One of the motifs of Hardy's Tess of the
D'Urbervilles is the circularity of life with nature's ruling presence. As
part of the dominating presence of nature and the recurring cycle of life, the herons
symbolize the spirit of this omniscient presence. With Darwinian determinism the
circles of life over which Tess has no control recur throughout Hardy's novel. In
Chapter XX, for instance, Hardy opens his chapter with reference to Spring and the
resumption of the cycle of nature. On the dairy farm, Tess and Clare meet often. One
day they
studied each other, ever balanced on the edge of
a passion. All the while they were converging, under an irresistible law
as surely as two streams in one
vale.
Mirroring the actions
of creatures of nature, Tess and Clare are living lives as determined as their fellow
creatures. As they enjoy a romantic walk, the herons act as a symbolic reminder that
Tess and Clare, also, are subject to the
"irresistible law" of
the circularity of life:
At these non-human hours they could get quite
close to the waterfowl. Herons came, with a great bold
noise as of opening doors and shutters, out of the boughs of a plantation which they
frequented at the side of the mead; or, if already on the spot, hardily maintained their
standing in the water as the pair walked by, watching them by moving their heads
round in a slow, horizontal, passionless
wheel, like the turn of puppets by
clockwork.
Thus,
as the irresistible circularity of life, the herons also symbolize the Darwinian
determinism of life as well as Hardy's characteristic fatalism as Tess is
often identified as a captured bird.
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