Tess of the D'Urbervilles
Tess of the d’Urbervilles is subtitled ‘A pure woman’ and this is how Thomas Hardy sees and portrays her throughout his novel. As the novel progresses the reader is introduced to many aspects of Tess as she grows from being a child on the verge of adulthood to a mature and experienced woman. In some parts of the book Hardy describes Tess as very passive but in other parts of the novel she is shown as a powerful and even godly sort of woman.
The character of Tess is first shown near the beginning of the book as a proud and shy young girl. She is very loving of her family and holds them in high regard especially her parents even though they sometimes do feckless, irresponsible things such as when her father went to Rolliver’s (a pub) before going on an important delivery to “get up his strength for his journey”.
At the club-walking at the beginning of the book Tess is shown to be just an ordinary, innocent country girl “not handsomer than some others” but it is also indicated that she is very attractive. The white dress she wears symbolises purity and virginity and Hardy suggests that this purity comes from lack of experience as he describes her as “untinctured” by it. She is also shown to be very protective of her father and when she is teased by her friends about him it appears that she is quite sensitive and not resilient to embarrassment. At this point Tess is a “mere vessel of emotion” and she still has a local dialect but with some educated speech.
Tess is more responsible than her parents as she takes the beehive delivery herself when her father is too hung-over to do it. She is, however, contrary to her ordinariness marked out from the rest of her friends and fellow country girls from the very start of the book by a red ribbon in her hair. This doesn’t seem very significant at first but as the story progresses the colour red is mentioned several times to describe her and single her out from the rest. Some other examples of this are the blood of Prince (the family horse) which splashes on her white dress after he dies, her red mouth which is described as a flower a couple of times throughout the novel and Alec when he is described as “the blood-red ray in the spectrum of her young life”. The colour red, in general, is also frequently used to symbolise danger, passion, death and anger. Tess at this point in the nove...
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...the same chapter. This happened at twilight, which the time between night and day that Hardy believed people became very sensitive to the world around them. Hardy has mentioned this theory of his before when Tess returns to Marlott after getting pregnant with Alec d’Urberville’s child. It is silent around that time and Tess seems to enjoy silence and not think of it as the absence of sound.
As Tess noiselessly walks up to Angel, who is portrayed as a genuine stereotypical angel playing a harp “in the attic above her head”, she is described using the imagery of birth, growth and nature seems to be in a sort of hallucinatory, erotic ecstasy. This chapter also uses synaethesia to describe how she felt as she heard the music coming from Angel’s harp such as “the harmonies passed like breezes” and “his notes made visible”.
In my opinion I think that this novel is quite depressing and the reader feels sorry for Tess as her misfortunes are usually not her fault. Personally I think that Tess is quite weak and if she had not been so weak she could have taken control of her life like she did at the end when she murdered Alec instead of being as passive as she was throughout the novel.
Tessie Hutchinson, or Bill’s wife played a major role in this story. There are many signs of Duality of Human Nature in Tessie. Once Tessie arrived, realizing that she was late, she started to casually talk with Mrs.Delacroix, “Clean forgot what day it was,” she said to Mrs.Delacroix, who stood next to her and they both laughed softly.”. Everyone appeared to be in a good mood, “The people separated good-humoredly to let her through,”. Even her husband was joking around with her, “Thought we were going to have to get on without you, Tessie,” and, “and a soft laughter ran through the crowd as the people stirred back into position after Mrs. Hutchinson's
Tess of the d'Urbervilles Through life people may fault, or get on the wrong side of the tracks. Yet hopefully they keep faith and then willingly they may recoup and redeem themselves by recovering. Many believe that, Tess in, Tess of the d'Urbervilles was a great example of this. In Hardy's Victorian age novel, Tess of the d'Urbervilles, he illustrates casual wrong, the will to recover, the growth of love, and death. Almost everybody has done something casually wrong and not think much of it, many call this indifferent nature.
The community and her unsupportive parents’ cold treatment towards Tess following these events emphasize the hegemonic male perspective of society towards women. Furthermore, Hardy shows how women are seen by society through the male gaze as sexual objects, as Tess is blamed for Alec’s lack of self-control. He attempts to justify his cruel actions as he calls Tess a “temptress” and the “dear damned witch of Babylon” (Hardy 316), yet he later says that he has “come to tempt [her]” (340). Tess is also objectified by Alec when he says that if Tess is “any man’s wife [she] is [his]” (325). The narrator’s repeated sexualized descriptions of Tess, such as her “pouted-up deep red mouth” (39), further demonstrate how women are commonly seen through the male gaze in society.
At the beginning of the story, we see her desiring going to the lottery. She was laughing, joking, and encouraging her husband to go up and get a drawing when he didn’t move right away. She never would have suspected her family would be chosen, and furthermore, herself. Jackson creates a great contrast between Tessie’s nonchalance and the crowd’s nervousness (Yarmove). When her family is chosen, her character changes around knowing that there’s the possibility of her own death. Tessie’s character change is shocking, but falls into place with the holocaust. She symbolizes the human instinct of survival, and tries to offer up her own children and their families to lower her chances of death. In Yarmove’s analysis of Jackson’s work, he writes “It is the peevish last complaint of a hypocrite who has been hoisted by her own petard” to drive this thought home. The Nazis involved in the roundup of the ‘lesser’ people, alongside with whoever aided, did so because either they were naïve enough to believe they wouldn’t be killed themselves, or because they believed in the cause. Tessie symbolizes those who did so because they thought they wouldn’t be
By stoning Tessie, the villagers treat her as a scapegoat onto which they can project and repress their own temptations to rebel. The only person who shows their rebellious attitude is Tessie. She does not appear to ...
A significant portion of the novel taks place at Talbothays Dairy, which represents the force of good in Tess' life. At Talbothays, the air is "clear, bracing, and ethereal"; the river flows like the " pure River of Life" and the air "set up [Tess'] spirits wonderfully." The author describes the valley as a kind of paradise, with clean, fresh air and a flowing river. Upon entering the region, Tess reaches an emotional high encouraged by the beautiful atmosphere. At Talbothays, the milkers form "a little battalion of men and women," often "singing songs to entice the cows...
...cept her. ?Unadvisable? gives the impression that Angel does not really care one way or another. All of this is unfair to Tess, as Alec?s decision to rape her was not her fault in any way. Also, Angel?s sexual history is more promiscuous than Tess?s, and yet he sees only her flaws. Hardy uses specific word choices and diction to thoroughly inform the reader of the injustice of Tess?s circumstances.
Tess is a single mother due to the death of her late husband who still manages to keep her work life intact with her personal life. Although she is getting remarried, she was still the only one to look after her children. As a single parent, Tess learns to handle situations calmly especially when Anna and her brother bicker about minor issues. Freaky Friday portrays Tess breaking the stigma around single mothers as she is independent as well as financially and emotionally stable. However, since Tess had to provide for her family alone, she was unable to spend enough time with her children which made Anna feel as if Tess did not care for her. This lead to a lot of misunderstandings between Tess and Anna, which eventually allowed them to confront their
Tessie’s reaction is normal. When her family was chosen she was upset and insisted that Mr. Summers had cheated. She kept repeating that her hadn’t given her husband enough time. Like any mother, Tessie is concerned about the wellbeing of the member of her family.
Tess, the protagonist and heroine of Hardy's novel, becomes a victim of rape and in turn, her life grows to become degraded, humiliating and depressing; of which none of these things she deserves. Although initially striving to be heroic and providing for her family, (after she was responsible for the death of Prince) the position she takes on at the d'Urbervilles' ultimately leads to her death as she is raped and then pursued by her seducer Alec d'Urberville until she must murder him. This courageous yet dangerous decision to murder Alec epitomises her character as a heroine as she is brave enough to perform such a malicious act in order to kill her suffering at the root rather than being passive and perhaps choosing to take her own life instead.
e may feel that the choice has been taken away from her and it is a case of survival. Hardy has a strong sense of accidental, coincidental, fate and bad luck. However it is trying to decipher which events are what. For example there are hints that Tess preordained to be murderess, and early in the story, when Prince dies, “Her face was dry and pale, as though she regarded herself in the light of a murderess.” I believe that many actions that took place in her life were not always bad luck were not always fate but just the path that she led.
Tess' two "choices" as her husband, Alec d'Urberville and Angel Clare, hold many of the patriarchal stereotypes of the Victorian Age, chasing Tess as more of a metaphorical piece of meat than a passionate lover. As their secrets are revealed on their wedding night, it becomes harder and harder for Angel to love Tess, seeing her as "another woman in your shape" (Hardy 192). The author, at this point in the relationship between Tess and Angel, perfectly exemplifies the values and culture of the Victorian age. Though both Angel and Tess are guilty of the same misbehaviors in their pasts, Angel believes that "forgiveness does not apply to [Tess'] case" (Hardy 191). Under the reign of Queen Victoria, the role of men in sexual relations was strictly reproductive, and the sex act was considered a release of helpless energies, basically holding no sins of love or conjugal travesties. For women, however, it was a softer, more passionate act, meaning more of the love than the fertilization, and emotionally pulling the sex partner too close to just scoff the happening off and move on with life (Lee 1). Such conflicting views in the perspective of sexual intercourse make it nearly impossible for Angel to "forgive [Tess] as you are forgiven! I forgive you, Angel" (Hardy 191). Jeremy Ross also believes that Hardy "abandoned his devout faith in God, based on the scientific advances of his contemporaries" (Ross, Jeremy 1).
Hardy’s novels are ultimately permeated upon his own examination of the contemporary world surrounding him, Tess’s life battles are ultimately foreshadowed by the condemnation of her working class background, which is uniquely explored throughout the text. The class struggles of her time are explored throughout her life in Marlott and the preconception of middle class ideals are challenged throughout Hardy’s exploration of the rural class. Tess of the D’Urbervilles revolves around Hardy’s views of Victorian social taboos and continues to be a greatly influential piece from a novelist who did not conform to the Victorian bourgeois standards of literature.
It is said that a man should not marry a woman that he can live with but instead with a woman he cannot live without. Although this statement may hold true for some relationships, it does not pertain to the marriage of Tess and Angel in Thomas Hardy’s Tess of the d’Urbervilles. Although Tess and Angel are married, they spend almost the entirety of their marriage separated from each other with no communication. As a modern reader, it is difficult to relate to these parts of the story. Nowadays, would a man leave his newly wed wife for over a year? More than likely this would never happen, but the themes of marriage in Tess of the d’Urbervilles are still very relevant to modern relationships. Today people still rush into marriage and believe that marriage will fix all just like in Tess and Angel’s situation. People also still utilize marriage a resource for
Symbolism in Tess of the D'Urbervilles In Tess of the D'urbervilles, Hardy uses symbolism effectively to