The falling birds

Tess finds herself with nowhere to go. She cannot be with Angel due to her past, which Angel cannot forgive quite yet and her family is ashamed that she had to seek refuge with them. Tess ends up deep in the woods as she flees where she “scraped together the dead leaves till she had formed them into a large heap, making a sort of nest in the middle.” As Tess nestles into her bed she hears “strange noises.” In the morning Tess discovers that the unusual noises came from falling birds that were being hunted. Hardy’s use of bird imagery serves to reveal Tess as a natural being. Her state is very much like the birds that are fleeing. Tess sees some of the birds have not fully died as they stumble around suffering. She pities the birds because they are similar to her. After all, Tess wants to die and now that Angel has left her she is scarcely alive. Therefore, Tess helps the birds by killing them because she wishes someone would help her in this same manner. She “killed the birds tenderly.” Hardy’s depiction of the killing is unusual because the words “tenderly” and “killed” are contrasting. The juxtaposition of these words illustrates Tess’ desire to have someone alleviate her suffering. While Tess is ending the suffering of the poor creatures “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 which had no foundation in nature.”Tess has a moment of clarity as she realizes the “arbitrary law of society” does not apply in “nature” and Tess is indeed a product of nature. Hardy espouses this epiphany in the depths of the woods in nature’s setting because Tess is close to nature. After all, she rises from her “nest” and sympathizes with her fellow suffering creatures.