Professional Documents
Culture Documents
Lecture 2 – Paper 5
Overview of Narrative Techniques
Recap – Lecture 1
Conflict btwn her moral
Victim of her own passivity – her ideals & the double
internalization of the sexual standard in patriarchal
moral codes in society (?) Victorian sexual
ideology
Tess
Woman as Victim
a) Cosmic irony
Cosmic irony or the irony of fate exists when
God, or destiny, or the universal process, is
represented as though deliberately
manipulating events to frustrate and mock the
protagonist – M.H. Abrams
Ironic references to Christianity, God or gods
“But where was Tess’s guardian angel?
where was Providence? Perhaps, like that
other god of whom the ironical Tishbite
spoke, he was talking, or he was pursuing, or
he was in a journey, or peradventure he was
sleeping and was not to be awaked.” (Chap
11, p.74)
b) Irony of circumstance
Two features: when a person desires one
thing & the outcome is opposite, and when a
person marries, he usually makes a wrong
marriage
E.g. The d’Urbervilles residing at The Slopes
are not the true d’Urbervilles and instead of
receiving help, Tess ironically loses her
virginity because of her innocence.
4. Omens & Foreshadowing