The Literature Book

192

THE EVENING SUN

WAS NOW UGLY TO HER

LIKE A GREAT INFLAMED

WOUND IN THE SKY

TESS OF THE D’URBERVILLES (1891),

THOMAS HARDY

A

strong connection with the

landscape and nature runs

through the works of the

English writer Thomas Hardy. This

relationship was a reflection of the

author’s tremendous love of Dorset,

the county where he was born, and

where he set all of his major novels.

In Tess of the d’Urbervilles, nature

represents the authenticity and

spontaneity of traditional, rural

life: if nature suffers, then Hardy

is pointing to powerful “modern”

forces, which are depicted not only

as destructive but also more broadly

as indicative of human suffering.

Through Hardy’s use of pathetic

fallacy, Tess Durbeyfield is shown

as being in harmony with nature,

which reflects her character and

moods. The term “pathetic fallacy”

was coined by art critic John

Ruskin in 1856, and refers to the

attribution of human behavior and

emotions to nature; this device was

often used in 19th-century novels.

Pathetic fallacy is used by Hardy and other writers to link human

emotions to aspects of nature—for example, using references to the

weather to indicate mood: sunshine suggests happiness, rain misery,

and a storm inner turmoil.

IN CONTEXT

FOCUS

Pathetic fallacy

BEFORE

1807 William Wordsworth

employs pathetic fallacy in his

poem “I wandered lonely as a

cloud / That floats on high o’er

vales and hills.”

1818 “It was on a dreary

night in November....” Mary

Shelley opens Chapter 5 of

Frankenstein with foreboding

elemental forces.

1847 Wuthering Heights by

Emily Brontë uses the weather

on the moors to represent

human emotion.

AFTER

1913 In Sons and Lovers by

English novelist D. H. Lawrence,

the moods of characters are

reflected by evoking the

environment around them.

1922 The opening of T. S.

Eliot’s Modernist poem The

Waste Land portrays the

season of spring as “cruel.”

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