Study Questions
1. What distinguishes the Valley of the Great Dairies from Blackmoor Vale, where Tess was raised?

2. What is the relationship between Tess’s inner mood and her outward beauty?

3. What are Tess’s feelings after getting to work milking the cows?

4. Why does Angel Clare reject a career in the Church?

5. What effect does this rejection have on his family’s plans for his future?

6. Does Angel notice Tess at first?

7. What comes to Angel’s mind after he first pays attention to Tess’s presence?

8. How does Angel’s time at Talbothays change his attitude towards country folk and his overall mood?

9. What rule of the dairy does Angel break for Tess’s benefit?

10. What does Angel think about aristocratic families, according to Dairyman Crick?

Answers
1. The Valley of the Great Dairies is larger than, and perhaps not so beautiful as, the valley in which Tess has so far lived her life.

2. There is an inverse relationship: when her mood is less happy, her beauty is greater; when she is happy, her looks are more or less ordinary.

3. Getting to work gives Tess a sense of security and confidence. She “appeared to feel that she really had laid a new foundation for her future.”

4. Affected by the contemporary spirit of rationalism, Angel is unable to believe in the literal truth of Jesus’ Resurrection and Last Judgment as stated in Article Four of the Articles of Religion. Angel concludes that since he does not believe all of this religion he cannot rightly take orders in it.

5. The Reverend Clare feels that to send Angel to Cambridge for an education would be a waste if he did not use that education as training for a religious career. Thus, Angel and he agree Angel will not attend Cambridge. Angel spends some years drifting in search of a suitable vocation.

6. Angel does not notice Tess until several days after her arrival at Talbothays.

7. Angel is struck by the vague thought that he has seen her somewhere before. He says to himself, “What a fresh and virginal daughter of Nature that milkmaid is!”

8. Living with farm workers, Angel begins to see them as individual people rather than as stereotypical country bumpkins. He becomes less melancholy as he spends more time outdoors.

9. Angel lines up the cows so that Tess will be able to milk her favorites.

10. Dairyman Crick tells Tess that the strongest of Angel’s unorthodox opinions is a hatred of old, aristocratic families, whom Angel feels have used their best energies and seen their best days in the past.