The raising of the black flag was easily the most memorable moment in the entire book. Thomas Hardy on page 369 slowly set the reader up for the final image associated with Tess. Hardy’s use of the flag ended the novel in a way that begged for an emotional response. At the top of the page Hardy focuses on the Gothic structures of the large English city. He describes in detail the architectural beauty of the cities numerous cathedrals and colleges. Hardy’s long descriptive sentences of these structures make the scene almost like fantasy. All of this description sets the stage perfectly for describing the prison. The very next paragraph switches gears and forces the reader to slow down and concentrate. Hardy goes into the description of the prison holding Tess. Hardy makes sure to contrast it with the rest of the city. By setting it apart from the rest of the town he hightens suspense in the reader. In this paragraph we see Hardy employ the same long sentences. The next paragraph, the second to last, Hardy forces the reader to a dead stop. He uses short choppy sentences to grab the attention of the reader. By changing sentence type like this Hardy introduces important topics. He used this style to highlight important issues before in the book. The last sentence of this paragraph is devoted to the black flag. The slow build up to Hardy’s introduction of the flag helped make the image powerful. This was the image that Hardy had spent the majority of the last page, and for that matter the final part of the book developing. The build up on the last page with Hardy’s writing combined with the emotionally gripping plot make for the last visual image Hardy looked for in his novel. With the rather simple sentence, ” It was a black flag.” Hardy burns an image into the readers mind. The flag itself symbolized the emotions the reader experienced better than Hardy’s adjectives could. The sorrow, grief and empathy that any reader must feel for Tess when reaching this part of the story was expertly focused into the black flag. If for example Hardy had instead mearly stated that Tess had been executed, even using his prose, the reader would not get the same effect.

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