The birth and death of Sorrow

Thomas Hardy, Tess of the D'urbervilles: Reading Notes, Part Two

Tess returns to her native village, pregnant with Alec D'urberville's child. En-route, she encounters a fanatical wanderer who paints biblical imprecations on fences and farm structures. Tess refuses to believe that such curses are truly the words of God.

Nevertheless Tess is beset by moral regrets: "a cloud of moral hobgoblins by which she was terrified without reason. It was they who were out of harmony with the actual world, not she. Walking among the sleeping birds in the hedges, watching the skipping rabbits on a moonlit warren, or standing under a pheasant-laden bough, she looked upon herself as a figure of guilt intruding into the haunts of Innocence . . . She had been made to break an accepted social law, but no law known to the environment in which she fancied herself such an anomaly."

Tess divided between a moral, grieving side and a natural, passionate one.

She gives birth to a sickly infant whom she names Sorrow. On the child's death, she buries it in the corner of the village graveyard reserved for those souls that will never see heaven.

On Sorrow's death, Tess begins to wonder if it would be impossible for her to reclaim her maidenhood. An opportunity arises for her to leave her parents' home to work at a large dairy farm, Talbothays, in another valley.

Leaving her home "some spirit within her rose automatically as the sap in the twigs. It was unexpended youth, surging up anew after its temporary check, and bringing with it hope, and the invincible instinct towards self-delight."


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