Angel makes a hasty decision to try farming in Brazil. He pitches the idea to his parents who are surprised at his sudden decision. They also are curious as to the whereabouts of Tess, his new bride. At the nightly reading of the Bible, Angel hears a reading from Proverbs 31:10 on the attributes of a virtuous woman. When he hears these words, Angel cries bitterly. His parents are quite concerned, and Angel tells some of what has happened to Tess, but not all, and when his mother questions Tess’ virtue—“is she a woman whose history will bear investigation?”—Angel replies “She is spotless!” and then feels anger toward Tess for putting him in a situation where he must deceive his parents. The irony is clear. Tess is a virtuous woman; the problem rests with Angel—“there hung a deeper shade than the shade which Angel Clare perceived, namely, the shade of his own limitation.”
The Clares are sure Angel can cure any defects in Tess, “Any crudeness of manner which may offend your more educated sense at first, will, I am sure, disappear under the influence or your companionship and tuition.” However, it is Angel’s own lack of flexibility that hinders him, thus making him intractable to Tess’ plight. Angel’s limitations cast a cloud over his tutelage of Tess. He is stubborn in his belief that a blemish on Tess’ reputation ruins her whole being—“In considering what Tess was not, he overlooked what she was, and forgot that the defective can be more than the entire.”
Angel’s exchanges with Mercy and Izz further demonstrate the alteration in his character, revealing a man in a state of flux and anticipating a major change for him. He chides himself for not seeing what Tess tried to make obvious to him earlier, “O Tess! If you had only told me sooner, I would have forgiven you!” We must wonder if Angel had paid attention when the signs were posted for him. However, Izz is an honest woman, even when she volunteers to accompany him to Brazil, without too many questions. He later withdraws the offer, abashed at his rashness after Izz announces that Tess loved him best at Talbothays—“… nobody could love ’ee more than Tess did! … She would have laid down her life for ’ee. I could do no more.’” Angel even reconsiders his decision to go to Brazil, but fate and his conscious steer him on his present course.
In Chapter 41, Tess encounters the injured pheasants. While traveling to Flintcomb-Ash, she finds refuge in a wood. Upon waking the following morning, Tess discovers several wounded pheasants who were shot but not captured. She does her best to end the birds’ suffering, “[breaking] the necks of as many as she could find” with “tears running down as she killed the birds tenderly.” This scene is thematically significant.
First, it reveals more of Tess’ character. She exhibits compassion for the bird’s injuries and benevolence for their plight. Even in her own suffering, Tess is still aware of the suffering of others. Killing the birds is a kindness. In fact, in comparing her plight to theirs, Tess feels contrite:—“Poor darlings—to suppose myself the most miserable being on earth in the sight o’ such misery as yours!” She is not bodily injured, only injured in her soul; the birds are near death, which she is not. “She was ashamed of herself for her gloom of the night, based on nothing more tangible than a sense of condemnation under an arbitrary law of society that had no foundation in Nature.” Hardy’s point is that the “arbitrary law”—the one that has condemned Tess—has overcome nature. Tess’ fate twists upon the capricious rules that man has created, with no apparent regard for natural law.
Second, this scene foreshadows the tale’s end. Tess and the birds are the same: Both have been hunted, both wounded, both driven to seek a safe place, and both left, injured, to their own resources. The difference is that Tess ends the birds suffering; no one ends Tess’. In a way, this scene represents what has happened to Tess thus far in the story and foreshadows her death at the end.
