finished_summaries/pinkmonkey/Tess of the D'Urbervilles/section_21_part_2.txt
Tess of the D'Urbervilles.chapter 59
chapter 59
{"name": "CHAPTER 59", "url": "https://web.archive.org/web/20180820050202/http://www.pinkmonkey.com/booknotes/monkeynotes/pmTessD66.asp", "summary": "The final Chapter has Angel and Liza Lu nearing the West Hill. Looking down at the valley below, they watch a black flag rising on the tower, which indicates that Tess has been executed as the law demands. The two speechless gazers bend themselves down to the earth, as if prayer. Hardy ends the book that \"justice\" was done and the \"President of the Immortals has ended his sport with Tess.", "analysis": "Notes The final chapter has Tess being punished for the murder of Alec. It is a brief chapter and no details of her death are given. Angel and Liza Lu simply watch the black flag rising. The lack of description surrounding the event is a clear statement by Hardy; Tess's death seems small in comparison to the sufferings she has undergone in life, all as a result of Alec's lust. Hardy, therefore, implies the tragedy of the law; while it punishes physical acts of violence, such as murder, it does nothing to punish the perpetrator of emotional violence, who also destroys life. The final words of the novel \"justice was done\" are spoken by the author in bitter irony. It is an intense statement about the tragedy of Tess Durbeyfield Clare. Sport\" is also an apt word to describe the painful experience that Tess underwent. Indeed her life was a game of fate in which she was no more than a pawn, mauled and handled mercilessly to prove that a mere mortal has no right to rise above destiny"}


The city of Wintoncester, that fine old city, aforetime capital
of Wessex, lay amidst its convex and concave downlands in all the
brightness and warmth of a July morning.  The gabled brick, tile, and
freestone houses had almost dried off for the season their integument
of lichen, the streams in the meadows were low, and in the sloping
High Street, from the West Gateway to the mediaeval cross, and from
the mediaeval cross to the bridge, that leisurely dusting and sweeping
was in progress which usually ushers in an old-fashioned market-day.

From the western gate aforesaid the highway, as every Wintoncestrian
knows, ascends a long and regular incline of the exact length of a
measured mile, leaving the houses gradually behind.  Up this road
from the precincts of the city two persons were walking rapidly,
as if unconscious of the trying ascent--unconscious through
preoccupation and not through buoyancy.  They had emerged upon this
road through a narrow, barred wicket in a high wall a little lower
down.  They seemed anxious to get out of the sight of the houses and
of their kind, and this road appeared to offer the quickest means
of doing so.  Though they were young, they walked with bowed heads,
which gait of grief the sun's rays smiled on pitilessly.

One of the pair was Angel Clare, the other a tall budding
creature--half girl, half woman--a spiritualized image of Tess,
slighter than she, but with the same beautiful eyes--Clare's
sister-in-law, 'Liza-Lu.  Their pale faces seemed to have shrunk
to half their natural size.  They moved on hand in hand, and never
spoke a word, the drooping of their heads being that of Giotto's
"Two Apostles".

When they had nearly reached the top of the great West Hill the
clocks in the town struck eight.  Each gave a start at the notes,
and, walking onward yet a few steps, they reached the first
milestone, standing whitely on the green margin of the grass, and
backed by the down, which here was open to the road.  They entered
upon the turf, and, impelled by a force that seemed to overrule their
will, suddenly stood still, turned, and waited in paralyzed suspense
beside the stone.

The prospect from this summit was almost unlimited.  In the valley
beneath lay the city they had just left, its more prominent buildings
showing as in an isometric drawing--among them the broad cathedral
tower, with its Norman windows and immense length of aisle and nave,
the spires of St Thomas's, the pinnacled tower of the College, and,
more to the right, the tower and gables of the ancient hospice,
where to this day the pilgrim may receive his dole of bread and ale.
Behind the city swept the rotund upland of St Catherine's Hill;
further off, landscape beyond landscape, till the horizon was lost
in the radiance of the sun hanging above it.

Against these far stretches of country rose, in front of the other
city edifices, a large red-brick building, with level gray roofs,
and rows of short barred windows bespeaking captivity, the whole
contrasting greatly by its formalism with the quaint irregularities
of the Gothic erections.  It was somewhat disguised from the road in
passing it by yews and evergreen oaks, but it was visible enough up
here.  The wicket from which the pair had lately emerged was in the
wall of this structure.  From the middle of the building an ugly
flat-topped octagonal tower ascended against the east horizon, and
viewed from this spot, on its shady side and against the light, it
seemed the one blot on the city's beauty.  Yet it was with this blot,
and not with the beauty, that the two gazers were concerned.

Upon the cornice of the tower a tall staff was fixed.  Their eyes
were riveted on it.  A few minutes after the hour had struck
something moved slowly up the staff, and extended itself upon the
breeze.  It was a black flag.

"Justice" was done, and the President of the Immortals, in Aeschylean
phrase, had ended his sport with Tess.  And the d'Urberville knights
and dames slept on in their tombs unknowing.  The two speechless
gazers bent themselves down to the earth, as if in prayer, and
remained thus a long time, absolutely motionless: the flag continued
to wave silently.  As soon as they had strength, they arose, joined
hands again, and went on.



CHAPTER 59
The final Chapter has Angel and Liza Lu nearing the West Hill. Looking down at the valley below, they watch a black flag rising on the tower, which indicates that Tess has been executed as the law demands. The two speechless gazers bend themselves down to the earth, as if prayer. Hardy ends the book that "justice" was done and the "President of the Immortals has ended his sport with Tess.
Notes The final chapter has Tess being punished for the murder of Alec. It is a brief chapter and no details of her death are given. Angel and Liza Lu simply watch the black flag rising. The lack of description surrounding the event is a clear statement by Hardy; Tess's death seems small in comparison to the sufferings she has undergone in life, all as a result of Alec's lust. Hardy, therefore, implies the tragedy of the law; while it punishes physical acts of violence, such as murder, it does nothing to punish the perpetrator of emotional violence, who also destroys life. The final words of the novel "justice was done" are spoken by the author in bitter irony. It is an intense statement about the tragedy of Tess Durbeyfield Clare. Sport" is also an apt word to describe the painful experience that Tess underwent. Indeed her life was a game of fate in which she was no more than a pawn, mauled and handled mercilessly to prove that a mere mortal has no right to rise above destiny