LOCATIONS Flashcards
(14 cards)
- Marlott is a small villiage loacted in Vale of Blakemore or Blackmoor which is north of Wessex (i hate this book)
In Hardy’s time, as is still true today, the landscape was dominated by ancient woodlands and pastures used for dairy farming. The effect is a region that appears relatively unaffected by historical change, and Hardy draws on this setting to characterize Tess as a heathenish child of “nature.” In the novel’s second chapter, Hardy uses a sensual description of the Vale as a preface to describing a May Day celebration (a pagan holdover) from which Tess emerges as a focal point. Though her “bouncing handsome womanliness” indicates her natural fecundity, Hardy’s characterization of Tess as a “mere vessel of emotion untinctured by experience” reminds the reader that, just as the Vale is apparently unaffected by social advances, Tess herself is innocent of contemporary sexual mores (8).
- Trantridge Cross
Tess leaves the Vale after her mother learns of a “great rich lady out by Trantridge” whom, Mrs. Durbeyfield hopes, will help her daughter marry into a higher class. Though not a large town, Pentridge’s location at the boundary between Dorset and the more populated counties of Hampshire and Wiltshire underscores that, by going to the D’Urbervilles, Tess departs the security of the rural, agricultural community in which she grew up. Mrs. D’Urbervilles rakish son takes advantage of Tess’s vulnerability after the family employs her on their fowl-farm. He ultimately rapes Tess in the wooded “Chase,” an act Hardy places within the long history of upper-class male prerogative: “Doubtless some of Tess d’Urberville’s mailed ancestors rollicking home from a fray had dealt the same measure […] towards peasant girls.” Hardy is likely alluding to the real-life Cranbourne Chase’s status as royal hunting grounds since the 12th century. Perhaps the “fray” from which Tess’s ancestors “rollicked home” was a tournament or hunt hosted by the sporting Henry VIII. Tess courageously returns home afterward, refusing Alec’s promise of marriage.
- The chase
He ultimately rapes Tess in the wooded “Chase,”
- back to where?
blackmoor
- Talbothays
After the death of her infant son, Tess once again leaves Blackmore Vale. Instead of departing for the outskirts of Dorset, Tess goes deep into its heart by taking employment at Talbothays Dairy in the Frome Valley. Just a couple miles east of Dorchester, West Stafford (Talbothays’ “real life” location) was more populated than Marlott would have been, a fact to which Hardy eludes when he writes that “the world was drawn to a latter pattern” in the Frome Vale. Tess fittingly finds a sense of community among the dairymaids and farmhands of Talbothays, but it is not only community that she finds. Among Talbothays workers is Angel Clare, for whom Tess develops sexual feelings against a backdrop that reflects her maturing sexuality. Even damper than Blackmore, the Frome Valley boasts a degree of fecundity that becomes almost lewd in Hardy’s prose: the “verdant plain” was “so well-watered by the river” that the amount of milk and butter produced “grew to rankness.” Unfortunately, this image of unconsumed abundance foreshadows Tess’s plot. Though Tess and Angel marry, his decision to split from Tess after she reveals her history leaves their marriage unconsummated.
- she goes back to…
Blackmoor
- Chalk - Newton (flintcomb ash)
After Angel’s departure, Tess travels west to take up short-term agricultural jobs, eventually finding work at Flintcomb Ash in Chalk-Newton. Like Talbothays, Flintcomb Ashe is in the Frome Valley, but it lies west of Dorchester in the South Wessex chalklands rather than in the fertile meadowlands east of the county town. Hardy’s characterization of the area as utterly destitute is, arguably, overstated—the narrator claims that even trees could barely grow in an area that actually possessed ancient woodlands—but it certainly wasn’t as verdant as the area around Talbothays. Labor is consequently difficult, and it baffles for Talbothays dairymaid Marian (dismissed for drunkenness) that “a gentleman’s wife” should live in a “starve-acre place” like Chalk-Newton. The contrast between the pastoral pleasures of Talbothays and hard labor of Chalk-Newton demonstrates how Tess’s prospects have diminished since Angel branded her a fallen woman. It also symbolizes how Tess, a deserted wife, has lost the potential to enjoy the maturing sexuality that found its reflection in Talbothays’ fecundite landscape.
- Emminster (where Reverand Clare’s parish is)
Of course, Chalk-Newton does boast one advantage: it is in walking distance from Emminster (Beaminster), Reverend Clare’s parish. Like its fictional counterpart, Beaminster isn’t a particularly large town: its distance from the coast and the railways meant that it didn’t develop as a residential area or resort as other towns did in the nineteenth century. Instead of being members of the fashionable middle-classes, Reverend Clare’s parishioners are “small country-townsfolk” who wouldn’t differ significantly from Tess’s family. Still, Rev. Clare sits at the top rung of the town’s hierarchy by virtue of being a vicar, and he wouldn’t have become vicar without taking a degree in Divinity at Cambridge. Concerned that injury rather than neglect might explain Angel’s lack of correspondence, Tess walks to Emminster one weekend for assurance that injury hasn’t befallen her husband in Brazil. Unfortunately, Tess loses courage to approach her in-laws when she overhears Angel’s snobbish brothers lament that he “thr[ew] himself away upon a dairymaid” rather than marry the refined Mercy Chant. Assuming that this family of “superfine clerics” wouldn’t accept her, she returns to Flintcomb Ash.
- where does she go back to…
back to Flintcomb then back to Blackmoor (wow surpise)
Tess’s path from Emminster to Bournemouth is a complicated one. Tess encounters Alec on her walk back to Flintcomb Ash, where he subsequently starts stalking her. returns to Marlott when she receives of her parents’ illness; when her father ultimately passes away, the family ultimately lose their cottage. Effectively homeless, Tess submits to Alec’s propositions in order to provide for her family
- where does tess go after they sell their land and belomgings in Marlott?
Tess prepares to move her family to a set of rooms in Kingsbere. Alec arrives and tells Tess the legend of the ghostly d’Urberville Coach—the message of which is that the sound of an invisible coach is a bad omen. Alec tries to persuade Tess to move her family to his family’s garden home, allow him to send her brothers and sisters to school, and have Tess’s mother tend the fowls. Tess is again sorely tempted, but she once more declines Alec’s offer, and he rides away. As he leaves, Tess admits to herself that Angel has treated her badly, and she writes him a letter saying she will do all she can to forget him, since she will never be able to forgive him. Joan asks what Alec said to her, but Tess refuses to divulge the story, saying she will tell her mother when they are in their rooms at Kingsbere.
The next day, Tess and her family begin their journey. On the way, they meet Marian and Izz, who are moving on to new work at a new farm. When they reach Kingsbere, they learn that Joan’s letter was late, and the rooms have already been rented. They cannot find more lodging and end up sleeping in the churchyard, in a plot called d’Urberville Aisle. Tess finds Alec lying on a tomb, and he tells her he can do more for her than all her noble ancestors. Tess tells him to leave, and angrily he does, promising that Tess will learn to be civil. Tess leans down toward the funeral vault and asks why she is still alive. Marian and Izz do their part for their friend by writing a note to Angel asking him to go back to Tess.
- Sandbourne
Hardy couldn’t have chosen a more appropriate setting for illustrating Tess’s transformation from heathenish dairymaid to gentleman’s mistress. Alec is very much a figure of modernity, and Bournemouth as a town was entirely a nineteenth-century creation. Up until the early 19th century, the area was used largely for cattle grazing, but the invention of the railways enabled Victorians to flock to the seaside for holidays; in fact, resort towns overtook industrial cities in growth rates in the second half of the century. Bournemouth became such a fashionable destination that Queen Victoria recommended it to Prime Minister Benjamin Disraeli. It’s unsurprising, then, that Angel—recently returned from Brazil—should be baffled that Tess, “a cottage girl,” should be “amidst all this wealth and fashion.” The reader’s time in Sandbourne isn’t a long one, however. As if to underscore the incompatibility between Tess and this environment, Hardy has her swiftly depart. With Alec’s claim that Angel would never return fully disproven, Tess kills the treacherous man who brought her to Sandbourne. But Bournemouth’s modernity also enables her reunion with Angel, for it is at the train station that their paths again. They decide to flee northward, assuming that authorities would be monitoring southern ports.
- Melchester
On their path northward, the couple stay a few nights in an abandoned mansion—where they consummate their marriage—before continuing their flight. They must pass through “the steepled city of Melchester” in order to cross a river, but they wait until midnight in order to avoid detection. Given Tess’s fugitive status and the size of the town, their desire to swiftly pass through the city under the cover of night is entirely predictable. Melchester’s real-life counterpart, Salisbury, remains one of the most important cathedral cities in England, and by the end of the nineteenth century, it was already a thoroughly modern one (in addition to boasting public and private schools, it even had a Mechanics Institute with night classes for workers). Tess’s inability to show her face in this Church of England stronghold could be interpreted as suggesting her fall from God’s grace; but given that Salisbury is in the heart of Wiltshire, far away from her native Dorset, it could also be interpreted as illustrating how the treacherous Alec displaced Tess from her home without making it possible for her to feel at home elsewhere.
- Stonehenge
Tess and Angel’s flight—and the narrative itself—culminates at Stonehenge, which the couple stumbles upon in the early morning hours. Though Angel fears the conspicuousness of the monument will expose them to law enforcement, the exhausted Tess decides to rest on a stone slab because she feels “at home” in this “heathen temple.” Tess’s renewed sense of security and confidence subsequently manifests in her choice to sacrifice herself at this historic spot. After Angel confirms that sacrificial ceremonies took place at Stonehenge, Tess asks Angel if he believes in an afterlife, implying that she’s decided to own herself as her rapist’s murderess before the law—even if this comes at the cost of her own life. Hardy’s dramatic climax takes advantage of the assumptions his original readers would have had about Stonehenge. Up until the early 20th century, Stonehenge was assumed to be the cite of druidical rites because the Celts were the oldest known society to have inhabited the British Isles. This theory was decisively disproven in the 20th century, when excavation revealed the structure to have been constructed well before the Celtic Iron Age; but in Hardy’s time, Stonehenge was still the site of pilgrimage for neo-Pagan societies, and Tess’s final act of self-sacrifice links her with these groups.
- Wintoncester
Tess’s story concludes in Wintoncester (Winchester), where Angel and Liza-Lu Durbeyfield indirectly witness her sister’s execution. Like Salisbury, Winchester is a city with a rich history. Once England’s capital and its biggest city after London, Winchester declined in significance and activity after the medieval period, but its Norman cathedral and picturesque architecture has continued to attract visitors. It also remained the site of the county courts, which is why Tess is tried and hanged in Winchester’s fictional counterpart. Hardy never explicitly identifies Wintoncester as the seat of the county courts, allowing the reader to be shocked that the horizon of this “fine old city” should be marred by the appearance of a black flag signaling that an execution has completed. Hardy arguably takes advantage of the convenient fact that the county courts should be in such a quaintly beautiful city, as the juxtaposition allows him to suggest that Tess’s death is not an act of justice but an act that taints England. It also allows him to foreground, one last time, how the Alec’s rakish cruelty has destroyed Tess’s connection to her home community. Though the “aforetime capital of Wessex,” Winchester lies at the heart of Hampshire, a county whose association with Jane Austen’s fictional gentry underscores its cultural as well as physical difference from the Dorset folk from which Tess came.
