When I read Thomas Hardy's 'Tess of the D'Urbervilles' many years ago, I didn't really notice the strawberry motif/symbol in the novel.
But while watching the excellent, BBC 2008, serial production of 'Tess' recently, I started noticing the strawberry image, sensing how it may symbolically represent how voluptuous and irresistible Tess is to men, her nature being both sublimely passionate and innocent as a girl turning towards womanhood.
Also think that when Alec D'Urberville makes Tess eat strawberries early in the novel, there is an obvious parallel with Eve's fall in the Garden of Eden when she eats the forbidden fruit from the Tree of Life. After this, of course, Alec rapes Tess in a secluded wood, and, thus, starts Tess' tragic downfall before her life has really begun.
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