Tess in Hardy’s Tess of the d’Urbervilles:

The Other Self of Nature

Abstract

Thomas Hardy’s Tess of the d’Urbervilles exhibits the life of Tess, a representative of the Victorian woman, who discovers herself in the midst of nature. She concurs with nature both physically and psychologically. Almost all the momentous incidents of her life have a close association with nature. The natural atmosphere, the landscape, the cycle of seasons, and the nocturnal animals introduced in the novel echo the inner rhythms of Tess. She, in fact, acts and reacts in a way that one can metaphorically relate her to nature. Her association with nature raises the question of whether she is a distinguished human being or a part of nature or just another self of nature. This paper, therefore, aims at addressing the metaphorical identity of Tess and reconsidering the relationship between nature and Tess in the light of ecocriticism.