Abstract: Tess of the d’Urbervilles is a masterpiece of the great British Victorian novelist Thomas Hardy (1840-1928); it describes a poor country girl Tess’ tragic life. Hardy deliberately applies substantial images in the nature to add permanent artistic charm of this novel. This thesis, thus, attempts to explore the significance of the use of images in Tess of the d’Urbervilles by analyzing animal images, plant images, color images and other images from the perspective of Frye’s Archetypal Criticism to interpret how Hardy manifests Tess’s tragic destiny more distinctly and vividly. This thesis comprises an introduction, four chapters and a conclusion. The introduction gives a brief introduction of Hardy and his achievements, as well as a literary review of Tess of d’Urbervilles and expounds the critical perspective of Archetypal Criticism. The body part chooses animal, plant and color images to deep analyze. This thesis uses horse, cattle, birds and rabbits as representatives of animal images, which indicate the turnover of Tess’s life trace and gradually enter the lifeless abyss. The plant images including rose, strawberry and white flowers. Those plant images seem to be symbols of beauty and love on the surface, while actually impose tragedy upon Tess. The red, white and black are chosen as color images which symbolize respectively misfortune, chastity and death, all those colors appear repeatedly and each has its symbolic meaning. Though above analysis, the author drew the following conclusions: Firstly, all sorts of recurring images in the text have its particular connotations. These images are heralds of twists and turns of Tess’s path of life and imply her tragic fate, creating a profound effect on symbol and implied meaning to intensify the tragic atmosphere of its tragedy and the tragic fate of character. Secondly, the natural imagery portrays the pure personality and intricate inner world of the heroine. Thirdly, it not only highlighting the theme of the novel, but reflects the writer’s pessimism by using the theory of archetypal criticism to analyze the potential meaning of these images. Besides, the work will be impressed by its tragic effect and artistic appeal. |
