Hardy's writing often explores what he called the "ache of modernism", and this theme is notable in "Tess", which as one critic noted, portrays "the energy of traditional ways and the strength of the forces that are destroying them". In depicting this Hardy uses imagery associated with hell when describing modern farm machinery, as well as suggesting the effete nature of city life as the milk sent there must be watered down because townspeople cannot stomach whole milk. Angel's middle-class fastidiousness makes him reject Tess, a woman whom Hardy presents as a sort of Wessex Eve, in harmony with the natural world. When he parts from her and goes to Brazil, the handsome young man gets so ill that he is reduced to a "mere yellow skeleton". All these instances have been interpreted as signs of the negative results of humanity's separation from nature, both in creating destructive machinery and in failing to rejoice in pure and unadulterated nature.