The Role of Fatalism and Death in Tess of the D’urbervilles and How Hardy Presented Them in This Novel by Using Different Linguistic and Language Techniques.

In my essay I will analyse what the role of fatalism and death in Tess of the D’Urbervilles and how Hardy presented them in this novel by using different linguistic and language techniques. Hardy set out to show us the life of the main protagonist; her strife, love and hard work. A theme I identified is the foreshadowing of death as it occurs throughout the novel It can also keep the reader hooked as the development of certain characters creates the interrogative of whether this is due to fatalism or natural occurrence. From further reading, I have found that other people’s opinions vary however, some are very compatible with that of my own for example: someone described the role of fate in the novel to be like a ‘domino effect’ and from reading a review on ‘goodreads’ I found a quote by Laura (a critic) on Hardy himself which says “Hardy was clearly a fatalistic atheist.” In the novel I identified two different types of death presented by Hardy for example the predominant representations of death as a natural and human life process were represented in the novel by the deaths of Tess’s father (in phase the six) and her baby Sorrow (in phase the second). The death of Sorrow could be put down to the neglect of Christianity and moral guidelines as to the conception of the child which Tess herself believes is true as she is rejected by society and her faith. These both occur naturally and not at the expense of another significant character. On the other hand, there is unintentional death where Hardy introduces us to the murderous and premeditated side of significant characters in the novel. For example, Tess’s hatred for Alec develops at a constant pace throughout the novel however she does not act on this until near the end (which could be identified as one of the main climaxes in the novel) as this peaceful, pure and truly beautiful character is suddenly represented as a murderous woman. Tess goes on to show no remorse for her actions as she then asks Angel