Throughout the novel, the colors white and red appear as motifs, often juxtaposing one another within the same scene. Traditionally, the color white represents purity, innocence, and holiness. The color red is more complicated, bearing both positive and negative connotations. At times, the color red symbolizes passion and youthful fervor; at other times, red “stains” characters just as they are metaphorically “stained” by sin. Hardy uses these motifs early in the novel, in a scene from Chapter 2 in which Tess is walking with some girls from her village:
[Tess] wore a red ribbon in her hair, and was the only one of the white company who could boast of such a pronounced adornment.
In this passage, the red ribbon sets Tess apart from the other young women, marking or “staining” her and foreshadowing her future sorrows. The red ribbon contrasts with the snow-white purity of her dress, which represents her child-like innocence and lack of sexual experience.
After Tess accidentally kills her family’s horse, she is also described as having “white features” in Chapter 4:
The lane showed all its white features, and Tess showed hers, still whiter. The huge pool of blood in front of her was already assuming the iridescence of coagulation.
This moment is among the first in which Tess experiences true shock and pain—as a consequence of her actions, her family loses their main source of income. It is because this happens that Tess is forced to ask Alec D’Urberville for help, setting into motion the cascade of events leading to her death at the end of the novel. The horse’s death is the first real example of the red “stain” motif representing the ruin of Tess’s innocence. When juxtaposed with her innocent purity and “white” features, the stain becomes all the more stark, spreading to other areas of her life.
Throughout the novel, the colors white and red appear as motifs, often juxtaposing one another within the same scene. Traditionally, the color white represents purity, innocence, and holiness. The color red is more complicated, bearing both positive and negative connotations. At times, the color red symbolizes passion and youthful fervor; at other times, red “stains” characters just as they are metaphorically “stained” by sin. Hardy uses these motifs early in the novel, in a scene from Chapter 2 in which Tess is walking with some girls from her village:
[Tess] wore a red ribbon in her hair, and was the only one of the white company who could boast of such a pronounced adornment.
In this passage, the red ribbon sets Tess apart from the other young women, marking or “staining” her and foreshadowing her future sorrows. The red ribbon contrasts with the snow-white purity of her dress, which represents her child-like innocence and lack of sexual experience.
After Tess accidentally kills her family’s horse, she is also described as having “white features” in Chapter 4:
The lane showed all its white features, and Tess showed hers, still whiter. The huge pool of blood in front of her was already assuming the iridescence of coagulation.
This moment is among the first in which Tess experiences true shock and pain—as a consequence of her actions, her family loses their main source of income. It is because this happens that Tess is forced to ask Alec D’Urberville for help, setting into motion the cascade of events leading to her death at the end of the novel. The horse’s death is the first real example of the red “stain” motif representing the ruin of Tess’s innocence. When juxtaposed with her innocent purity and “white” features, the stain becomes all the more stark, spreading to other areas of her life.
