feat_summary_path: finished_summaries/novelguide/Tess of the d'Urbervilles/section_1_part_11.txt
feat_book_id: Tess of the d'Urbervilles.chapter xi
feat_summary_id: chapter xi
feat_summary: {"name": "Chapter XI", "url": "https://web.archive.org/web/20210213065711/https://www.novelguide.com/tess-of-the-durbervilles/summaries/phase1-chapter1-11", "summary": "Soon, Alec allows the horse to leave the path and Tess finds herself deep in the woods, lost in the fog. After she rebuffs his advances, he tells her that he has bought a new horse for her family and toys for her younger siblings. Although she is grateful, she is unhappy. Alec sets off to find a road, leaving her wrapped in his coat on a nest of leaves. Upon his return, he finds her asleep and takes advantage of her. The narrator attempts to understand why the wrong woman and the wrong man wind up together and states simply that \"it was to be\" and that \"there lay the pity of it\".", "analysis": ". Chapters I-XI. Set in southwestern England in the late-nineteenth century, Thomas Hardy begins Tess of the d'Urbervilles: A Pure Woman with a lush description of the rural undulating landscape. This is an agricultural community seeped in ancient tradition. Its simple inhabitants, who speak with a distinct country dialect, depend totally upon the earth for their survival. Many of these families, including the Durbeyfields, have descended from noble aristocratic Norman families but have, as Hardy writes, \"gone to seed\" over time. Learning of their noble lineage determines the rest of the Durbeyfield family's lives, especially that of the lovely teenage daughter, Tess. Overall, the pessimistic author argues that although individuals might possess superior traits--physical, mental, ethical--which might otherwise enable them to achieve great success, they are sadly condemned to their fate: \"as Tess's own people down in their retreats never tire of saying 'It was to be \"'. Hardy displays a great sense of sympathy for England's lower classes, especially for rural women. Unlike many of the farm women, Tess is pure, her purity represented by the color white. She wears a white dress, carries a white willow branch and white flowers. She is a virgin ready to marry and, in the agricultural sense, to bear a harvest of children. Hardly surprising then, a fairy-tale, prince-like man, an \"Angel\" as his name makes clear, appears to the young virgin in a scene reminiscent of the biblical Angel appearing to the Virgin Mary. However, Tess is disappointed when he fails to choose her to dance. As will become increasingly apparent, Angel Clare will fail Tess further in the future, and the only prince that Tess will ever encounter is the horse Prince, whose death determines her future. In contrast to the light-sinned Clare, the darker skinned \"swarthy\" Alec d'Urberville, who sports a black pointed moustache and tempts Tess to eat strawberries instead of an apple, in the garden, is cast as the villain. From the beginning, Mr. Durbeyfield takes on airs, riding in a carriage and proudly boasting to his drunken comrades at Rolliver's about his noble lineage, and Mrs. Durbeyfield's proud dreams reinforce his plan to change the family's fortunes. But, ultimately \"pride goeth before a fall. After the death of Prince, the guilt-ridden Tess is put forth as the savior of the family. In this regard she is a fairy-tale heroine, like Beauty, who must face the beast, in this case Alec d'Urberville, to save her father. Hardy casts Tess as a superior woman. She is smarter than her parents and far more concerned about her brothers and sisters. She is, in fact, their teacher, an occupation she desires but one she will never achieve because, as Hardy would have us believe, it is not her fate. It is her sense of guilt, and the desire to pay back her family for killing the horse, that spurs Tess into taking a job she doesn't want. While the Durbeyfields might seem to work all day long, they never accomplish anything, but the superior Tess gets the job done, so to speak. At the Trantridge poultry farm, she is set apart from the other servants. While she enjoys their company, she does not drink and find release in the hazy alcohol-fueled world that Hardy describes so poetically: \"it was then that the ecstasy and the dream began in which emotion was the matter of the universe, and matter but an adventitious intrusion likely to hinder you from spinning where you wanted to spin\". The only thing that ever crosses Tess's lips is pure white milk as we shall see later on when Tess goes to work at Talbothays Dairy. Unlike the other working women, she does not take part in the wild dancing and certainly not the sexual revelry: \"by this time every couple had been suitable matched. an inner cloud of dust rose around the prostate figures\". Indeed, Tess is worried about being home early, even though the following morning is Sunday. It is also of interest to note that Tess is asleep when the tragic accident involving Prince occurs. Thus, she's not really to blame. On one hand, it seems that Tess is the only wide-awake Durbeyfield. Unlike her parents, she realizes the true state of the family; she knows that her father will be unable to take the hives to market. However, on the other hand, she seems to go through life half asleep; not completely tuned in, as it were. Also, she is asleep when Alec takes advantage of her sexually or \"ruins her,\" in the Victorian sense of the word. In this manner, Hardy removes Tess from any responsibility. Despite her attempts to retain her chastity, Tess remains pure. It is her fate after all at play. She is without agency: there is nothing she can do. Readers should remember that in the Victorian era, one did not discuss sexual matters and authors could not write of them either. Indeed, some readers are surprised to find that after the night in the woods, Tess is no longer a virgin. Thus, it is important to read between the lines, so to speak. For instance, the other women that Tess walks home with have at earlier times \"stood in relations with d'Urberville,\"--they have also been sexually involved with Alec. So, they know perfectly well what will happen to the girl when she rides off with Alec into the woods, an event which should also be viewed in the metaphorical sense. Will Tess ever really leave the forest or will darkness descend on her forever. In today's world, Alec d'Urberville would certainly face charges and jail. During the Victorian era, however, such a heinous act was oftentimes considered to be an inevitable seduction. Also, the section of woods is called the Chase, which is self-explanatory"}
text: 
  
  The twain cantered along for some time without speech, Tess as she
  clung to him still panting in her triumph, yet in other respects
  dubious.  She had perceived that the horse was not the spirited one
  he sometimes rose, and felt no alarm on that score, though her seat
  was precarious enough despite her tight hold of him.  She begged him
  to slow the animal to a walk, which Alec accordingly did.
  
  "Neatly done, was it not, dear Tess?" he said by and by.
  
  "Yes!" said she.  "I am sure I ought to be much obliged to you."
  
  "And are you?"
  
  She did not reply.
  
  "Tess, why do you always dislike my kissing you?"
  
  "I suppose--because I don't love you."
  
  "You are quite sure?"
  
  "I am angry with you sometimes!"
  
  "Ah, I half feared as much."  Nevertheless, Alec did not object to
  that confession.  He knew that anything was better then frigidity.
  "Why haven't you told me when I have made you angry?"
  
  "You know very well why.  Because I cannot help myself here."
  
  "I haven't offended you often by love-making?"
  
  "You have sometimes."
  
  "How many times?"
  
  "You know as well as I--too many times."
  
  "Every time I have tried?"
  
  She was silent, and the horse ambled along for a considerable
  distance, till a faint luminous fog, which had hung in the hollows
  all the evening, became general and enveloped them.  It seemed to
  hold the moonlight in suspension, rendering it more pervasive than in
  clear air.  Whether on this account, or from absent-mindedness, or
  from sleepiness, she did not perceive that they had long ago passed
  the point at which the lane to Trantridge branched from the highway,
  and that her conductor had not taken the Trantridge track.
  
  She was inexpressibly weary.  She had risen at five o'clock every
  morning of that week, had been on foot the whole of each day, and on
  this evening had in addition walked the three miles to Chaseborough,
  waited three hours for her neighbours without eating or drinking,
  her impatience to start them preventing either; she had then walked
  a mile of the way home, and had undergone the excitement of the
  quarrel, till, with the slow progress of their steed, it was now
  nearly one o'clock.  Only once, however, was she overcome by actual
  drowsiness.  In that moment of oblivion her head sank gently against
  him.
  
  D'Urberville stopped the horse, withdrew his feet from the stirrups,
  turned sideways on the saddle, and enclosed her waist with his arm to
  support her.
  
  This immediately put her on the defensive, and with one of those
  sudden impulses of reprisal to which she was liable she gave him a
  little push from her.  In his ticklish position he nearly lost his
  balance and only just avoided rolling over into the road, the horse,
  though a powerful one, being fortunately the quietest he rode.
  
  "That is devilish unkind!" he said.  "I mean no harm--only to keep
  you from falling."
  
  She pondered suspiciously, till, thinking that this might after all
  be true, she relented, and said quite humbly, "I beg your pardon,
  sir."
  
  "I won't pardon you unless you show some confidence in me.  Good
  God!" he burst out, "what am I, to be repulsed so by a mere chit like
  you?  For near three mortal months have you trifled with my feelings,
  eluded me, and snubbed me; and I won't stand it!"
  
  "I'll leave you to-morrow, sir."
  
  "No, you will not leave me to-morrow!  Will you, I ask once more,
  show your belief in me by letting me clasp you with my arm?  Come,
  between us two and nobody else, now.  We know each other well; and
  you know that I love you, and think you the prettiest girl in the
  world, which you are.  Mayn't I treat you as a lover?"
  
  She drew a quick pettish breath of objection, writhing uneasily on
  her seat, looked far ahead, and murmured, "I don't know--I wish--how
  can I say yes or no when--"
  
  He settled the matter by clasping his arm round her as he desired,
  and Tess expressed no further negative.  Thus they sidled
  slowly onward till it struck her they had been advancing for an
  unconscionable time--far longer than was usually occupied by the
  short journey from Chaseborough, even at this walking pace, and
  that they were no longer on hard road, but in a mere trackway.
  
  "Why, where be we?" she exclaimed.
  
  "Passing by a wood."
  
  "A wood--what wood?  Surely we are quite out of the road?"
  
  "A bit of The Chase--the oldest wood in England.  It is a lovely
  night, and why should we not prolong our ride a little?"
  
  "How could you be so treacherous!" said Tess, between archness and
  real dismay, and getting rid of his arm by pulling open his fingers
  one by one, though at the risk of slipping off herself.  "Just when
  I've been putting such trust in you, and obliging you to please you,
  because I thought I had wronged you by that push!  Please set me
  down, and let me walk home."
  
  "You cannot walk home, darling, even if the air were clear.  We are
  miles away from Trantridge, if I must tell you, and in this growing
  fog you might wander for hours among these trees."
  
  "Never mind that," she coaxed.  "Put me down, I beg you.  I don't
  mind where it is; only let me get down, sir, please!"
  
  "Very well, then, I will--on one condition.  Having brought you
  here to this out-of-the-way place, I feel myself responsible for
  your safe-conduct home, whatever you may yourself feel about it.
  As to your getting to Trantridge without assistance, it is quite
  impossible; for, to tell the truth, dear, owing to this fog, which so
  disguises everything, I don't quite know where we are myself.  Now,
  if you will promise to wait beside the horse while I walk through the
  bushes till I come to some road or house, and ascertain exactly our
  whereabouts, I'll deposit you here willingly.  When I come back I'll
  give you full directions, and if you insist upon walking you may; or
  you may ride--at your pleasure."
  
  She accepted these terms, and slid off on the near side, though not
  till he had stolen a cursory kiss.  He sprang down on the other side.
  
  "I suppose I must hold the horse?" said she.
  
  "Oh no; it's not necessary," replied Alec, patting the panting
  creature.  "He's had enough of it for to-night."
  
  He turned the horse's head into the bushes, hitched him on to a
  bough, and made a sort of couch or nest for her in the deep mass of
  dead leaves.
  
  "Now, you sit there," he said.  "The leaves have not got damp as yet.
  Just give an eye to the horse--it will be quite sufficient."
  
  He took a few steps away from her, but, returning, said, "By the bye,
  Tess, your father has a new cob to-day.  Somebody gave it to him."
  
  "Somebody?  You!"
  
  D'Urberville nodded.
  
  "O how very good of you that is!" she exclaimed, with a painful sense
  of the awkwardness of having to thank him just then.
  
  "And the children have some toys."
  
  "I didn't know--you ever sent them anything!" she murmured, much
  moved.  "I almost wish you had not--yes, I almost wish it!"
  
  "Why, dear?"
  
  "It--hampers me so."
  
  "Tessy--don't you love me ever so little now?"
  
  "I'm grateful," she reluctantly admitted.  "But I fear I do not--"
  The sudden vision of his passion for herself as a factor in this
  result so distressed her that, beginning with one slow tear, and
  then following with another, she wept outright.
  
  "Don't cry, dear, dear one!  Now sit down here, and wait till I
  come."  She passively sat down amid the leaves he had heaped, and
  shivered slightly.  "Are you cold?" he asked.
  
  "Not very--a little."
  
  He touched her with his fingers, which sank into her as into down.
  "You have only that puffy muslin dress on--how's that?"
  
  "It's my best summer one.  'Twas very warm when I started, and I
  didn't know I was going to ride, and that it would be night."
  
  "Nights grow chilly in September.  Let me see."  He pulled off a
  light overcoat that he had worn, and put it round her tenderly.
  "That's it--now you'll feel warmer," he continued.  "Now, my pretty,
  rest there; I shall soon be back again."
  
  Having buttoned the overcoat round her shoulders he plunged into the
  webs of vapour which by this time formed veils between the trees.
  She could hear the rustling of the branches as he ascended the
  adjoining slope, till his movements were no louder than the hopping
  of a bird, and finally died away.  With the setting of the moon the
  pale light lessened, and Tess became invisible as she fell into
  reverie upon the leaves where he had left her.
  
  In the meantime Alec d'Urberville had pushed on up the slope to clear
  his genuine doubt as to the quarter of The Chase they were in.  He
  had, in fact, ridden quite at random for over an hour, taking any
  turning that came to hand in order to prolong companionship with her,
  and giving far more attention to Tess's moonlit person than to any
  wayside object.  A little rest for the jaded animal being desirable,
  he did not hasten his search for landmarks.  A clamber over the
  hill into the adjoining vale brought him to the fence of a highway
  whose contours he recognized, which settled the question of their
  whereabouts.  D'Urberville thereupon turned back; but by this time
  the moon had quite gone down, and partly on account of the fog The
  Chase was wrapped in thick darkness, although morning was not far
  off.  He was obliged to advance with outstretched hands to avoid
  contact with the boughs, and discovered that to hit the exact spot
  from which he had started was at first entirely beyond him.  Roaming
  up and down, round and round, he at length heard a slight movement of
  the horse close at hand; and the sleeve of his overcoat unexpectedly
  caught his foot.
  
  "Tess!" said d'Urberville.
  
  There was no answer.  The obscurity was now so great that he could
  see absolutely nothing but a pale nebulousness at his feet, which
  represented the white muslin figure he had left upon the dead leaves.
  Everything else was blackness alike.  D'Urberville stooped; and heard
  a gentle regular breathing.  He knelt and bent lower, till her breath
  warmed his face, and in a moment his cheek was in contact with hers.
  She was sleeping soundly, and upon her eyelashes there lingered
  tears.
  
  Darkness and silence ruled everywhere around.  Above them rose the
  primeval yews and oaks of The Chase, in which there poised gentle
  roosting birds in their last nap; and about them stole the hopping
  rabbits and hares.  But, might some say, where was Tess's guardian
  angel? where was the providence of her simple faith?  Perhaps, like
  that other god of whom the ironical Tishbite spoke, he was talking,
  or he was pursuing, or he was in a journey, or he was sleeping and
  not to be awaked.
  
  Why it was that upon this beautiful feminine tissue, sensitive as
  gossamer, and practically blank as snow as yet, there should have
  been traced such a coarse pattern as it was doomed to receive; why
  so often the coarse appropriates the finer thus, the wrong man the
  woman, the wrong woman the man, many thousand years of analytical
  philosophy have failed to explain to our sense of order.  One may,
  indeed, admit the possibility of a retribution lurking in the present
  catastrophe.  Doubtless some of Tess d'Urberville's mailed ancestors
  rollicking home from a fray had dealt the same measure even more
  ruthlessly towards peasant girls of their time.  But though to visit
  the sins of the fathers upon the children may be a morality good
  enough for divinities, it is scorned by average human nature; and it
  therefore does not mend the matter.
  
  As Tess's own people down in those retreats are never tired of saying
  among each other in their fatalistic way: "It was to be."  There
  lay the pity of it.  An immeasurable social chasm was to divide our
  heroine's personality thereafter from that previous self of hers
  who stepped from her mother's door to try her fortune at Trantridge
  poultry-farm.
  
  
  END OF PHASE THE FIRST
  
  
  
  
  
  Phase the Second: Maiden No More
  
  
  
feat_summary_name: Chapter XI
target: Soon, Alec allows the horse to leave the path and Tess finds herself deep in the woods, lost in the fog. After she rebuffs his advances, he tells her that he has bought a new horse for her family and toys for her younger siblings. Although she is grateful, she is unhappy. Alec sets off to find a road, leaving her wrapped in his coat on a nest of leaves. Upon his return, he finds her asleep and takes advantage of her. The narrator attempts to understand why the wrong woman and the wrong man wind up together and states simply that "it was to be" and that "there lay the pity of it".
feat_summary_analysis: . Chapters I-XI. Set in southwestern England in the late-nineteenth century, Thomas Hardy begins Tess of the d'Urbervilles: A Pure Woman with a lush description of the rural undulating landscape. This is an agricultural community seeped in ancient tradition. Its simple inhabitants, who speak with a distinct country dialect, depend totally upon the earth for their survival. Many of these families, including the Durbeyfields, have descended from noble aristocratic Norman families but have, as Hardy writes, "gone to seed" over time. Learning of their noble lineage determines the rest of the Durbeyfield family's lives, especially that of the lovely teenage daughter, Tess. Overall, the pessimistic author argues that although individuals might possess superior traits--physical, mental, ethical--which might otherwise enable them to achieve great success, they are sadly condemned to their fate: "as Tess's own people down in their retreats never tire of saying 'It was to be "'. Hardy displays a great sense of sympathy for England's lower classes, especially for rural women. Unlike many of the farm women, Tess is pure, her purity represented by the color white. She wears a white dress, carries a white willow branch and white flowers. She is a virgin ready to marry and, in the agricultural sense, to bear a harvest of children. Hardly surprising then, a fairy-tale, prince-like man, an "Angel" as his name makes clear, appears to the young virgin in a scene reminiscent of the biblical Angel appearing to the Virgin Mary. However, Tess is disappointed when he fails to choose her to dance. As will become increasingly apparent, Angel Clare will fail Tess further in the future, and the only prince that Tess will ever encounter is the horse Prince, whose death determines her future. In contrast to the light-sinned Clare, the darker skinned "swarthy" Alec d'Urberville, who sports a black pointed moustache and tempts Tess to eat strawberries instead of an apple, in the garden, is cast as the villain. From the beginning, Mr. Durbeyfield takes on airs, riding in a carriage and proudly boasting to his drunken comrades at Rolliver's about his noble lineage, and Mrs. Durbeyfield's proud dreams reinforce his plan to change the family's fortunes. But, ultimately "pride goeth before a fall. After the death of Prince, the guilt-ridden Tess is put forth as the savior of the family. In this regard she is a fairy-tale heroine, like Beauty, who must face the beast, in this case Alec d'Urberville, to save her father. Hardy casts Tess as a superior woman. She is smarter than her parents and far more concerned about her brothers and sisters. She is, in fact, their teacher, an occupation she desires but one she will never achieve because, as Hardy would have us believe, it is not her fate. It is her sense of guilt, and the desire to pay back her family for killing the horse, that spurs Tess into taking a job she doesn't want. While the Durbeyfields might seem to work all day long, they never accomplish anything, but the superior Tess gets the job done, so to speak. At the Trantridge poultry farm, she is set apart from the other servants. While she enjoys their company, she does not drink and find release in the hazy alcohol-fueled world that Hardy describes so poetically: "it was then that the ecstasy and the dream began in which emotion was the matter of the universe, and matter but an adventitious intrusion likely to hinder you from spinning where you wanted to spin". The only thing that ever crosses Tess's lips is pure white milk as we shall see later on when Tess goes to work at Talbothays Dairy. Unlike the other working women, she does not take part in the wild dancing and certainly not the sexual revelry: "by this time every couple had been suitable matched. an inner cloud of dust rose around the prostate figures". Indeed, Tess is worried about being home early, even though the following morning is Sunday. It is also of interest to note that Tess is asleep when the tragic accident involving Prince occurs. Thus, she's not really to blame. On one hand, it seems that Tess is the only wide-awake Durbeyfield. Unlike her parents, she realizes the true state of the family; she knows that her father will be unable to take the hives to market. However, on the other hand, she seems to go through life half asleep; not completely tuned in, as it were. Also, she is asleep when Alec takes advantage of her sexually or "ruins her," in the Victorian sense of the word. In this manner, Hardy removes Tess from any responsibility. Despite her attempts to retain her chastity, Tess remains pure. It is her fate after all at play. She is without agency: there is nothing she can do. Readers should remember that in the Victorian era, one did not discuss sexual matters and authors could not write of them either. Indeed, some readers are surprised to find that after the night in the woods, Tess is no longer a virgin. Thus, it is important to read between the lines, so to speak. For instance, the other women that Tess walks home with have at earlier times "stood in relations with d'Urberville,"--they have also been sexually involved with Alec. So, they know perfectly well what will happen to the girl when she rides off with Alec into the woods, an event which should also be viewed in the metaphorical sense. Will Tess ever really leave the forest or will darkness descend on her forever. In today's world, Alec d'Urberville would certainly face charges and jail. During the Victorian era, however, such a heinous act was oftentimes considered to be an inevitable seduction. Also, the section of woods is called the Chase, which is self-explanatory