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Similes
Key Examples in Tess of the d'Urbervilles
Chapter 6
Explanation and Analysis—Tess is Pricked by a Rose:
At the beginning of Chapter 6, Tess reflects on a thorny rose that, affixed to her breast, pricks her and draws blood. She views this as a bad omen, and the narrator takes this moment to foreshadow the tragic events that will soon befall her:
[Tess] fell to reflecting again, and in looking downwards a thorn of the rose remaining in her breast accidentally pricked her chin. Like all the cottagers of Blackmoor Vale, Tess was steeped in fancies and prefigurative superstitions; she thought this an ill-omen—the first she had noticed that day.
Related Themes:
Chapter 25
Explanation and Analysis—Angel's Name:
Angel Clare's very name serves as an example of situational irony in Tess of the D'Urbervilles, given that he refuses to enter into the Church as a profession. He also denounces the religious establishment, much to the sorrow of his traditional father:
Unlock with LitCharts A+Once upon a time Angel had been so unlucky as to say to his father, in a moment of irritation, that it might have resulted far better for mankind if Greece had been the source of the religion of modern civilization, and not Palestine; and his father's grief was of that blank description which could not realize that there might lurk a thousandth part of a truth, much less a half truth or whole truth, in such a proposition.
Related Themes:
