Tess of the D'Urbervilles - Phase the Fourth: Chapter 25 - 34

[Bionic Jean, Moderator]

Pankies! I've been missing your posts, (but hope you had a nice holiday!) and am so pleased to see this :) Thank you very much for adding your thoughts, which I think are all spot on.

I'm afraid I can't remember Under the Greenwood Tree well enough to help, but perhaps someone can?

[Bridget, Moderator]

Bionic Jean wrote: "Bridget wrote: "Still think the girls reactions are exaggerated...."

Do you? I don't! I think it may have been made worse by them all living together closeted in the farmhouse, with the object of ..."

These are all excellent points Jean. And since I've realized that Marian doesn't die (so embarrassed I missed that - but thank goodness for this group that set me straight!) I feel the girls' reactions are less hysterical.

David made a good point too when he said she might, by accident, have rubbed salt in their wounds by asking Angel to kiss them each farewell? I've always thought that action by Tess, to have Angel kiss the girls, was odd. I hadn't thought how her actions might have been misinterpreted by the girls as being, well, kind of mean in a "see what you can't have" sort of way.

I've been trying to figure out why I'm so surprised by Marian and Retty's reactions to the marriage. I think it comes from this part of Chapter 31 when the narrator says "But she [Tess] saw in a few moments that there was no malice in their mood. They could scarcely feel as a loss what they had never expected to have. Their condition was objective, contemplative". And then they seem to have really big emotions about Angel and Tess being married.

I know we've moved on from Chapter 31, but that ending scene with Tess and the girls is interesting to me. I feel like there is a shift in the characterization of the girls there. The way they are all in white like "avenging ghosts". They are barefoot, and they encircle Tess, put their arms around her, kiss her as she cries. It's like they aren't just simple dairymaids anymore. They remind me of the vestal virgins from mythology. Then we get the sad tale of Marian and Retty from Jonathan in Chapter 34, and maybe its the gothic atmosphere of the Chapter, but feels dark and mystical to me.

[Bionic Jean, Moderator]

Bridget wrote, quoting:

"They could scarcely feel as a loss what they had never expected to have. Their condition was objective, contemplative".,."

I agree, this is odd. The first sentence sounds as if it is Thomas Hardy commenting, but the second throws it on to them. I'm not sure what to make of this, except that as Pankies has just pointed out, we can still yearn for something, even though we know in our hearts that we will never have it. Youngsters still believe the impossible - fame and fortune - may happen for them, don't they, so perhaps Thomas Hardy is telling us that the dairymaids are on the verge of realising that it won't.

Like David, I had said "Tess, asking Angel to kiss each of them in turn - albeit because she felt sorry for them - was probably the last straw. They had probably never been kissed before" and actually I think they knew Tess had no malice in her, but she made a bad judgement here, as it awakened passions which the other three were trying to keep down.

Excellent point about the ethereal feeling in chapter 31! I agree it felt very gothic, but hadn't connected it with the vestal virgins. Thomas Hardy probably meant it that way though - thanks!

I do like the otherworldly feelings he sometimes moves into, either angelic or satanic :)

[Stephen]

Bionic Jean wrote: "I’m still trying to nail the exact religion Reverend Clare is. We were told that Mercy Chant is an expert in antinomianism, which means she follows the doctrine which states that Christians are fre..."

The 'pernicious Calvinist doctrine' is a reference to the doctrine of limited atonement, that though Christ died for all, predestination and God's sovereign will meant only some were foreordained to salvation, others not, thereby Christ died only for some. This doctrine is therefore problematic.

[Bionic Jean, Moderator]

Stephen wrote: "The 'pernicious Calvinist doctrine' is a reference to the doctrine of limited atonement..."

Yes, thanks Stephen. Mercy Chant's religion seemd to be in line with this, whereas the Rev. Clare was much more inclusive, and this is important for the plot.