Tess of the d'Urbervilles | Repetition as Imminent Design

In the following excerpt Miller discusses interpretations of the novel, focusing on its repetitive structure.

The episodes of Tess of the d'Urbervilles take place in a line, each following the last. Ultimately they form a row traced out in time, just as Tess's course is traced across the roads of southern England. Each episode in Tess's life, as it occurs, adds itself to previous ones, and, as they accumulate, behold, they make a pattern. They make a design traced through time and on the landscape of England, like the prehistoric horses carved out on the chalk downs. Suddenly, to the retrospective eye of the narrator, of the reader, and ultimately even of the protagonist herself, the...

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