Thomas Hardy, in Tess of the D'Urbervilles, puts a lot of effort into relating the characters to their surroundings, especially in the parallelism between the emotional disposition of Tess and her physical environment. It is not surprising, therefore, that the two most important interpersonal relationships for Tess's life originate in a fertile garden and a lush grazing meadow, places where Man tames Nature but cannot avoid being influenced by Nature herself. The timbre of Tess's relationships with both Alec D'Urberville and Angel Clare is foreshadowed very clearly by the nature of the places in which both relationships were founded. Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why Violent Video Games Shouldn't Be Banned"? Get an Original Essay The first relationship that struck Tess was with her false relative, Alec D'Urberville. The dissolute Alec falls in love with his "Coz" when he first visits the D'Urberville house in Trantridge, and within minutes of meeting her he is filling her with all the fruit from the estate's garden. When he tries to make her eat a strawberry from his hand, the act of a lover, she protests, "'No - no!' she said quickly, placing her fingers between his hand and his lips 'I'd rather take it with my own hands.'" But he insists and she agrees "with some anguish." After the first strawberry, however, she continued to "eat in a half-satisfied and half-reluctant state whatever d'Urberville offered her." He covers her with flowers, giving her roses to put in her bosom, attaching some to her hat and piling them in the basket, "in the prodigality of her generosity". Alec's actions and Tess's responses in the garden foreshadow two events later in the book. First, Alec's seduction of Tess can be seen in the strawberry scene. Tess's response to the inappropriate advance is refusal at first, but then she gives in and is "half satisfied" with Alec's advances. Alec's unholy bachelor union with Tess, although he imposed circumstances on her, involved a certain degree of seduction, just as with the strawberry, and Hardy's words about Tess's situation with Alec after the night at the Chase were that she "had been driven into a confused surrender for a while." This can be interpreted to mean that Tess remained with him and surrendered to his advances for a period of a few weeks after the night in the woods. Furthermore, Alec's profusion of flowers foreshadows his persistent praise of her and promises to help his family when he confronts them towards the end of the book. This foreshadowing makes the scene set in Alec's garden very important in telling the reader the nature of Alec's love affair with Tess in a marginally socially acceptable way for the 19th century. The second relationship that struck Tess was the one with Angel Claire. Her experience with him at Talbothays Dairy before her profession of love "among the oozing fat and warm ferments of the Var Vale" can be summed up in a passage in which the two were walking in the meadows just after dawn. The summer fog is the main metaphor for Tess and Angel's love. The fog is described sometimes as localized, with "dark green islands of dry grass" where the cows lay down for the night and at other times as "more general, and the meadows stretched out like a white sea, from which scattered trees rose like dangerous rocks." But the fog invariably melted in the sun, leaving "diamonds of moisture... like seed pearls" on Tess and then leaving her without the fog's mystical quality, "only the dazzling beautiful milkmaid, who had to hold her own in the sun other women of the world." This description of the valley and the fog can be read as foreshadowing the nature of Tess's romance with Angel. The fog is more..