The Characters in Hardy’s novel of seduction, abandonment,
and murder appear to be under the control of a force greater than they. Marlott
is Tess’s home and, as the name of the town implies, her lot in life appears be
marred or damaged. As the novel opens, Tess’s father, John Durbeyfield, learns
that he is the last remaining member of the once illustrious d’Urberville
family. The parson who tell him admits he had previously “resolved not to
disturb [Durbeyfield] with such a useless piece of information,” but he is
unable to control his “impulses.” This event, which starts Tess’s tragedy,
seems unavoidable, as do many others in the novel. In scene after scene
something goes wrong. The most obvious scene in which fate intervenes occurs
when Tess writes Angel a letter telling him of her past, but upon pushing it
under his door, she unwittingly pushes it under the rug on the floor in the
room. If only he could have found it and read it before they were married. If
only Angel could have danced with Tess that spring day when they first met. But
for Hardy, like Tess, the Earth is a “blighted star” without hope. At the end
of the novel, after Tess dies, Hardy writes, “’Justice’ was done, and the
President of the Immortals, in Aeschylean phrase, had ended his sport with
Tess.” Tess was powerless to change her fate, because she had been the
plaything of a malevolent universe.
B Culture Clash
During Tess’s time, the industrialization of the cities was
diminishing the quality of life of the inhabitants of rural areas. Hardy
explores this theme in many ways. The contrast between what is rural (and
therefore good) and what is urban (and therefore bad) is apparent in Tess’s
last names. When Tess is unquestioningly innocent she is “of the field,” as the
name Durbeyfield implies. D’Urberville invokes both “urban” and “village,” and
because it belongs to a diminished ancient family, the name is further
associated with decrepitude and decay. It is significant that Angel’s “fall”
happens when he was “nearly entrapped by a woman much older than himself” in
London. When Angel and Tess leave Talbothays to take the milk to the train,
Hardy writes, “Modern life stretched out its steam feeler to this point three
or four times a day, touched the native existences, and quickly withdrew its
feeler again, as if what it touched had been uncongenial.” He uses the word
“feeler” as if the train were a type of insect, indicating his disgust with the
intrusion. Later, he calls the thresher at Flintcomb-Ash “the red tyrant” and
says “that the women had come to serve” it. As the old ways fade away, people
serve machines and not each other.
C Knowledge and Ignorance
Knowledge-whether from formal education or innate
sensibility-causes conflict between those who see the truth of a situation, and
those who are ignorant. Tess and Angel feel isolated from their parents, who
appear set in their ways, unable to grasp new ideas. The intellectual gap
between Tess, who has gone to school, and her mother is enormous, but Tess’s
strong sense of right and wrong widens the gap even more. With Angel, in
particular, Hardy recognizes that true knowledge is not just a product of
schooling. He contrasts Angel, who alone in his family is not a college
graduate, with his brother Cuthbert Clare, a classical scholar who marries the
“priggish” Mercy Chant. Although Angel has less formal education, he alone
recognizes Tess’s worth and wisely chooses her over Mercy’s religiosity. When
he rejects Tess after their marriage, he does so because her confession
“surprised [him] back into his early teachings,” the strict moralistic beliefs
of his father. True knowledge, therefore, is understanding one another and
one’s self, and is an essential ingredient for happiness. The village parson
refuses to preside at a Christian burial for Tess’s infant because he “was a
newcomer, and did not know her.” When Angel leaves Tess, “he… hardly knew that
he loved her still.”
D Natural Law
Hardy’s contrast between false knowledge and knowledge that
allows insight into the needs and desires of others, is also seen in his
insistence on a natural law that exists independent of humanity. He repeats
several times in the novel that was has happened to Tess has not offended
nature, but merely society. When she returns pregnant to her home in Marlott
from her visit with Alec, she likes to walk in the countryside in the evening
away from the disapproving eyes of the townsfolk, but feels that because of
what has happened she should not enjoy the beauty around her. “She had been
made to break an accepted social law,” Hardy observes, “but no law known to the
environment in which she fancied herself such an anomaly.” Later, Hardy notes
that Tess’s shame was “a sense of condemnation under an arbitrary law of
society which had no foundation in Nature.” Victorian society, with its strict
code of appropriate and inappropriate social behavior, was anything but
natural.
E God and Religion
The “arbitrary law of society” that Hardy criticizes is a
product of organized religion. His religious Characters are pious hypocrites,
except for Angel’s father, who appears to have a good heart. The local parson’s
hypocritical attitude forces Tess to bury her child in the section of the
cemetery reserved for drunkards and suicides. Alec’s appearance as a preacher
is a thinly disguised criticism of religious convictions that are held for
appearances only. After seeing Tess again, Alec’s true nature is again
revealed. The stifled atmosphere of the Emminster parsonage where Rev. Clare
and his wife live is contrasted with the lively warmth of the Talbothays dairy.
In one of the novel’s few humorous incidents, Angel sits down to eat with his
parents and brothers, expecting to feast on the black puddings (a sausage made
of blood and suet) and mead Dairyman Crick’s wife had given to him when he left
the dairy. On the contrary, he is told that the food has been given to the poor
and the drink would be saved for its medicinal properties and used as needed.
His disappointment is obvious.
F Sex
Victorian society preferred to avoid talking about sex, but
Hardy believed the elimination of sex from popular writing produced “a
literature of quackery.” In Tess sex is often associated with nature; it is
presented as a natural part of life. The scene of Tess’s seduction by Alec
takes place in The Chase, an ancient stand of woods that dates from before the
time of established societal morality. The valley of the Froom, where
Talbothays is located, is described as so lush and fertile that “it was impossible
that the most fanciful love should not grow passionate.” Tess and Angel fall in
love there. Tess’s three milkmaid friends toss and turn in their beds, tortured
by sexual desire. “Each was but a portion of the organism called sex,” Hardy
asserts. Later, when Tess forgives Angel his “eight-and-forty hours dissipation
with a stranger,” Angel cannot forgive her similar fault. Hardy condemns such
unequal treatment.
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