Scientific Materialism In Thomas Hardy's Tess Of The D Urbervilles

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“His loss of faith, his agnosticism and later pessimism about human freedom and human destiny, harmonize naturally with the movements of thought, belief predominant in his time….” (Douglas, 20)

Scientific materialism showed the insignificance of the human individual in the scheme of the universe. Contrary to this doctrine is the Christian belief that every human soul is so precious in the eyes of God that he took the shape of man in the form of Christ to redeem mankind from its sins and sufferings. Hardy being an artist and not a scientist was placed in a very difficult position by the mechanistic conception of the universe. This dilemma gave Hardy the greatest cause of unhappiness and the same conflict is the central theme of all novels of Hardy. He became interested in two of the major problems of the time, one being the conflict between science and religion and the other the social and political rights of women and the injustice done to women under man-made laws. The development of science led England to the Industrial Revolution which started no doubt around 1760 but found its real climax only during the Victorian age. The greatest single fact of the age was that of change and adjustment. There was unprecedented rapid development in every walk of life.
Her sexual morality and personal actions are secondary to Kettle’s interest in the larger historical and economic processes at work in late nineteenth century. For Kettle Hardy novel has:

“The quality of a social document… It is a novel with a thesis. The thesis is that in the course of the nineteenth century the disintegration of the peasantry- a process which had its roots deep in the past

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