Tess of the d'Urbervilles: Chapter 41 Summary & Analysis

Eight months have passed and Tess is again poor and laboring. She has worked occasionally at other dairies and farms in the spring and autumn. Angel's money has all gone to her family's broken roof and Tess's own needs, and she is both too proud and too ashamed to ask Mr. Clare for money as Angel had suggested. She does not disturb her own parents' notion that she and Angel are happily reconciled, as admitting the truth would destroy her own hopes as well.

At the same time Angel is sick with fever in Brazil, and has found that the paradise he expected is in fact harsh and not at all inclined to English agricultural methods.

Tess needs another job, but she prefers rural, outdoors work, as her only experiences with society have been negative. She could have returned to Talbothays but could not bear it for many reasons. She decides to go to a farm recommended by Marian, who is working there now.

Tess begins to lose hope and rambles onward as thoughtlessly as a “wild animal.” She often draws unwanted attention from men because of her beauty, but the worst incident occurs one afternoon, when a man greets her on the road and then recognizes her from Trantridge. It is the same man that Angel struck for insulting her. He mocks her again and Tess runs away into the woods. She makes a nest of leaves and falls asleep.

Tess thinks of Angel far away and feels that she is the most unhappy thing in the world. She repeats “All is vanity” to herself, but then sees that it is worse, there is injustice and important things that are taken away, and Tess wishes she was dead.

Tess starts to hear a strange sound, but when she realizes it is coming from animals she is not afraid. Dawn breaks and she sees that around her are pheasants, some dead, some injured and in pain, that a hunting party must have shot the day before and left behind. Tess has always been afraid of hunters, as she could not understand their desire to kill those creatures weaker than themselves.

Tess feels akin to the pheasants in their suffering and she breaks the necks of the wounded ones to end their misery. She then feels guilty that she had been so depressed the night before, as at least she has not been shot and left for dead, and the shame that tortures her is based only on an arbitrary social convention, not any inherent law of Nature.