Chance, History, and Word-painting in A Pair of Blue Eyes and Tess of the d’Urbervilles

Abstract

Thomas Hardy retroactively schematized his novels according to three categories in the Wessex edition, published between 1912 and 1931: ‘Novels of Character and Environment,’ ‘Romances and Fantasies,’ and ‘Novels of Ingenuity.’ According to the Hardyan critical tradition, the first category contains Hardy’s highly praised canon, whereas the second and last categories are relegated to the ranks of minor, or at best lesser, work. One of Hardy’s minor novels, A Pair of Blue Eyes, is subsumed under the second category; Tess of the d’Urbervilles, held in high esteem as a major work, belongs to the first category. Despite the distinction between minor and major, however, the two novels share many qualities. Aware that they closely resembles each other in many ways, this paper aims to explore the common denominators the two novels share. Of great note here is the fact that the despair of the leading heroines is wrought from chance which they present themselves as victims of. So the novels, as they unfold, remain a series of coincidence. The organization of causal relationships plays a significant part in interweaving coincidental events, aesthetically compact, the result being that the heroines acquiesce in the requirements of the tragic ending. History is no less significantly introduced in the form of family history into the fabric of both novels, thenceforth demonstrating a way in which to elaborate on the concept that human beings suspend their happiness at every turn, swept away by the course of destiny. Interestingly enough, destiny at times finds its aesthetic expression in word-painting that, in no small amounts, contributes to constructing the novels at a thematic as well as functional level. This word-painting at its best allows readers to descend and see into something unconscious, intractable, or shadowy. So there is no word-painting in the novels, be it ever so common, that will not repay study and provide, if carefully observed, quite an interesting story. Since Hardy’s imagination plays with chance, history, and word-painting in the novels, this paper will be an attempt to account for those aspects of the novels, exploring an avenue from which to see how Hardy uses them, each of which is elemental to his fictional universe.