Phase the Second

The Second Phase closes a period of suffering and return with a qualified renewal: as Tess travels toward Talbothays, her arrival in the country of her ancestors awakens hope and a renewed instinct for life. The heading marks not a resolution but a hinge between phases, carrying the narrative from the aftermath of her time at Trantridge into the next movement of the story.

Position in the Narrative

The phase ends after Tess has set out for Talbothays, a dairy near estates once held by the d’Urbervilles. The text immediately follows its closing marker with the title of the Third Phase, “The Rally,” and the opening chapter of that section. This division gives Tess’s journey a structural as well as geographical significance: the close looks back on the downward turn that preceded it, while the next heading anticipates a recovery.

The Closing Movement

At Talbothays, Tess expects to be near the great family vaults of her foremothers and their husbands. The ancestral landscape prompts her to reflect that the d’Urberville name, like Babylon, has fallen, and to connect that decline with the quiet loss of her own innocence. Yet the place does not merely draw her into backward-looking grief. She wonders whether anything good might come from being in the land of her ancestors, and an inward surge of youth brings hope back after its temporary check.

Structural Significance

The phase’s ending turns on contrast rather than triumph. Tess carries the weight of what has happened, but the movement toward Talbothays also opens a new possibility: hope rises almost instinctively, compared to sap returning in twigs. By placing this renewal at the close of a phase, the novel makes it a threshold between injury and a fresh course of life, without yet promising what that course will bring.