The role of past in tess of the d'Urbervilles

The main aim of my thesis is to prove that the allusive language in Thomas Hardy's Tess of the d'Urben,illes plays a crucial role in creating such a reality in which every event can be substituted with a construct of the past. By means of literary, historical, religious, mythological, and cultural references various eras, values and individualities of the past are illuminated. Reality becomes confronted to fixed ancient stereotypes, where the characters lose their identities and the true nature of the events transforms into a prefabricated drama being construed accordingly in a preconceived way. Past beliefs and imaginings are composed of religious precedents, myths, legends and names reincarnate in the person and tragedy of Tess.