtship is displayed in a kaleidoscopic view which thus portrays...
800 words | 2 Pages
They say that we are harder on those we love—in this case, whom Tess loves: Angel Clare. Indeed, the reader holds Angel to higher standards, expects more of him, and indignantly reminds others of his greater obligations and ties to Tess. Thus, we are wont...
1073 words | 2 Pages
“Although They Were Proud of Their Material Success, the Victorians were often Profoundly Uneasy about the loss of the Rural Community that Industrial Society Experienced.” From Your Reading of Tess of the D’Urbervilles and other Victorian Novels show how you have found this to Be...
2749 words | 6 Pages
In his novel Tess of the d’Ubervilles, as well as much of his poetry, Thomas Hardy expresses his dissatisfaction, weariness, and an overwhelming sense of injustice at the cruelty of our universal Fate disappointment and disillusionment. Hardy argues that the hopes and desires of...
1482 words | 3 Pages
In Thomas Hardy’s novel, Tess of the D’Urbervilles, the reader is introduced to a character named Tess who comes to be known as a “Child of Nature” (Amazon.co.uk). The British author’s novel flourishes with the use of natural imagery. Hardy uses natural imagery to mimic...
2013 words | 4 Pages
When wilt thou awake, O Mother, wake and see As one who, held in trance, has laboured long By vacant rote and prepossession strong The coils that thou hast wrought unwittingly; Wherein have place, unrealized by thee, Fair growths, foul cankers, right enmeshed with wrong,...
1857 words | 4 Pages
Any literary critic or scholar who sets out to verify the relationship between the poetry of Edgar Allan Poe and the English novelist/poet Thomas Hardy cannot realistically begin without considering the questions posed by Cyril Clemens in the autumn of 1925 during an interview with...
1180 words | 1 Page
Intrigue, murder, and suicide — by all accounts, Thomas Hardy’s Jude the Obscure was a complete and terrible shock to the religiously conservative readers of the late nineteenth century, and this is exactly what he intended. These were, after all, the very people he was...
