Review On Tess Of The Durbervilles English Literature Essay

Published Date: 23 Mar 2015

Abstract Tess is just an ordinary country girl but her real character and her story makes her more than a poor rural girl. Her character surpasses her real life and makes her a heroine. Tess' characteristic is complicated. Her distinctive virtues are well unfolded: beauty, virtuousness, loyalty, industriousness and bravery. However, because she lives in an unfairly conventional society, she eventually cannot shake off the shackles of traditional social values. At the same time, because she is so naïve and stupidly loyal, she loses herself to some extent, which, leads to her tragic events happen endlessly. This study is designed to make an analysis on the beauty and defect in her characteristics and to prove that she is a woman owns virtues of beauty and purity, just as the subtitle shows. Living in that period, she seems to be a defective woman who is abandoned by the society. But there is one thing that can be sure of: she shines with her beauty all the time, which is an everlasting one.

Key Words: Character; Beauty; Defect; Purity; Tragedy

Introduction

In Tess of the d'Urbervilles, Hardy's deep sympathy for England's lower class rural woman is well demonstrated. The main character Tess is a typical represent of tragic life. Living in a society full of hostility, she is doomed to be ruined by the pressure and the injustice treatments. She has complicated characteristics that always lead her to painful dilemmas. Tess is Hardy's idealized woman who is a beautiful symbol of purity, love and bravery. She leads a short but extraordinary life which accomplishes her struggles to the backward traditional principles.

However, Tess is not portrayed as a perfect woman. Her defects coexist with her beauty. She owns distinctively beautiful appearance with purity and kindness. Hardy takes the challenge to define Tess as a pure woman in the subtitle. It indicates that Tess' physical impurity does not mean she is impure mentally. Furthermore, Tess' defects are not the only cause of her tragedy. Chasing her true love, she dare to rebel in her own way. Still she is conservative in some ways. To the society, she failed, but to herself, she does not lose the battle.

2. Literature Review

As Hardy's most controversial work, Tess of the d'Urbervilles is so popular that has been studied abroad. Also, in our country, there are so many researches and studies on this literature too. All these facts shows shat Tess of the d'Urbervilles is scientifically worth focus. Generally, scholars study on Tess' tragic fate and characteristics. Hypocrisy is sharply exposed by Hardy and he shows his deep sympathy for the lower classes. From the perspectives of the academic or even the national view, Hardy's purpose is to awaken human being's social conscience, make a clear horizon, and tell right from wrong in the evil world.

In Zhang Zaizhong's book Thomas Hardy---Ideas and Creations, Hardy's ideology, emotional psychological, objective and subjective awareness of the environment to explore his creation of rational and transformation of conflict and mutual penetration. In addition, Nie Zhenzhao's an Grief and Fortitude artist focuses on the evaluation of the social philosophy of Thomas Hardy, the concept of ethical, aesthetic theory and the art in creating novel creatures on from Hardy's own perspective. Also, Gao Yufen's On Tragic Fate of from Four -dimensional Interpretation of Tess analyses Tess' tragedy in perspectives: economic and social, religious and moral traditions, the characteristic of the hero and the defects of Tess. Brain Philips in his The Study Guides of Tess states that Tess is shaped into a heroine of myth. Her experience is a typical tragic story and represents those who should lead a better life rather than tortured by the tragic hardships.

Tess of the d'Urbervilles is the most successful novel of Thomas Hardy, which plays an irreplaceable part in the literature world. Study on the novel is still developing in trends.

3. Beauty

Growing up in a small village, Tess owns attractive characteristics that make her shine with incredible charm. The most outstanding one is her purity, integrity, and loyalty. Her unique characteristics are so distinctive that can even cover up all her defects.

3.1 A Pure Flower

Just as the subtle A Pure Woman suggests, undoubtedly, Tess is a noble woman with pure mind all the time. She loses her innocence ironically, and her hard life begins right after that moment. However, her lost of purity physically does not mean she is impure mentally. Her spiritual purity is irreplaceable and makes her shine. Hardy gives all his effort to portray Tess' image. Tess grew up in Marlott, a tranquil village can be compared to a paradise. The country girl's characters are influenced by the surroundings and she is rated as "the Daughter of Nature".

Phases of her childhood lurked in her aspect still. As she walked along today, for all her twelfth year in her cheeks, or her ninth sparkling from her eyes; and even her fifth would flit over the curves of her mouth now and then.(chapter 2)

From the detailed description, Tess' essence of being a rural peasant girl is vividly shown. Moreover, her love for the nature and life gives out the attractive fragrances of not being shaped by any kind of common customs and traditions. Her unique temperament of uncommonly virginity and purity wins Angel's heart that he cannot help expressing his feeling and eulogize her by giving her the nicknames like "Artemis" and "Demeter". Those names come from the Greek mythological names, showing his admiration to Tess' beauty. Also, It is not easy to find that Hardy always emphasizes Tess' intimacy with the nature, which is obviously suggests what he is trying to do is no more than to unfold Tess' purity.

On another side, In Tess' blood, there was aristocracy. Their family came from noble lineage of the d'Urbervilles, the fact that her father learned from an old parson. This to some extent can explain why Tess appears gracefully and distinctively all the time. In Victorian Context, people strongly tend to worship those who own a big fortune as well as the one who has higher social identity. Therefore, Tess' parents become self-important and consider it as a good chance to seek a fortune by some challenges undertook by their young daughter. Tess know her heritage of the d'Urbervilles, while on contrary to her parents, she never shows the vanity of being the offspring of the nobility, modestly keeping the fact in her heart as a secret. She behaves so indifferent to anything about fame and wealth and never asks more than a simple life. Admittedly, her contentment with life makes her purer. Not being contaminated by secular environment, she holds a mind and knows clearly who she is and what she wants. What's more, she is grateful to her parents, especially her mother. It is her mother who she believes is the one gives her extraordinarily beauty and virtues.

Being impoverished, the Durbeyfields have no other solutions but to claim kinship with Alec, the so-called "d'Urbervilles". Tess is doomed to be the victim in this deal. To the complicated world, a girl like her is easy to be hurt and cheated. As a result, Alec takes her innocence just to satisfy his sexual vice. What's worse, she is pregnant but she leaves Alec to give birth to the baby on her own. Helplessly, the baby is born with sin, and this determines his short life. Tess is a kind-hearted girl respects every single life, no to mention the baby is her own son. Born in the society that is deep rooted with conventions, the baby boy is not accepted by anyone except for Tess herself. To Tess, the young mother, she is inventible to hear people whispering about her. Braver thing she does for the baby is, she gives him christen by herself and gives him a name Sorrow before his death. When he dies, she barriers Sorrow in a corner of the churchyard, against the commandment of the church and the traditional society, just to give the baby a place to lay his poor soul. Simply, all her decisions and actions result from a mother' love towards her child, or more exactly, comes from a girl's mercy on lives. She takes each life on an equal level, holding the idea that each life should have the right of being respected, and her attitude towards life makes her a person with the purest temperament.

3.2 Integrity

High moral principles are rooted in the bottom of Tess' heart. It is obvious that she has the strong desire for maintaining her integrity. Because of her innocence and inexperience, Alec takes her virginity in an extremely despicable way. To a girl, there is nothing worse than a lost of virginity for the Victorian society demands women to be pure and impose rigid morns on them. So no matter how ruthless, unjust, and coarse Alec' behavior is, to the society, it is Tess, the woman, who should be responsible to her lost. If she wants a stable life, the only choice for her is to be the mistress of Alec just as he wants. This solution may be any woman's choice when such things unfortunately happen to them---marring to the man so that to cover the truth is the only way to shackle off the conventional critics. However, Tess knows better than anyone else that she feels no love for Alec and it does not make sense to be with him. Therefore, she leaves Alec, leaving no regrets, because she believes herself and her choice is resolute decision that follows the voice comes from the very bottom of her heart. Young she is, she never tries to deceived her mind and be the one follows the faulty moralities. She is an innocent victim, but at the same time, her behavior makes her look like more than a victim. When she refuses Alec's help and refuses to get married to him, ignoring the benefits and high social position that the marriage may bring to her, she looks like a hero who follows her standards.

Tess' integrity is well unfolded on the aspect of her attitude towards love. Of Alec, she dares show her hatred, of Angel, she dares to show her love, against the condemnation of the public opinion. On one hand, she never gives in to Alec and struggles to chase her true love. Facing with the tight entangles and evil temptation of Alec, she feels that she cannot stand it no more and fight with her real courage.

"Don't mention my little brothers and sisters-don't make me break down quite!" She said. "If you want to help them-God knows they need your .It-do it without telling me. But no, no! she cried. "I will take nothing from you, either for them or for me!"(Chapter 48)

She knows clearly that maybe if she lies to herself and be with Alec, life will be better to both her family and herself. Showing her adherence to the stiffen believe, she refuses Alec's requests again and again. Later, when Angle comes back from Brazil, Tess finds Alec cheats her once again, she feels so intolerable with the hatred towards Alec that accumulated from the previous to the present and she finally kills him in the moment he slanders her with sharp words.

"And then my dear, dear husband came home to me…and I did not know it! … And you had used your cruel persuasion upon me… you did not stop using it-no- you did not stop! My little sisters and brothers and my mother's needs-they were the things you moved me by… and you said my husband would never would never come back -- never; and you taunted me, and said what a simpleton I was to expect him! … O, you have torn my life into pieces… made me be what I prayed you in pity not to make me be again... I can't"(chapter 56)

On the other hand, Tess' love for Angle is undeniable. In the eyes of Tess, Angle, just like his name, he is a free thinker who shines with his distinctive appearance and characteristics. He is such a perfect man that captures Tess' heart. They first met at the May Day dance and developed their relationship at the Talbothays Dairy, Perhaps because of the arrangement of destiny. Once, they shared their carefree moment, and enjoyed being with each other. However, things got changed when Angel found he cannot hide his feelings any more and asked Tess to be his wife one day. For the conflicts in her mind, Tess refused Angel's request for several times. Of course, Angel never understood the real reasons, not learning her bitter and embarrassing past. In the face with such a painful dilemma, Tess asked her mother for some advice and her mother told her to keep a secrete about her past. She knew the best that Angel admired her beauty and her nature of purity. So making a confession about her relationship with Alec equaled to a dramatic challenge of loosing her lovers. She struggles with hesitation. Nevertheless, she knows that she loves him truly, and in her beliefs, love means to be frank with each other. So she made a confession on the wedding night, which, was not accepted by Alec. He flied into a fury and fleed the home, not leaving his forgiveness that Tess was eager for so much. . Once again, Tess did something that followed her heart, and once again, she got closer to the abyss of tragedy.

3.3 Loyalty to Family and Love

As the oldest in the Durbeyfield's, she undertakes the burden more than she should, which makes her characteristic of responsibility well unfold. It's her fate to face all these hardships but Tess never has the intention of giving up. She has the courage to deal with difficulties with self-sacrifice and selfless spirit. Their family's livelihood relies on Prince, an old horse. When Tess is still a little girl, she starts to help her mother with households without any complaints. When Prince died in accident, Tess blamed herself and thought its death was all her fault. She was guilty over the horse, so she took the responsibility to claim kinship with Alec in order to help her family to get through the hardships, though it might be a risky experience.

When Angel abandons Tess and flees the country where they belong to, she endures all kind of discrimination alone, concealing her pain and generously gives a large amount of her living expenses to support her family while leaves herself to wandering around to make her own living. Especially when her father dies and the family is expelled from the village, homelessly, she makes a greater sacrifice---to go back to Alec, who chases her by any all means. There, she holds back her anger and lamentation, living unhappy life everyday just to settle down her poor mother and the brothers and sisters.

To Alec, Tess expresses her loyalty in an even stronger way.

After Tess makes her sincere confession, she still cannot get Angel's forgiveness. She takes Angle's castigate as something that she deserves. She tells him that she is willing to do everything he wants, even expresses her willingness to die for him. All she does is to silently undertake her husband's unfair treatment to maintain Angel's dignity and honor. When Angle sleepwalks and carries Tess to a churchyard, mumbling his wife is dead, He puts her into a coffin. Instead of waking him up right at that moment, she carefully leads him go back home, no matter how doleful she feels about Angel behavior.

On the other side, Tess never calls herself as Mrs Clare. Obeying Angel in an extremely loyal way, she seldom makes connection with him though there is such strong love in her mind. Her love for Angel is incredibly deep and sincere.

It has been so much my religion ever since we were married to be faithful to you in every thought and look, that even when a man speaks a compliment to me I am aware, it seems wronging you.

I would be content, ay, glad, to live wit you as your servant, if I may not as your wife; so that I could only be near you, and get glimps-es of you, and think of you as mine. (chapter48)

4. Defect

Tess is portrayed as a near-perfect individual, she is a beauty owns the virtues of gentleness, purity, generosity, responsibility and loyalty. However, at the same time, her character contains some defects. Her defects, furthermore, mainly cause by the social environment and her miserable fate.

4.1 Traditional Thinking

The Victorian morality has a very high standard for women's virginity that loosing of chastity means the woman is impurity and definitely spurned by the society. The only way for remedy is to marry the man who stains her. It is exactly this moral principle that makes Tess suffer a lot mentally and blame herself for her impurity constantly, after she is raped by Alec, leading to her complicated feeling towards Angel's love. This also explains her denials to Angle's propose for several times. The conventional view is deeply rooted in everyone's mind. Even for Angel, who is educated , intelligent freethinker also fails to get rid of the shackles of traditional thinking and his ideal for women's purity is too demanding to forgive Tess' lost of purity.

When Angel learns Tess' story, he flies into a rage instead of having sympathy for her distress. Considering she as a false woman who lies to him deliberately by pretending to be a pure woman. He eventually abandons Tess, driving her to despair once again. Evidently, Tess' true love and her rights of chasing her happiness is deprived of by the prejudice of the social conventions. Moreover, the social morality is tightly connected with the religious beliefs. Women once lose their virginity; she is viewed as a squalid one who is never accepted by the society.

"So much the worse for you, I think that parson who unearthed your pedigree would have done better if he had held his tongue. I cannot help associating your decline as a family with this other fact-- of your want of firmness. Decrepit families imply decrepit wills, decrepit conduct. Heaven, why you give me a handle fro despising you more by informing me of your descent! Here was I thinking you more by informing me of your descent! Here was I thinking you a new-sprung child of nature; there were you, the belated seedling of an effete aristocracy! (chapter 35)

Tess lives in a man-dominated society and it is the reason why she has to suffer from the people's reprimand when she loses her purity in an unfair way, while Alec is free from any punishment. Tess' life is dominated by the man, and dominated by the tradional society. In this case, Hardy shows his dissatisfaction with the social injustices against women.

Being a courageous girl, Tess struggles to move forward in her life. But pitifully all her resistance only ends with failure. Setting aside her tragic destiny, it is she traditional thinking that makes her trapped. She is a typical uncompromising rebel; she fights with all her efforts throughout her short life. However, she can not shake of the traditional ethics. There is always some conventions and backward things that makes her be limited by the expression. More tragically, she judges herself with the moral standard which makes her degree of the tragedy more deep and impressive. She is undoubtedly the victim and she is innocent. She understands it but by the time she hears the censure from people in the village, she believes that she is sinner of guilt. Having such a notion in mind, it is inevitably leads to her inner torment and self-contempt. Therefore, her sufferings and misery happens in an even intense way. All these things show that Tess can never forget her past, no mention to relieve herself from the heavy burden of her trauma. It seems that she is a sinner cursed and doomed to be tortured all her life. So even when she is abandoned by Angel brutally, she thinks it is her fault, silently undertaking the sorrow manipulated by her fate. This, on a degree, reflects her limitation caused by the deep-rooted traditional thinking.

4.2 Inexperience and Acquiescence

Tess is originally a prominent descendant of wealthy aristocrats---the d'Urbervilles. However, in the late 19th century, those aristocrats can no more maintain their status for some reasons. So when it is handed down to John's generation, it means nothing and John is just an poor hawker who can hardly earn enough money for his family. Born in a poverty-stricken family with a lot of brothers and sisters and an alcoholic father, Tess is unfairly dominated by the fate that she has to sacrifice herself for the livelihood of her whole family. First, she suffers from the death of their horse, Prince, which she does not mean to kill it, but she is punished. Without any choices, she listens to her parents and work for Alec. Alec, this despicable man takes her innocence and seduces her leaving her a gloomy shadow companying all her life.

Tess' family totally live by the means of manual labor and the prominent ancestors fundamentally have no effects on the improvement of their lives. In addition, her father achieves nothing in his life and all he possesses is a sense of secular and vanity, which makes his industrious and mediocre wife feel proud of his identity. Lacking of wise parents' guide, this young girl is so vulnerable an easily get hurt.

"O mother, my mother!" cried the agonized girl, turning passionately upon her parent as if her poor heart would break. "How could I be expected to know? I was a child when I left this house four months ago. Why didn't you warn me? Ladies know what to fend hands against, because they read novels that tell them of these tricks; but I never had the chance o' learning in that way, and you did not help me!"(chapter 12)

From another point of view, Tess lives in the torment between two men all her life. More exactly, her life is ruined by them in an large extent. These two men's influence on Tess is so destructive that her life is set into redemption step by step. Alec's harm to her is miserable, yet Angel's abandonment is even a catastrophe. Chasing for her true love, Tess obeys him on everything for she is so afraid of endangering her chance of him. On one hand, she insists her integrity and tries to rebel. On the other hand, she becomes a prisoner of love. She longs for his love so much that she is departed from her stand. She surrenders little by little, sacrificing all she has, and finally forfeits her life.

5. Conclusion

Tess leads a hard life and her miserable fate results by many reasons. Hardy successfully portrays an eternal image by giving Tess complicated characteristic that contains beauty and defect. She is described as a near-perfect individual while she still has some defect. However, her defects make her shine with incredible charm rather than take her glamour away. Further more, her defects in characteristics mostly results from her social background and life experience, which are dramatically unfair to her. She owns noble virtues and her lost of purity physically does not mean she loses her purity mentally. Tess is considered as a victim of life and her bravery makes her a heroine succeeding in the battle of life. She is a beautiful soul that deserves venerations from everybody.