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This is the Reading Question with the highest marks (15 !)

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Questions for the WRITING (and Suggested Answers)

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Questions for the WRITING (and Suggested Answers)

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Trailer:

Does it give you any idea of what happened?Does it seem an interesting story?

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A kind of "trailer" of the movie and the book, written by Thomas Hardy. Enjoy it!

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Extract (with notes) from "Tess of the d'Urbervilles"

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Extract (with notes) from "Tess of the d'Urbervilles"

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Some notes jotted down on the text (active reading) - you CAN download the file.

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This is for Question 3

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A short revision tutorial to remind learners how to analyse language and structure within a narrow section of the longer C19th prose extract in section A of Paper 1 of Edexcel's 9-1 GCSE English Language exams. Includes annotated exemplar answer.

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Link on the Victorian Website

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Some Discussions of Hardy's "Tess of the D'Urbervilles" (1891)

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Victorian Web Home -> Authors -> Thomas Hardy -> Works]

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How to answer these questions

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This is for Question 3

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Scans and reminders

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19th Century Fiction - Extract from "Tess of the d'Urbervilles"

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19th Century Fiction - Extract from "Tess of the d'Urbervilles"

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Tess and her brother Abraham take the hives to market. Their horse Prince...

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Scans and reminders

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Who was he and what did he achieve?

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Some notes on Setting, Symbols...

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This is for Question 4

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A video tutorial explaining how learners should respond to question 4 on paper 1 of the new Edxecel 9-1 GCSE English exam (C19th prose fiction)

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When you focus on a theme within a text, expand your exploration beyond simply identifying main themes, like hate, family, relationships, power. Instead look at how themes relate to each other, by exploring conflicting ideas and the clash of opposites at the heart of them. For example:

conflict - us versus them, friends versus foes, the state versus the citizen

family - feelings of safety versus desire for independence

love - desire for something forbidden versus attainable love

power - the individual versus the state, man versus nature

place - an idea of paradise versus reality, the idea of home versus exile

nature - the separation of man from nature, natural beauty versus violence

An interesting theme involves a clash of opposites. Love as a theme is more interesting when there is conflict. If two people meet, fall in love and there are no problems, then it is not a very interesting story. Without something trying to stop love, the story has nowhere to go.

You can give structure and energy to an analysis essay by discussing the opposite sides of a theme.

The following extract is taken from a novel called Tess of the d'Urbervilles and shows a conversation between Tess, a working class girl, and Alec, a wealthy man of the upper classes.

He took a few steps away from her, but, returning, said,

'Bye the bye, Tess, your father has a new cob to-day. Somebody gave it to him.'

'Somebody? You!'

D'Urberville nodded.

'O how very good of you that is!' she exclaimed, with a painful sense of awkwardness of having to thank him just then.

'And the children have some toys.'

'I didn't know - you ever sent them anything!' she murmured, much moved. 'I almost wish you had not - yet, I almost wish it!'

'Why, dear?'

'It - hampers me so.'

'Tessy - don't you love me ever so little now?'

'I'm grateful,' she reluctantly admitted. 'But I fear I do not -'

Tess of the d'Urbervilles, Thomas Hardy

This extract suggests some conflicting themes. For example:

unrequited love

power in relationships

conflict in relationships

differences between the classes

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When you focus on a theme within a text, expand your exploration beyond simply identifying main themes, like hate, family, relationships, power. Instead look at how themes relate to each other, by exploring conflicting ideas and the clash of opposites at the heart of them.

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Plot Overview

The poor peddler John Durbeyfield is stunned to learn that he is the descendent of an ancient noble family, the d’Urbervilles. Meanwhile, Tess, his eldest daughter, joins the other village girls in the May Day dance, where Tess briefly exchanges glances with a young man. Mr. Durbeyfield and his wife decide to send Tess to the d’Urberville mansion, where they hope Mrs. d’Urberville will make Tess’s fortune. In reality, Mrs. d’Urberville is no relation to Tess at all: her husband, the merchant Simon Stokes, simply changed his name to d’Urberville after he retired. But Tess does not know this fact, and when the lascivious Alec d’Urberville, Mrs. d’Urberville’s son, procures Tess a job tending fowls on the d’Urberville estate, Tess has no choice but to accept, since she blames herself for an accident involving the family’s horse, its only means of income.

Tess spends several months at this job, resisting Alec’s attempts to seduce her. Finally, Alec takes advantage of her in the woods one night after a fair. Tess knows she does not love Alec. She returns home to her family to give birth to Alec’s child, whom she christens Sorrow. Sorrow dies soon after he is born, and Tess spends a miserable year at home before deciding to seek work elsewhere. She finally accepts a job as a milkmaid at the Talbothays Dairy.

At Talbothays, Tess enjoys a period of contentment and happiness. She befriends three of her fellow milkmaids—Izz, Retty, and Marian—and meets a man named Angel Clare, who turns out to be the man from the May Day dance at the beginning of the novel. Tess and Angel slowly fall in love. They grow closer throughout Tess’s time at Talbothays, and she eventually accepts his proposal of marriage. Still, she is troubled by pangs of conscience and feels she should tell Angel about her past. She writes him a confessional note and slips it under his door, but it slides under the carpet and Angel never sees it.

After their wedding, Angel and Tess both confess indiscretions: Angel tells Tess about an affair he had with an older woman in London, and Tess tells Angel about her history with Alec. Tess forgives Angel, but Angel cannot forgive Tess. He gives her some money and boards a ship bound for Brazil, where he thinks he might establish a farm. He tells Tess he will try to accept her past but warns her not to try to join him until he comes for her.

Tess struggles. She has a difficult time finding work and is forced to take a job at an unpleasant and unprosperous farm. She tries to visit Angel’s family but overhears his brothers discussing Angel’s poor marriage, so she leaves. She hears a wandering preacher speak and is stunned to discover that he is Alec d’Urberville, who has been converted to Christianity by Angel’s father, the Reverend Clare. Alec and Tess are each shaken by their encounter, and Alec appallingly begs Tess never to tempt him again. Soon after, however, he again begs Tess to marry him, having turned his back on his -religious ways.

Tess learns from her sister Liza-Lu that her mother is near death, and Tess is forced to return home to take care of her. Her mother recovers, but her father unexpectedly dies soon after. When the family is evicted from their home, Alec offers help. But Tess refuses to accept, knowing he only wants to obligate her to him again.

At last, Angel decides to forgive his wife. He leaves Brazil, desperate to find her. Instead, he finds her mother, who tells him Tess has gone to a village called Sandbourne. There, he finds Tess in an expensive boardinghouse called The Herons, where he tells her he has forgiven her and begs her to take him back. Tess tells him he has come too late. She was unable to resist and went back to Alec d’Urberville. Angel leaves in a daze, and, heartbroken to the point of madness, Tess goes upstairs and stabs her lover to death. When the landlady finds Alec’s body, she raises an alarm, but Tess has already fled to find Angel.

Angel agrees to help Tess, though he cannot quite believe that she has actually murdered Alec. They hide out in an empty mansion for a few days, then travel farther. When they come to Stonehenge, Tess goes to sleep, but when morning breaks shortly thereafter, a search party discovers them. Tess is arrested and sent to jail. Angel and Liza-Lu watch as a black flag is raised over the prison, signaling Tess’s execution.