The Literary Style of Thomas Hardy
With particular reference to 'Tess of the d'Urbervilles'
1) The narrative voice in 'Tess of the d'Urbervilles displays various features:
The omniscient third-person narrator. Hardy's narrative style offers an omniscient narrator.
In common with many writers in the 19th century Hardy's narrator often interjects comment, analysis and philosophical reflection. These authorial/narrator's comments are often felt to be a part of the rich texture of a Hardy novel. They offer the reader the opportunity to reflect on the text and its concerns. At times they also set the social, intellectual or religious context of the events of the novel. Some readers, however, find these comments intrusive just as others find them of value and positively look forward to them. Some critics would prefer that the philosophical element in the novel should be DEMONSTRATED in the action of the narrative and not be added by TELLING. This is the TELLING or SHOWING debate. In Hardy you get a mixture of both telling and showing. How do you feel about Hardy's interjections? Consider other authors who interject authorial comment. Consider novels that are third person narratives but that have no authorial comment added. Examples of authorial intervention: "The mute procession past her shoulders of trees and hedges became attached to fantastic scenes outside reality, and the occasional heave of the wind became the sigh of some immense sad soul, coterminous with the universe in space, and with history in time.". Comment sometimes combines illumination of character with ironic comment: "Her mother's intelligence was that of a happy child: Joan Durbeyfield was simply an additional one, and that not the eldest, to her own long family of waiters on Providence." Some comments are of great significance: "So the thing began. Had she perceived this meeting's import she might have asked why she was doomed to be seen and coveted that day be the wrong man, and not be some other man, the right and desired one in all respects - as nearly as humanity can supply the right and desired." Consider the end of chapter 11: "Darkness and silence ruled everywhere around. Above them rose the primeval yews and oaks of The Chase....But, some might say, where was Tess's guardian angel? where was the providence of her simple faith?... why so often the coarse appropriates the finer thus, the wrong man the woman, the wrong woman the man...".
The narrative voice in Hardy novels is very complex indeed. It offers comment as discussed above and a range of attitudes from irony and criticism to judgments of the characters, emphasis on issues in the novel and ongoing reflections on life itself. Hardy's narrative voice is a particularly 'philosophical' one. He takes pleasure in establishing views on the larger context of the human actions of the narrative - this intense relationship between the particular and the universal is a profound aspect of Hardy's work. In 'Tess' Hardy's views on religion, nature and the universal significance of life's patterns is of central importance to the texture of the novel. Consider: "So Sorrow passed away Sorrow the undesired - that intrusive creature, that bastard gift of shameless Nature who respects not the social law; a waif to whom eternal time has been a matter of days merely...". At times there is a straining for effect, and sometimes profundity, that is hard to take: "...by the flanks of infinite cows and calves of bygone years, now passed to an oblivion almost inconceivable in its profundity." Of course, you can argue that this straining for effect is part of the rich emotional intensity of the novel.
The narrator is invariably very well educated. His comments speak of his education, as does his, at times, rather too elaborate diction, allusions and comment. famous examples include: The huge pool of blood in front of her was already assuming the iridescence of coagulation...". Consider the use of "stopt-diapason" in chapter14. Even the characters are, at times, asked to speak in an almost absurdly well-educated manner, as when Angel at the climax of the novel struggles to express his emotions: 'My God - how can forgiveness meet such a grotesque - prestidigitation as that!' The varieties of language are, of course, a part of the rich texture of the novel and can be contrasted with some of the characters whose speech, dialect and, at times, philosophising is seldom so sophisticated well elaborately voiced as Hardy's own - consider Crick's simple philosophising and the speech mannerisms of the rural characters. The pastoral distinction between town and country, between the functional language of the rural poor and the bookish sophistications of such as Angel create a lively verbal tension. Consider Angel's reference to Walt Whitman and contrast it with the folk tales of the rural characters (oral tradition in contrast to written). At the same time all this variety speaks of Hardy's sense of the immense possibilities of language and the mores of its users. His book is a testament to his own love of words and language and their possibilities.
It is a characteristic of the Hardy narrator to, at times, be closely aligned with one or more of the characters of the novel. This identification of the narrator with the character is achieved by the narrator identifying himself with the experience of a character, with narrator and character often having similar views or a similar perspective.
In 'Tess' the narrative voice is also comic, offering beyond that characteristic philosophical seriousness a sense of the ridiculous. Events and actions will often be the subject of a rich sense of humour. Sometimes the humour is built into the verbal texture of the description: "Mrs Durbeyfield's jacket and bonnet were already hanging slyly upon a chair by her side, in readiness...". Consider the description of Joan trying to iron clothes and rock a child to sleep at the same time (Chap 3) - how "a huge jerk accompanied each swing of the cot, flinging the baby from side to side like a weaver's shuttle...".
2) Symbolism. Hardy is one of the great writers of intricately symbolic novels. You may find it overwhelming at times; on the other hand you may take pleasure in the complex structure of symbolic meanings and relationships at the levels of plot, time scheme, characterisation, settings and language. Symbolic events: consider the night of Tess's marriage and her being placed in the grave; symbolic actions: consider Tess's wanderings; symbolic things: consider Angel's harp, given his name (also symbolic); consider the reaping and threshing machines; symbolic creatures: consider the use of birds
3) Melodrama. It has often be commented that Hardy, in 'Tess', exploits the genre of popular melodrama, particularly in so far as he centres his novel around a poor, exploited country girl who is betrayed to her death. Melodramatic questions abound in the novel: Tess's hidden secrets - will they come out or remain hidden? Will she be destroyed unjustly? Can she ever have what she deserves and what we, as readers, wish her to have?
4) Tragic irony. Many of Hardy's ironies in 'Tess' are tragic ones: they point to Hardy's sense of the incongruities in life, even the absurdity of life itself.
5) The poetic vision. Hardy has been rightly praised for the intense, sometimes beautiful, sometimes harrowing poetic effects of his language. Figuratively, the novel has much of the richness of poetry.
6) Patterns of imagery and language. Given Hardy's interest in Nature, it is very common for the writer to exploit a variety of nature imagery. Readers will also note an extensive use of colour imagery and religious imagery.
Hardy's language also shows powerful influences from the Romantic tradition, and in particular the Gothic tradition. (The gothic tradition is best represented by tales such as 'Frankenstein' by Mary Shelley and 'Dracula' by Briam Stoker. In the mainstream tradition 'Wuthering Heights' by Emily Bronte is also quite 'gothic' in atmosphere, settings, events and language. It is a genre of story and tale that explores extreme states of feeling and emotion, hence the language, as well as the settings and events, is often of an extreme, intense emotional nature.). In Hardy this use of extremity in language and event is constantly present. Consider the last paragraph of chapter 34 when Tess has just told Angel of her past: the scene is described in the most evocative terms, with the fire lighting the ashes "like a torrid waste". The "luridness" of the atmosphere is emphasised as Tess bends forward casting "a large shadow of her shape" which "rose upon the wall" like a fearful monster, symbolising in some sense her fate rising perhaps to take her, a thing always there, now grown huge and terrible. The diamond on her neck - given by Angel's mother-in-law - "gave a sinister wink like a toad's", as if part of a conspiracy to destroy her, a conspiracy she is not aware of, hence the shadow behind her and the unseen wink. This combination of powerful language and events is characteristic of the Gothic genre as is it typical of Hardy. Later Angel, now aware of Tess's past cries out, suddenly breaking "into horrible laughter - as unnatural and ghastly as a laugh in hell." In the following scenes there are references to Angel's "smothering" his affection for Tess. Tess is described in a "stupor". Angel, later, "awakened that morning from a sleep deep as annihilation." The language of ghostly tales is always present in the references: Angel: "He was arriving like a ghost.." (chap.34). History casts things into "oblivion" just as the sun is constantly at work as it"threw shadows" even upon the country folk of the idyllic Talbothays (chap 16). Note the gothic description of the death of Prince, blood splashing, Tess's "hand upon a hole" in his breast. Note Tess's mind, described as peopled with "phantoms" from her past. Consider hardy's repeated use of "inexorable" and "oblivion". Combine this with the gothic events such as the dream episode when Angel carries Tess to a grave and puts her in it.
The effects of this gothic influence? Heightened emotion; diminished sense of verisimilitude.
7) Multiple juxtaposition. In order to reinforce the issues, feeling, themes or ironies of developments in the plot, Hardy often creates sequences of related events, incidents, imagery or things. As a result, the reader is always recalling events, emotions etc in the novel as s/he reads, the effect being a gradually developing complexity and reinforcement. Examples: at the level of imagery, the use of colour imagery (red, white, grey); at the level of figurative language, the use of machinery/ 'mechanical' as metaphor; symbolic sequences using birds and machines, etc.
8) Prefiguration. Events in Hardy's novels often 'prefigure' others.
9) Ambiguity. Ambiguities are present in Hardy's novels on a variety of levels: at the level of figurative language and description; at the level of character; at the level of the meaning of events and at a symbolic level. Consider the ambiguities surrounding the 'Cross-in-Hand' near Flintcombe-Ash; consider whether Tess is to blame for her own downfall or other characters, events and circumstances; consider the reaping machine incident ( and the representation of the machine as evil AND as Death AND in its colour - red - as a kind of mad passion, etc).
10) Allusions. As part of the sophistication of the narrative voice Hardy indulges in a variety of allusions to other texts. In 'Tess' you will be aware of the references to philosophers (John Stuart Mill), to poets (Walt Whitman) and to the Bible, a common source in Hardy. References to classical Greek mythology and other ancient civilisations abound: consider the following description of what the sun's shadow has copied in its time: it "copied them as diligently as it had copied Olympian shapes on marble facades long ago, or the outline of Alexander, Caesar, and the pharaohs."Allusions will be used in various ways: to heighten ironies, reinforce a point, etc.
11) Irony. This is an important part of the narrative voice of 'Tess". It offers the reader a point of view on characters, their actions and the events and situations of the novel. Examples: when Tess's father is returning noisily home in a carriage at the beginning of the novel, past the dancing girls in the field, after his celebrations at the news of his heritage, Hardy comments; "Nothing was seen or heard further of Durbeyfield in his triumphal chariot....". What effect does the comparison of the pub carriage to a Roman chariot create? Some other ironies are very directly voiced: "Pedigree, ancestral skeletons, monumental record, the d'Urberville lineaments, did not help Tess in her life's battle as yet, even to the extent of attracting to her a dancing-partner over the heads of the commonest peasantry." Hardy points out ironically the illusion that the father pursues - in this instance that such a heritage can, in the day-to-day world of the agricultural poor, bring advantage. Ironies can also be found in the dialogue, for instance when Joan, in her joy at having a heritage, speaks of their family "reaching back long before Oliver Grumble's time." Her ignorance of the correct pronunciation here points ironically to the ignorance and decline of the family. Note the comic element in the dialogue.
12) Verisimilitude. Many novel offer us a sequence of events, characters and situations which, however fictional, have the texture of real events. The reader, when reading such a novel, can "suspend disbelief" without too much difficulty. Hardy's novels have been noted for their not always having verisimilitude. The most notable examples include: the dream sequence when Angel lays Tess in a grave; the heavy symbolism of the setting of Stonehenge at the end; symbolic moments such as the use of the huntsmen and their dying birds. Critics have sometimes argued that these moments are weaknesses. However, it is a common perspective among readers that these sequences can be very powerful and that they add significantly to the rich texture of the novel. Arguably, hardy did not set out to create a finely tuned illusion of reality in any case.