Tess of the d'Urbervilles

Thomas Hardy

The full title was: “Tess of the d'Urbervilles: A pure woman faithfully presented” written in four years between 1887 and 1891 by Thomas Hardy and published in 1891.

The main character, Tess Durbeyfield is dancing at the May-Day dance in the village of Marlott, England. It is here where she meets Angel Clare. Although Tess and her family are very poor, they are actually descendants of a noble and one of the oldest English families, d’Urbervilles.

Things take an even worse turn, as Tess kills by mistake the family’s horse, going to a nearby family with the name of d’Urbervilles, but they were not related. Here, the young Alec, son of the old Mrs d’Urbervilles develops a strong passion for Tess and he tries in numerous attempts to seduce her, with the constant refusal from her. Alec gives Tess a job then, to tend to the domestic birds of the farm, and Tess agrees so that she can help financially her family.

Tragedy struck one more, as, after a dance, Alec convinces Tess, he will take her home. However, he takes a different route and gets lost through the dense forest. While he tries to look for paths, leaves Tess alone who eventually falls asleep. Upon returning he gazes upon her sleeping and rapes her.

After the incident, Tess returns to her home village of Marlott and gives birth to Alec’s child. But now she needs to hide, as having a child outside of marriage is a very shameful act for a woman of this period. When the baby gets sick, Tess wants to save his soul but does not go to the church as this would have meant she would have needed to explain the situation a lot more than she would have desired, baptizing him herself with the name Sorrow. The baby boy dies soon after.

However, the news of her baby spreads through the village folk and trying to escape the constant judgement she flees the village, reaching Talbothays, a dairy farm. It is here where she meets and becomes friends with other girls: Izz, Retty and Marian.

All the three girls were in love after Angel Clare, who also worked there; he was the son of the priest. But Angel Clare falls in love with Tess and they begin a period of courtship. After a while Angel proposes, but Tess is filled with guilt of her past and refuses. However, after Angel insists, she finally accepts but is under constant moral pressure, feeling that she is not worthy of this.

On the night of their wedding, Angel Clare tells Tess about an incident in London, where he had an affair. In the light of this revelation, Tess feels obliged to lift the curtain of her secrets and tells Angel of Alec, and what he has done to her.

But Angel instead of consoling Tess does not see it this way and is unforgiving of the incident. Angel is thinking more of his reputation, of his image in society and decides to leave Tess with some money, as he heads off for Brazil where he wants to start afresh, without Tess, wanting to clear his mind.

The little money is soon ending, she heads off back to the farm working, with Marian. At the farm, he meets Alec d’Urbervilles once more, who has now been converted by his father, to an evangelical preacher. His feelings of love infatuation and passion are restarted and he pursues her once more. When his attempts are refused once more, he tries to persuade her by increasing the difficulty of her labour.

Upon a visit back home, the situation is reaching even more disastrous turns. Her father dies, and the family is left in an even poorer state, the family is evicted. In this situation, Alec d’Urbervilles proposes a deal with Tess. He will save Tess’s family from eviction if Tess accepts him.

At this time Angel Clare does not manage to establish any financial progress in Brazil and becomes tired of this, he wants to come back to England, forgive Tess and restart their relationship.

Upon his return, he discovers he is far too late. Tess is now in a boarding-house and with Alec, who is constantly abusing or mistreating her. Upon yet another argument Tess stabs Alec to death and returns to Angel. The two flee together to an empty mansion. It is here where they spend a couple of days, eventually, the couple reaches Stonehenge where the police arrest Tess.

The final moment is presented as Angel Clare and Tess’s sister watch upon a black flag, signalling Tess has been executed.

The story is a tragic drama presenting a fate that takes Tess down through difficult situations for which she would not have had any fault. Society and even Angel Clare instead of being sympathetic, try to fix some of the wrongs that happened to Tess, become accusers, and blame her for her faith. While her faith is tragic, it is the people she meets that judge her and makes it to be an actual disaster.

The story is placed through the Romanticism of literature, and as such nature, farming is presented as the “old ways” while the society is going through modernization, industrialization and the middle class of society who becomes richer because of this, as Alec d’Urbervilles family. Modernization is seen here in the sense of a loss of innocence. The tragic story of Tess is an attempt of Thomas Hardy to establish the foundation of an equal ideology between women and men, destruction of gender discrimination.

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Subjective opinion:

Why do bad things happen to good people? An old age question. A struggle, a tragic faith can turn into good, it all stands in the power of the people. It depends on how those people respond to those tragic events.

“The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing”, it was said by Edmund Burke. As such some trials, some bad events are meant to show us that we can do good. How many times when presented with a bad situation we fail to act.

How easy it is to leave a tip at a fancy restaurant, but how hard it is to give a spare change to a person in need. How easy it is to gamble, to buy drugs, and how hard it is to give half of that amount to buy a warm meal to someone who has not eaten in someone.

Homelessness is bound to increase after a world lockdown of the economy. It will be hard on all people without a home, but even harder on females on the street. A recent article, an interview taken from a woman who lost her home, forced by the circumstances to live on the street, said how many times a man will ask her for sexual favours instead of asking her how she feels, how they can help her.

Tragedy, drama, bad fate occurs because we fail to change it to something better. But we can do that. We can truly make Tess of d’Urbervilles fiction literature, something that could never happen today. Can we do that?

Just an opinion. Just a thought. Just Steven J. Scott.