Literary Devices

Literary devices are a great way to enhance ones learning while reading a book. Thomas hardy does a great job with these devices.

One literary device Hardy uses is metaphors. The book is full of them. One example is when Alec D'urberville sexually abuses Tess Derbeyfield. When he does this, he kills her spiritually. Eventually, Tess kills Alec physically because she cannot kill him in the same way that he killed her.

Another metaphor in this same scene, is the setting Hardy chooses to put the two of them in.
They are sitting in a dark, foggy forest. I believe that the forest is like Alec. This could also be representation, becaue it does not directly say "Alec is a dark, foggy forest," but I think it could also be considered a metaphor.

Another example of a metaphor is when Hardy mentions Adam and Eve. Angel Clare and Tess are the two being talked about when these other names come up.

The last example of metaphors I want to bring up is when the narator compares Tess and her countenance as "a natural carnation slightly embrowned by the season." *

Another great literary device Hardy uses is foreshadowing. There is a great example of this when Tess and Alec, again, are in the forest.

"Under the trees several pheasants lay about, their rich plumage dabbled with blood; some were dead, some were twitching a wing, some staring up at the sky, some pulsating quickly, some contorted, some stretched out-all of them writhing in agony except the fortunate ones whose tortures had ended during the night by the inability of nature to do more. With the impulse of a soul who could feel for kindred sufferers as much as for herself, Tess's first thought was to put the birds out of their torture, and to this end with her own hands she broke the necks of as many as she could find, leaving them to lie where she had found them till the gamekeepers should come, as they probably would come, to look for them a second time. 'Poor darlings- to suppose myself the most miserable being on earth in the sight o' such misery as yours!' she exclaimed, her tears running down as she killed the birds tenderly."

When Tess kills the birds, it is foreshadowing her own death; suggesting that she is killing a part of herself. The part that accepted so many years of pain. After this, Tess starts to act differently, and it eventually leads to her decision to kill Alec. When she is hung by her neck in the end of the book, it is just like when she was snapping the necks of the birds in the forest. **


Sources:
Tess of the D'urbervilles, Thomas Hardy
** www.sparknotes.com/lit/tess/quotes.html