Tess of the d'Urbervilles: Metaphors 6 key examples

Tess is likened to a vessel that is open to new experiences but also vulnerable. Experience has not yet entered into this "vessel" at the beginning of the novel, and no one protects her in her state of childish vulnerability. Class inequality and poverty both strip Tess of her childhood, violating her and permitting her to be violated. This violation—not only of Tess, but of all impoverished children and the entire working class—is something Hardy heavily criticizes in Tess of the D'Urbervilles. 

From a stylistic perspective, it is crucial to note that the narrator precedes his metaphor with the phrase "at this time," suggesting that Tess will, at some point, acquire knowledge and experience that will "tincture" the vessel of her mind. Though the foreshadowing here is subtle, early comments like this lay the groundwork for the more overt foreshadowing in later passages, building anticipation in the mind of the reader as the narrator recounts the series of tragic events that make up young Tess's life.

This metaphor highlights the lack of agency that the young Durbeyfield children—indeed, that many young children—have in determining their fate. Class inequality and the impoverished state of her family drove Tess to seek employment at the D'Urberville mansion, putting her in harm's way. The ship sailed by her parents has unfortunately steered Tess towards disaster. Overall, however, this metaphor downplays the fact that neither Durbeyfield parent had very much agency in steering the ship themselves, given that they were poor, working-class people living in an inequitable society.

There are many literary elements at play in this particular passage. The roses given to Tess by Alec symbolize his harmful, romantic intentions, as he's more likely to "prick" her and draw blood than to bring anything positive into her life. This injury foreshadows the more direct injury Alec will do to Tess later on in the novel, both directly—as he physically harms her when he rapes her—and indirectly, as he damages her chances of finding happiness and love in a married state. It is ironic that in this situation the rose pricking Tess is more of a red flag than Alec's suspicious behavior upon their first meeting. The combination of irony, metaphor, and foreshadowing highlight Tess's innocence and naiveté. 

This metaphor exists within a longer literary tradition of comparing women to nature. The narrator asserts that these women are not simply objects of admiration framed against a natural backdrop, but that they are the backdrop themselves—simply part of the landscape. This metaphor diminishes women, placing them in a position in which they have very little agency: they either blend into the background or stand at the fore, but they never act as an independent subject. The narrator paints these women into his scene, ordering them as he wishes. This effect—of the narrator "drawing" women into his narrative landscape—is reinforced in a later passage in which one young woman in a pink jacket (Tess) is described as "the most flexuous and finely-drawn figure of them all."

Personification in this passage infuses the sun with distinctly masculine sexuality: the earth is "brimming with interest" for the sun as he gazes at her with "vigour." This sensuousness is not condemned, but rather described as rightfully inspiring religious fervor. In the narrator’s mind, it appears that the pagans may have been correct to deify the sun. This position aligns with Hardy’s general position on religion in the novel, wherein natural objects and a simpler, pastoral lifestyle are more moral and praiseworthy than dusty, out-of-touch religious convention. In other words, this masculine sun deity acts as a natural replacement for the masculine God of the Christian religion.

This stance on heritage was not uncommon during the time period in which Hardy wrote Tess of the D'Urbervilles. At the turn of the 20th century, new scientific discoveries resulted in the widespread proliferation of eugenics, a social and scientific movement aimed at “purifying” the population of all undesirable traits by preventing certain people from producing children. As an ideological precursor to the eugenics movement, many people believed that certain "social ills"—sexual impurity, alcoholism, vagrancy, etc.—had a genetic and therefore familial basis. If individual members of a family exhibited these "degenerate" qualities, the entire family might have been termed "degenerate." Angel uses similar pre-eugenic logic here, asserting that "decrepit families postulate decrepit wills, decrepit conduct" as a means of explaining what he views as Tess's sexual impurity.