25 Tess by Thomas Hardy

Dr. Neeru Tandon

24.0 Learning outcome:

The students will learn about the plot outline, characters, themes and other aspects of Thomas Hardy’s fiction with special reference to Tess of the D’Urbervilles. Hardy created an immortal character of Tess as a pure woman. The students will grasp the basic essentials about Hardy and his famous novel Tess. Multiple-choice exercises will help them in assessing their knowledge and understanding of the work. Bibliography, list of websites and YouTube videos will help them in their in-depth study and further reading. Critical quotes and quotes from the book will also help them in understanding various literary aspects of the book.

24.1: Introduction of the Novelist: Bio-Bibliographical details

Thomas Hardy: British Writer

Born: June 2, 1840 Upper Bockhampton, England

Died: January 11, 1928 Dorchester, England

Thomas Hardy was the son of Thomas Hardy and Jemima Hardy, born in the village of Upper Bockhampton, located in Southwestern, England on June 2, 1840.
His father was a stonemason and a violinist. His mother enjoyed reading and retelling folk songs and legends popular in the region.
Hardy had experienced rural life and lived an isolated life on the open fields of the region.
His primary school education lasted until he was sixteen, then he was sent for a traineeship with a local architect, John Hicks. He taught himself French, German, and Latin.
Under Hicks’s tutelage, Hardy learned about architectural drawing and the restoration of old houses and churches.
By 1862, when he was 22, Hardy left for London to work as a draftsman in the office of Arthur Blomfield. There, the works of Charles Swinburne, Robert Browning, and Charles Darwin influenced him to a great deal.
Hardy tried his hand at writing when he was 17 and wrote for years while he was a practicing architect.
Just like Charles Dickens, Hardy’s novels were also published serially in magazines, and became prevalent in both England and America.
His first novel The Poor Man and the Lady (1867-68), was rejected by several publishers. A second one Desperate Remedies (1871), was accepted and published. His next novel, Under the Greenwood Tree (1872), exhibits a more accomplished Hardy.
When Hardy left his career as architect, he signed a contract for 11 monthly installments of a tale, A Pair of Blue Eyes, in the Cornhill Magazine.
The next novel, Far from the Maddening Crowd (1874), introduced the Wessex area setting that was also used in Tess.
The next two novels, The Return of the Native (1878) and The Mayor of Casterbridge (1886), founded Hardy as a challenging writer.
Hardy’s two novels, Tess of the d’Urbervilles (1891) and Jude the Obscure (1895), shocked the Victorian readers by dealing with matters like immoral sex, murder, illegitimate children, and live in relationship.
Due to the rejection and criticism over these two books Hardy decided to write poetry and leave fiction.
In 1898, his dream of becoming a poet was realized with the publication of Wessex Poems. He then turned his attentions to an epic drama in verse, The Dynasts; it was finally completed in 1908. Before his death, he had written over 800 poems.
During a project for his company Hardy met his first wife, Emma Lavinia Gifford, in Cornwall They got married in 1874.
Emma encouraged Hardy to write, and by 1872, Hardy left architecture to devote his time to his literary career.
Two further volumes of poetry and short stories appeared, The Dynasts: A Drama of the Napoleonic Wars (1903-08) and Winter Words (1928), a volume of verse.
He was an important influence on many writers like Virginia Woolf, D.H. Lawrence, and Robert Graves.
In 1910, he was awarded the Order of Merit. Hardy was quite productive during this
Hardy was fond of Shelley, ‘’that of all men dead whom I should like to meet in the Elysian fields I would choose Shelley, not only for his unearthly, weird, wild appearance and genius, but for his genuineness, earnestness and enthusiasm on behalf of the oppressed.‟
Hardy was lifted from provincial trade origins by achievement in letters with press profile of ‘’The Wizard of Wessex.‟
His status of literary celebrity was confirmed when Edmund Gosse invited him to take tea with Balfour, the Prime Minister, and Lord Salisbury, son of the previous Prime Minister, on the Terrace of the House of Lords in 1904.
Hardy enjoyed attentions from numerous women much prettier and better educated than his wife, giving him attention and sensitivity lacking in Emma. The poet Rosamund Tomson sexually fascinated Hardy.
In 1912, Hardy’s wife, Emma, died, ending 20 years of “domestic estrangement.”
In 1914, Hardy married Florence Emily Dugdale, and she was extremely devoted to him. With her Hardy lived until his death on January 11, 1928 at the age of 87.
Hardy was buried at Westminster Abbey in Poet’s Corner, while his heart was buried in Stinson, England, near the graves of his ancestors and his first wife, Emma.
After his death, Florence published Hardy’s autobiography in two parts under her own She was later buried near her husband.
Hardy bestowed many of his belongings to the nation, most notably his pens. Hardy personally engraved each bone handle with the name of the text it was used to write.

24.2: Hardy as a Victorian Novelist

Carl J. Webber commented upon Hardy’s craftsmanship and listed his contribution to

Victorian fiction:

Its stage is chiefly set in rural Wessex.
It is topographically specific, to a degree unparalleled in English literature.
It deals with Dorset farmers, and shows sympathetic insight into the life of this class.
It does not avoid an impression of artificiality whenever “polite society” is involved.
The dialogue is often unreal, and there is occasional stiffness of language, with involved sentences, awkward inversions, split infinitives, etc.
In marked contrast with these rhetorical defects, there is frequent felicity of phrase, particularly in descriptive passages, and the author’s alert senses, all of them, often leave their mark.
Nature interests him for her own sake, and his treatment of her is often poetic.
There are many literary allusions and quotations, and references to painters, musicians, and architects [in imitation of George Eliot
The use of coincident and accidents is overdone; and plausibility is often stretched to the extreme.
There is a secret marriage.
There is a pervading note of gloom, only momentarily relieved.
It all comes to a tragic end (sudden death).

ALL these elements, discernible in 1886 (“Editorial Epilogue,” An Indiscretion in the Life of an Heiress, Johns Hopkins Press, 1935: 145- 6).

Chesterton mocked Hardy as ‘’a sort of village atheist brooding and blaspheming over the village idiot.’’ Hardy constructed his plots on the basis of fundamental desires of love, thirst for knowledge, aspiration, insatiability, distrust or the cravings to be loved.

Hardy’s major contribution lies in the fact that as a realist, Hardy communicated that art should describe and comment upon actual situations, such as the hardships of the pastoral workers and the depressing lives of subjugated women. He gave a different and shocking version of modernity in case of religious disbelief and divorce laws. His readers and critics were especially offended by his frankness about relations between the sexes, particularly in his depicting the seduction of a village girl in Tess , and the sexual sting and child murders of Jude. The modern reader encounters the prostitutes of Casterbridge’s Mixen Lane without recognizing them, and concludes somewhat after the ‘Chase’ scene in Tess that it was then and there that the rape occurred.

24.3:HARDY’S WOMEN

During the Victorian Era life for women was not easy in the male dominated society. Hardy’s complex attitude towards women was based on his personal experiences. Certainly the latter stages of his own marriage to Emma Lavinia Gifford must have contributed much to his somewhat equivocal attitudes. On the one hand, Hardy praises female endurance, strength, passion, and sensitivity; on the other, he depicts women as meek, vain, plotting creatures of unpredictable moods. Even modern female readers accept the truth of Hardy’s female protagonists because, despite his implication that woman is the weaker sex, as Hardy remarked, “No woman can begrudge flattery.”

Hardy is the skilled portrayer of women. Researchers have found that Hardy’s women are neither urbanite bluestockings nor real scholars, yet they are generally more refined than his male characters. Instead of ‘’dull Victorian heroine‟ Hardy presented robust women of progressive characters, whose desires lead them to despair. Hardy’s women are either ‘’tools‟ of the Nature or ‘’victims‟ of the cruel fate. Their failure was the result of hostile chance and their inordinate ambitions. Hardy’s women rarely engage in such intellectual occupations as looking ahead. Of all of Hardy’s women, surely it is Tess who has won the greatest respect for her strength of character and struggle to be treated as an individual. As W. R. Herman notes, Tess rejects both the past and the future that threaten to “engulf” her in favour of “the eternal now” (Explicator 18, 3: item no. 16).

24.4:TESS OF THE D’URBERVILLES – SEARCHING FOR THE CONCEPT OF “PURITY”

Title: Tess of The d’Urbervilles

Subtitle: A Pure Woman Faithfully Presented

Published in: 1891 in the Literary Magazine The Graphics

Tess of the d’Urbervilles‟ appeared in the serialized form, just like other novels of Hardy, in the literary magazine ‘’The Graphic‟ in the 1891. Hardy’s purpose of giving a subtitle to his novel was to express the exclusion of the conservative, predictable and hesitant Victorian heroine. The novel is written in a relatively straightforward style, Hardy separated it into the phases. Each phase is entitled according to what dominates in it, so we distinguish the phases like ‘’The Maiden,‟ ‘’Maiden No More,’’ ‘The Rally’ or ‘The Consequence.’ The readers are therefore sensitive about the type of content and the movement of the story.

Thomas Hardy could be described as the ‘local colour’ chronicler. He portrays his native Dorset with its dialect variety. Major characters are farmers, shepherds or squires. Dorset or ‘Wessex’ in Hardy‟s novels is as important as any other character. Hardy reinstated the ancient ‘’Wessex‟ back to life; which was classified mainly by the widespread and abandoned moorlands. The local colour was there to influence the native inhabitants and explain their sufferings, pain and unfortunate happenings in their lives. Hardy appears as a silent observer and not a preacher.

24.5:‘Tess’– Plot Summery

‘’Phase the First: The Maiden”: Tess Durbeyfield is a 16-year-old simple country girl, the eldest daughter of John and Joan Durbeyfield. In a chance meeting with Parson Tringham along the road one night, John Durbeyfield discovers that he is the descendent of the d’Urbervilles, an ancient, prosperous family who had properties as far back as William the Conqueror in 1066.

Upon this discovery, the financially strapped Durbeyfield family learns of a nearby “relative,” and John and his wife Joan send Tess to “claim kin” in order to relieve their insolvent condition. While visiting the d’Urbervilles at The Slopes, Tess meets Alec d’Urberville, who gets enticed to Tess. Alec arranges for Tess to become the caretaker for his blind mother’s poultry, and Tess moves to The Slopes to take up the position. Tess spends several months at this job, resisting Alec’s attempts to seduce her. Finally, Alec takes advantage of her in the woods one night after a fair.

Phase the Second: Maiden no More :The next phase of the book (“Maiden No More”) opens with Tess back at her parents’ house in the village of Marlott. Tess gives birth to a son, Sorrow, and works as a field worker on nearby farms. Sorrow becomes ill and dies in infancy, leaving Tess shattered. Tess moves to nearby Talbothays Dairy to become a milkmaid to a good-natured dairyman, Mr. Crick. At Talbothays, Tess enjoys a period of contentment and happiness. She befriends three of her fellow milkmaids—Izz, Retty, and Marian—and meets a man named Angel Clare, who turns out to be the man from the May Day dance at the beginning of the novel. She falls in love with him, and finally marries him. Tess has tried on several times to tell him about her past, but in vain. After the wedding, Tess and Angel confess their pasts to each other. Angel tells Tess about an affair he had with an older woman in London, and Tess tells Angel about her history with Alec. Tess forgives Angel for his past misdeeds, but Angel cannot forgive Tess for having a child with another man. He gives her some money and boards a ship bound for Brazil, where he thinks he might establish a farm. He tells Tess he will try to accept her past but warns her not to try to join him until he comes for her.

Angel leaves her and goes to Brazil for a year. Tess returns to her parent’s house but soon leaves home again for work in another town at Flintcomb-Ash farm, where the working conditions are very severe. Tess is determined to see Angel’s family in nearby Emminster but loses her nerve at the last minute. On her return to Flintcomb, Tess sees Alec again, now an enthusiastic minister, discoursing to the people in the countryside. When Alec sees Tess, he is struck dumb and follows her to Flintcomb, asking her to marry him. Tess declines in the toughest expressions, but Alec is determined.

Tess learns from her sister Liza-Lu that her mother is near death, and Tess is forced to return home. Her mother recovers, but her father unexpectedly dies. When the family is evicted from their home, the burden of her family’s welfare falls on Tess’ shoulders. They have nowhere to go. Alex offers help and Tess knows that she cannot resist Alec’s money and the comforts her family can use. Furthermore, Alec insists that Angel will never return and has abandoned her — an idea that Tess has already come to believe herself.

The RALLY: In the meantime, Angel returns from Brazil to look for Tess and to begin his own farm in England. When Angel finds Tess’ family, Joan informs him that Tess has gone to Sandbourne, a fashionable seaside resort in the south of England. Angel finds Tess there, living as an upper-class lady with Alec d’Urberville. In the meeting with Angel, Tess asks him to leave and not return for her. Angel does leave, resigned that he had judged Tess too harshly and returned too late.

After her meeting with Angel, Tess confronts Alec and accuses him of lying to her about Angel. In a fit of anger and fury, Tess stabs Alec through the heart with a carving knife, killing him. Tess finds Angel to tell him of the deed. Angel has trouble believing Tess’ story but welcomes her back.

The Consequences: The two travel the countryside via back roads to avoid detection. Their plan is to make for a port and leave the country as soon as possible. They spend a week in a vacant house, reunited in bliss for a short time. The police finds them and Tess got arrested.

Before she is killed for her crime, Tess takes a promise from Angel to marry her sister Liza Lu after her death. Angel agrees and he, along with Liza Lu, witnesses a black flag raised in the city of Wintoncester, signifying that Tess’ death sentence has been carried out. The two, Angel and Liza Lu, leave together, and the tragic tale of Tess ends.

24.6: HARDY’S CHARACTERISATION

Thomas Hardy is known for his art of characterization. His characters have taken shape of the universal figures. Hardy’s skill at creating the sense of psychological profundity and complexity makes it hard to remember that these are fictional characters, and not real people. In the novel Tess Hardy from a technical point of view employed the use of chapters, segmenting the book into seven phases: every phase being a phase in Tess’ life that brought her tragedy closer. Hardy purposely left a blank page between “Phase the First: The Maiden” and “Phase the Second: Maiden no More” to indicate a pause in the pace of the novel. The blank page becomes a curtain of silence representing Victorian vacillation in dealing with such topics. Hardy’s phrasing of the sub-title was perhaps one of the most important features of not just the novel but his own feelings towards Tess too.

Another very important tool of characterization in the novel Tess is the names given to characters. See the list:

Tess Durbeyfield: Durbeyfield has the word “field” in it, which denotes the countryside, and rural simplicity.

Alec d’Urberville: “D’Urberville,” has “ville” in it, which is French for “city.” D’Urberville also separates the “D” at the beginning of the name, calling attention to the “Urb-” part of the word. This could imply urbanity (i.e., sophistication), as well as urban, or city life, with which Alec is associated.

Angel Clare: “Angel,” of course suggests a divine goodness. That’s what how Tess describes him: “There was hardly a touch of earth in her love for Clare” (31.6). She views him almost as a guardian angel. Clare,” also implies light as opposed to heat: “Clair” is French for “light.” Angel prefers to concentrate on the spiritual side of love instead of physical love. Hardy says for example: “Though not cold-natured, he was rather bright than hot—less Byronic than Shelleyan; could love desperately, but his love more especially inclined to the imaginative and ethereal” (31.8).

24.7: MAJOR CHARACTERS OF THE NOVEL

Tess Durbeyfield

The novel’s protagonist Tess is a beautiful, loyal young woman living with her impoverished family in the village of Marlott. Tess has a keen sense of responsibility and is committed to doing the best she can for her family, although her inexperience and lack of wise parenting leave her extremely vulnerable. Her life is complicated when her father discovers a link to the noble line of the d’Urbervilles, and, as a result, Tess is sent to work at the d’Urberville mansion. Unfortunately, she becomes pregnant by Alec d’Urberville. The terrible irony is that Tess and her family are not really related to this branch of the d’Urbervilles at all.

Her Parentage: Daughter of John and Joan Durbeyfield, she is the mother-figure for her parents and siblings because she is conscientious and hard-working. The family sends her to ask the d’Urberville family in Tantridge for money, and she is seduced by Alec d’Urberville.

Her Beauty: Tess remains the most touching, as well as the most poignant heroine of Hardy‟s novels.19 years old Tess is a very pretty girl, and very “womanly” (i.e., sexy) for her age. She is so very beautiful and sensual that the son of the wealthy D’Urbervilles, Alec could not resist himself and in order to come in close contact with her, takes advantage and rapes her in the woods.

Her Troubles: Tess is a victim of society, in fact a victim of sex too. Her life is one long series of troubles and sufferings. The act of the rape is the cause of Tess’s enormous suffering, which leads into the terrible depression. After the death of her child Sorrow, she decides to go to an unknown place. Homeless and manless Tess has no warmhearted shelter; no doors opened to greet her with respect. Still, she is evidently full of life and courageous enough to fight back such difficulties. She gets married to Alec who leaves her knowing that she is not a virgin. She desires to hide in the underground (maybe in the grave), so she is pleased when Angel, sleepwalking, appears suddenly in her separate room with the words: “Dead! Dead! Dead!…My wife-dead, dead!” He picks her up from the bed, kisses her unconsciously (which is the only possible way how he can manage it) and carries her outside over the fast-flowing stream of the river. In this moment, Tess wishes the situation to become uncontrolled, so as they will have drown there, but Angel, still in the condition of the wild dream, is strong enough to cope with that situation and resists the dangers of the cold water. He, unfortunately, applies exactly the same technique to inhibit his devotion to Tess.

Tess is heart-broken and travels from job to job, trying to leave her problems behind her. But her problems keep finding her. Alec runs into her on the road, and even though he’s become a Christian, he becomes obsessed with her again. Eventually he coaxes her to live with him, even though she’s legally married to Angel. She’s given up hope that Angel will ever come back to her. She ends up murdering d’Urberville after he takes her away from Angel Clare, her true love, and she is executed for it. Tess tries to reach Angel after she has murdered Alec. This proves to be the deteriorating and the humiliating act, which Tess has to endure. When Angel feels the movement over his shoulder, he turns back.

An Unwed Mother: Tess gives birth to a baby as a result of her rape by Alec, and has secluded herself from her former friends out of shame. She works a few odd jobs to make money, and things are fine until her baby suddenly dies out of illness. Tess is more worried about the baby’s soul than anything else, so she buries it in the churchyard on the sly.

Role of Chance: Tess wants to tell Angel about her past, but she can’t bring herself reveal it to him. Finally, the night before they’re supposed to get married, she slips a note under his door confessing everything. When he doesn’t say anything about it the next morning, she assumes all is forgiven—but really, he never saw the note.

Significance of Red Colour in her Life: Tess is over and over again meeting the red colour; moreover she is wearing the red ribbon once again on the occasion of the „economic mission,‟ planned in order to gain some money from the d‟Urbervilles. Hardy describes their residence as the mansion where the intensive red tone is present. If the reader applies Hardy‟s logic concerning the colours, he will see that this house brings, sooner or later, Tess‟s inevitable destiny, because her future rapist and victimizer is occupying it. Apart from this house, there is another red-brick building which causes serious troubles to her i.e. Winterbourne‟s jail, where her future assassin is expecting Tess already in order to hang her. These red-coloured buildings indicate, in Tess’s case, the house of sex (d‟Urbervilles mansion) and the house of death (condemned cell in the gaol.) The wicked inhabitant of the d‟Urbervilles hall, the permanently smoking Alec, offers Tess the red roses and the fresh strawberries. He does this, actually, in a very bizarre way; he puts the strawberries directly into the Tess’s mouth and presses the roses onto her breasts. Hardy takes for granted that Tess becomes the target of the victimization simply because she is ‘still alive’ and ‘of the female sex.’ Tess considers her finger’s bleeding, caused by the rose’s thorn, as a bad sign to the future.

Tess’s vulnerability: Tess is vulnerable and it is revealed clearly in the scene when not knowing whom she should trust, she listens to Alec. Alec insists that she is ‘more his wife than Angel’s.’ Alec and Angel, the two central men of her life, are both dealing with Tess by applying their particular etiquette.

Victim of society: This situation reaches its climax at the Stonehenge, where the policemen will surround Tess. But we know that they have been sent to catch the murderess by the immense social pressure. These police officers are just the willing instrument, acting according to the social conservative values. It is the society who calls for Tess’s death. They do not question or investigate the reasons for her deliberate action, so the society acts as the brutal instrument, not only Alec or Angel.

Tess’s Death: From the prehistoric days, the Stonehenge was used as the sacrificial place, where various items were sacrificed to the Sun. Tess is the genuine offspring from the Pagan d’Urbervilles in opposition to Alec, whose dodgy father-businessman just bought the title in order to cover up his previous criminal identity. According to Thomas Hardy women are able to preserve the Pagan folklore and traditions of their distant forefathers. As the outcome, Hardy raises the essential question. Who is really guilty of Tess’s death? Does the society or the Nature victimize Tess?

By Tess’s death scene Hardy wants to show the life’s destinies of the ‘pure woman,’ For him, the society is guilty of Tess’s death, which provokes not only the unfavoured criticism, but also, more importantly, the reading public’s conscience. Everyone approves with the blood being the unquestionable element of the virginal woman. Hardy states that ‘even the purest girl on the planet Earth’ is sexual as well as mortal; however, this is what Angel was not able to understand timely and she had to die.

Angel Clare

Angel is the youngest son of Rev. James Clare and his wife. He appears in the opening chapters of the book as an intelligent young man who has decided to become a farmer to preserve his intellectual freedom from the pressures of city life. Angel Clare is the clergyman’s son, who loves Tess much more ‘spiritually than animally‟ in comparison to other men. This is reflected when we find that he adores music and can play the harp. When he meets Tess at a dairy farm, he teaches her various philosophical theories that he has gleaned from his reading. He learns that she is descended from the d’Urbervilles and is pleased by the information. After urging reluctant Tess to marry him, at the same time refusing to let her tell him about her past life, he persuades her to accept him. Angel’s father and his two brothers are respected clergymen, but Angel’s religious doubts have kept him from joining the ministry. He meets Tess when she is a milkmaid at the Talbothays Dairy and quickly falls in love with her. He is thoughtful and open-minded. He falls in love with Tess but her love had no depth as we find that at the night of their marriage his love vanishes as soon as he comes to know that Tess is not a virgin. He could not understand the sufferings faced by Tess. He deserts her and goes to Brazil. Years pass and he finally realizes his mistake, but when he returns to find her, she is married to Alec d’Urberville, the man who seduced her. He and Tess reconcile after she murders d’Urberville and they are together until she is executed, at which point he marries her y At this moment Angel, sadly, regards Tess as the “visionary essence of woman,” he does not imagine her real sexuality, but “merely a soul at large.” He is, regrettably, not aware of her existent sexuality. He views Tess as the „icon of the purity,‟ he somehow connects her with the Artemis, the goddess living in the permanent celibacy. Tess remains completely „sexless‟ in the Angel’s eyes. We could paraphrase Angel’s views when we say that Tess is „the non-physical (spiritual) essence of Angel’s impotent spirituality. ‟Even on the Christmas day, which he chooses for their marriage, Angel is marrying „the divine image of Tess, ‟ not the „flesh-and-blood‟ body. Angel wrongly analyses Tess as being the natural anomalism. However, the Sun finally does come up‟ at their wedding night and Tess is transformed from the precious divine essence to the ordinary milkmaid. Angel fails to realize that the sex is the standard part of the human existence, and that it could bring not only the pleasure but also the misery, as we can see in Tess’s case. It is the identical situation as with the sun, which can bless as well as hurt. Tess, the „tainted woman,’ decides after some psychological trial, to marry Angel, the ‘half God.’ She is unconsciously employing the destructive power, which will accompany her on her journey leading to the complete downfall.

Thorough his life, Angel was successfully trying to suppress his impulsive responses and so he overruled all kinds of passions, which the life provides. When he realizes his mistakes and recognizes and truly accepts his sexual passions and desires, it is too late, not only for him, but, more importantly, for Tess.

Angel sees Tess on the village green (May Day) but doesn’t dance with her.
To become a farmer and not a minister like his father. Angel goes from farm to farm to get practical experience before buying his own farm.
He was at Talbothays Dairy to learn about dairy farming when he meets Tess.
They fall in love, and he persuades her to marry him. On their wedding night, Tess tells him about her past.
He’s perturbed that the real Tess is so unlike from his romanticized, spiritualized version of her.
He leaves her at her parents’ house and goes to Brazil.
There, he gets very sick and almost dies, and realizes just how wrong he was about Tess.
He finally gets back to England, where he receives Tess’s letters begging him to come to her.
He catches up with her in Sandbourne, where she has already become Alec’s mistress.
She comes to him and tells him that she’s murdered Alec. They run away together to escape the authorities.
He manages to hide her for several days, but they’re finally caught at Stonehenge, and Tess is arrested.
He loiters outside the prison in the Wintoncester with Tess’s younger sister, ‘Liza-Lu, as Tess is killed.
Tess takes a promise from him that he will marry her sister Liza Lu after her death.

Alec d’Urberville

Alec is the handsome, amoral son of a wealthy merchant named Simon Stokes. Alec is not really a d’Urberville—his father simply took on the name of the ancient noble family after he built his mansion and retired. He did it so that no one would know that this wealth came from industry. Alec is a manipulative, sinister young man who does everything he can to seduce the innocent Tess when she comes to work for his family. When he gets a chance out in the woods, he subsequently tries to help her but is unable to make her love him.

Alec is a philanderer who takes advantage of Tess and then reappears later in her life trying to marry her although she never loved him. He again deceives him by saying that Angle will never come back to her.

After her father’s death Alec ultimately persuades Tess to marry him by giving her family a shelter. But after some time when Tess comes to know that Alec has lied to her and deceived him once again, she stabs him with a carving knife. Alec d’Urbervilles is the typical anti-hero of the novel; his character does not achieve such fine qualities, his facial complexion and behaviour is harmonious with the manners of the typical villain. His appearance of full lips and black moustache, accompanied by the characteristic frizzed points, and his manner of appearing on the scene without the prior warning and always smoking the cigar or riding his dog-cart at a very high speed establishes him as a perfect villain.

Compare and contrast Alec and Angel: Hardy carefully compares the distinct behaviour of the

two individuals-Alec and Angel. There is an enormous gap between Alec and the Angel. Angel chose for himself a simple task like milking the cows, appears to be ‘’free from any chronic melancholy‟ of those much sophisticated and Alec, for example, is first described as having “an almost swarthy complexion, with full lips, badly moulded, though red and smooth, above which was a well-groomed black moustache with curled points, though his age could not be more than three- or four-and-twenty” (5.29).

Both are the disturbed mentalities. It is easy to imagine that when these two aggressive energies cooperate, Tess will not be able to tolerate that. Therefore we should consider both men as negatively contributing to Tess’s premature death. Angel is guilty for his unbending rejection and Alec is guilty for his constant sexual assaults. While Angel, sleepwalking, carries Tess in his arms and puts her into the stone coffin, Alec, on the other hand, emerges out of it, so as to harass Tess. While Angel prefers the stillness of the mind and the heart, Alec needs the opposite, the constant excitement, which is achieved in his case by the sexual act. Hardy finds the reason of their idiosyncrasy and creepy behaviour in their ‘loneliness.’ He says that they were both isolated from the standard community and the traditional values and customs. Angel is not able to find the way out of his strange thoughts, Alec, on the other hand, is only seeking the uncanny enjoyment through indulging in sex. Sadly, their behaviour has the destructive effect on the Tess‟s mental condition. Tess becomes more the subject of the Nature’s intricacy than the object of it. Alec remains in the position of the unstinting chaser of Tess’s young body; he has never been interested in her ‘psychical inwardness’ like Angel, who was really concerned about Tess’s spirit.

Mr. John Durbeyfield – Tess’s father, a lazy dealer in Marlott. John is naturally quick, but he hates work. We find him as a dubious man who takes drinking more seriously than his job. When he finds out that he is the only downhill of the ancient and noble d’Urberville family, he decides to use it for his advantage as it’s a way to get easy money.

Mrs. Joan Durbeyfield – John Durbeyfield’s wife and Tess’s mother, Joan has a strong sense of modesty and respectability. She is somewhat simpleminded and naturally forgiving, and she is unable to remain angry with Tess—particularly once Tess becomes her primary means of support. She is continually disappointed and hurt by the way in which her daughter’s life moves. Joan uses her daughter as a way to get money and encourages her daughter to find a wealthy husband. She is disappointed in Tess when her daughter refuses to marry Alec d’Urberville and when she tells Angel Clare about her past. Joan appears as a selfish mother as she seldom wants what’s best for Tess and more often wants what’s best for herself and her family.

Mrs. d’Urberville : Alec’s mother, and the widow of Simon Stokes. Mrs. d’Urberville is blind and remains unwell. She cares more for her animals than her maid Elizabeth. She misbehaves with Tess as well ,when she comes to work for her. She treats Tess just like a maid.

24.8 : Minor Characters

Marian: Milkmaid at Talbothhays Dairy, who becomes the close friend of Tess and helps her to find work at Flintcomb- Ash (a farm).

Izz Huett: Another Milkmaid and friend of Tess who remained close to her for the rest of her life. Izz requested Angel to have a harmonious relation with Tess by writing a letter.

Retty Priddle: Along with her milkmaid friends Marian and Huett, Retty also cared for Tess. All three friends loved Angel. She also felt hurt and disturbed when Angel preferred Tess over them.

Abraham Durbeyfield: Abraham is the brother of Tess. Younger than Tess, he is not in the position to share the family’s burden. He accompanies Tess when she kills the family horse.

The Queen of Spades: She works at the farm in Flintcomb Ash,where Tess also served to earn her livelihood,when she was deserted by Angel. She fights with Tess on the way home from a dance because Alec d’Urberville’s loved Tess and not her.

Reverend Clare: Reverend Clare is a minister. He is better known as the father of Angel Clare. He is a somewhat stubborn but upright minister in the town of Emminster He could influence Alec d’Urberville, may be temporarily. Mr. Clare is really bothered because Angel does not share his religious beliefs.

Mrs. Clare – Angel’s mother, a loving but snobbish woman. She wishes Angel to marry a seemly woman, having suitable social, financial, and religious background. Mrs. Clare primarily looks down on Tess as a “simple” and penurious girl, but later she develops a positive feeling for her and started to appreciate her.

Reverend Felix Clare – Angel’s brother, a village curate.

Reverend Cuthbert – Clare Angel’s brother, a classical scholar and dean at Cambridge. He , marries Mercy Chant.

Eliza Louisa Durbeyfield alias Liza-Lu – Tess’s younger sister. Tess believes Liza-Lu has all of Tess’s own good qualities and none of her bad ones, and she encourages Angel to look after and even marry Liza-Lu after Tess dies.

Sorrow – Tess’s son with Alec d’Urberville. Sorrow dies in his early infancy, after Tess names him herself. Tess cared for the child although it was shameful to her as well.She later buries him herself as well, and decorates his grave

Mercy Chant – The daughter of a clergyman.Mr. Clare hopes Angel will marry Mercy, but after Angel marries Tess, Mercy becomes engaged to his brother Cuthbert instead.

Man from Tantridge: A farmer who recognizes Tess as the woman who had a fling with Alec d’Urberville. He says it in front of Angel Clare, and Angel hits him for it.

24.9: Who does really cause Tess’s enormous suffering?

Tess is the live indicator of this horrific irony. Why she, who is a victim of rape, has to be hanged? Why such an extraordinary beauty is actually embarrassed of her body? Why she, in spite of being an infinite source of the life, considers her birth as the nightmare, which she will have to sustain. She is both, the dedicated lover and the brutal assassin. What could be counted as the reason of Tess’s turning from a victim to a killer, and from a killer into the victim again?

Throughout the novel, the reader realizes that it is actually the Nature, who abandons Tess. Some kind of the hostility is perceived in both, the social and the natural laws in the novel. The example can be seen in the fact that Alec and Angel do not only ruin Tess, but she is also ruined by the contemporary society. Hardy declares that Tess was condemned from the very beginning by the irrational manmade laws. Tess remains the innocent and immature girl, who is destroyed by the society, but healed and justified by the Nature. The death of Tess is the result of these harsh social laws; the Nature does not allow such measured misuse of the simple girl.

The relentless oppression of Tess by two social forces( the threshing machine and the hostility of Angel) and Nature(represented by the cruelty of the Sun) is evident. The society is just the one of the constituents of this ‘bullying procedure.’ The policemen have trapped Tess at the sunrise, so she is sacrificed to both, to the Nature and to the Society.

24.10: NOVEL AT A GLANCE

Tess Durbeyfield is an innocent country girl.
Her parents anticipating to better her struggling family financially send Tess to work for the Stoke-d’Urbervilles.
She meets Alec d’Urberville, a dissolute young man who seduces her and she gets pregnant..
She gives birth to his child and names her Sorrow, who dies soon. Later, she works on a dairy farm, where she meets Angel Clare and half-heartedly agrees to marry him.
When she shares her past with her husband he feels devastated, leaves her over there and goes to Brazil.she never loses her unselfish love for him.
Eventually, after her father’s death, to provide shelter and material comforts to her family she goes to live with Alec at a prosperous resort. When Angel Clare returns to her, she finds that Alec has deceived her again.
She stabs Alec and fled to spend a few happy days with Clare before she is captured and hanged for her crime.

24.11 CONCLUSION : Tess is generally regarded as Hardy’s ‘tragic masterpiece’. It is not just a story of simple seduction of a girl by a man. Hardy presents Tess as a pure woman but not a perfect woman. She is an innocent dairymaid working amidst Nature because in these simple things she finds a substantial pattern of life. Though Tess is the most richly “poetic” of Hardy‟s novels, it offers the genuinely compassionate representation of the working-class figure, Tess Durbeyfield, the milkmaid. Tess can be pigeonholed by three words: virgin, sufferer and victim. Tess could be described as a passive woman; she substitutes the lost of own ‘purity’ by her massive will power.

Hardy’s philosophy, imitating Aeschylus or the 19th century science, does not guarantee him to strengthen the inherent development of his plot. There is always a gap between Hardy‟s general statement and its action. Hardy annoyed many contemporary readers of Tess with his overt criticism of religious bigotry and hypocrisy.

The novel questions society’s sexual customs supported by its compassionate illustration of a female character, who is seduced and raped by the son of her employer. At the end of the novel, Angel is left hand in hand with Tess’s younger sister, ‘a spiritualized image of Tess’. He is distinctly not heroic to be defeated by fate. Tess is hanged, the black flag is raised and Hardy is commenting: “Justice was done, and the President of the Immortals, in Aeschylean phrase, had ended his sport with Tess.”

Tess was also Hardy‟s first novel to be filmed, in 1913, by an American production. In fact this novel puts Hardy in the category of feminist writers who raise their voice in contradiction of the violence against women in the society.

you can view video on Tess by Thomas Hardy

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