How Does Hardy Present Tess in Chapter 2

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How does Hardy present Tess in Chapter 2? One way in which Hardy presents Tess in chapter two is that Tess is very proud of her family. Tess believes that her family is somewhat superior to the other families in her village. When her friends begin to mock her father for his foolishness she quickly snaps back at them. “Look here; I won’t talk another inch with ye, if you say any jokes about him!” Tess clearly honors her family as she has threatened not to talk to her friends again if they mock her father any longer. However I believe that Tess is in denial about her father’s position and has to make excuses as to why her father is behaving inappropriately . For example it says “The clubbists tittered, except the girl called Tess- in whom a slow heat seemed to rise at the sense that her father was making himself foolish in their eyes.” If Tess honestly believed that her father was in a high position in society she would not feel embarrassed that he was raving about it in public. She would be encouraging him and proud of him. Then in addition she says “He’s tired that’s all,” showing that Tess is in denial about her father’s position. This is a common excuse to make for someone, normally for a child, and in these circumstances it makes Tess appear even more idiotic as she is trying to cover up her own beliefs which are as see through as a pane of glass. Hardy describes Tess to be a pretty girl. He makes many references to this throughout chapter two. For example the first piece of information that we learn about Tess is that “She was a fine handsome girl” The word handsome suggests that she isn’t the finest of all the ladies but that she is still very pretty. Another way that Hardy describes Tess’ beauty and character is that she appears to look a variety of different ages. “You could sometimes see her twelfth year in her cheek, or her ninth sparkling from her

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