Study Questions

1. What is Angel’s true attitude toward the decline of renowned families?

2. What is the only modern encroachment upon the pastoral area around Talbothays?

3. Why is Angel cheered by Tess’s revelation that she is a D’Urberville?

4. What premarital advice does Joan give Tess?

5. Does Angel allow news of the marriage to be publicized?

6. Why is Angel forced to punch the man from Trantridge?

7. Do any of Angel’s or Tess’s close relatives attend the wedding?

8. What is Tess’s mood after the ceremony?

9. How do Marian, Izz, and Retty behave after the ceremony?

10. Where do Angel and Tess go for their honeymoon?

Answers

1. Angel does not believe that noble blood equals individual virtue, but his emotions are stirred by the story of a family come down in the world.

2. A railway line is the only modern intrusion upon the area around Talbothays.

3. He feels that “society is slightly snobbish,” and Angel believes Tess’s aristocratic lineage will make her more respectable and impressive to his family.

4. Joan counsels Tess not to tell Angel about the relationship with D’Urberville.

5. Angel asks the Cricks to keep the wedding date secret and also asks that the banns (announcements of an upcoming marriage) not be called out in church. He has arranged instead for a marriage license.

6. The man from Trantridge has just stopped himself from completing an insult of Tess. To avenge this attempted slight, Angel punches the man.

7. No one from either Tess’s or Angel’s immediate family attends the marriage ceremony.

8. After the ceremony, Tess is apprehensive and fearful about the future. Angel tries to coax and joke her out of this mood.

9. In the hours after the wedding, Retty Priddle has tried to drown herself, Marian got very drunk, and Izz Huett has fallen into a severe depression.

10. Angel and Tess go to Wellbridge Manor, a converted farmhouse once owned by the D’Urbervilles.