Responsibility and Consequences

“I will not desert you! I will protect you by every means in my power, dearest love, whatever you may have done or not have done!” (p.386)

Oh Mr. Hardy, must the female protagonist always die?

In the case of Tess of the D’Urbervilles, the answer is a yes. But not before struggling for her life, falling in love, being rejected by her family… A weaker hearted woman would have shrunk with fear and long ago given up on hoping the gods would stop playing sport with her life. Was it not in King Lear that Gloucester stated, “As flies to wanton boys, are we to the gods,-They kill us for their sport.” (act IV) Tess is alone in a world of cruel and malicious characters.

There appears to be very little goodness in old Wessex County. Tess herself comes from a family headed by a constantly drunk pater familias. Sent off to claim kin, Tess is thrown into a situation she is little prepared for. It is from this seemingly harmless errand, that begins the ball rolling and the downfall of poor Tess. In true Hardy style, we are then treated to a whole wad of social, political, religious, and moral critiques. Addressing everything from women’s moral worth, to the effect of urban industrialism on the agrarian life, Thomas Hardy created a novel that sent his readers into a frenzy over its sensational plot and characters. Within the first 100 pages, Tess is raped by her “kin” Alec. And it is from this rape that many parallels can be drawn. The rape of Tess is similar to the rape of the countryside. The destruction of all that is good, pure, and natural must occur so that modernity and urbanism can grown and spread. The violation of a beautiful young girl, mimics the ruin of the rural land.

Matters are made more complicated when Angel Clare is thrown into the mix. Working at the idyllic dairy, a setting of calm, undisturbed stability, Tess meets and at first resists falling in love with Angel. Angel is a man who rejects formal industry and blind religious belief. He understands things about Tess that she herself does not understand. Angel is the most “modern” thinker of the novel. Yet, his reaction to the truth about Tess and the rape and the resulting child is anything but modern. Angel cannot accept Tess’s confession, he cannot accept the real, true Tess. The ideal he built of her is broken.

Pagan versus Christian rituals, fleeting faith, salvation and baptism, parental influence over children…these are just some of the many themes and critiques found in Tess of the D’Urbervilles. It is a difficult book to read in that Tess is always being forced into the role of the sinner or victim. She can never just be herself. Everyone around her is constantly judging. But it is a necessary and worthwhile read, because it is important to meet characters like Angel, Tess, and Alec. It just happens that in Hardy’s Wessex county that the non-believers, victims, and hypocrites all fall together. In the end Angel comes back, and they are re-united, all the truth exposed, they understand each other and love each other for who they really are. But the ending cannot be a happy one. On the rocks of Stonehenge, Tess realizes she must pay for her sins. Tess of the D’Urbervilles is sacrificed in the end. But really, we all knew that was going to be her fate from page one right?

Posted on April 7th, 2007 by Mary Clare
Filed under: classic, literary fiction