08级英语一班程千

About the author

Thomas Hardy (1840---1928), is an English novelist who is famous for novels of character and Environment. When he was young, he derived a love of music from his father and a devotion to literature from his mother. He grew up in the Dorset shire, of which the environment there became the main backdrop of his writings. His writings often reflected the change after capitalism intruded the countries in England and the people’s hard life. The novel Tess of the D'Urbervilles was published in the year 1891, which was his most famous novel.

Thomas Hardy was famous for the poetical novels. "Tess of the D’Urbervilles" is one of these kinds. The novel is so fresh that it is nearly like a poem. For nearly a century, it has been popular with the people all over the world.

The summary of the book

It tells a story of a tragedy life of a pure girl. In the Victorian period, a rural clergyman in England tells D’Urbervilles, a simple farmer, that he was descended from the illustrious D‘Urbervilles family. The D’Urbervilles couple sent his daughter Tess to a family named D‘Urbervilles in order to improve their social status. Tess was asked to feed chickens there and fell in love with Alec, who later raped her, so she left, pregnant. She went back home, gave birth to the baby, named Sorrow who died soon. Some time later, Tess began working as a milkmaid, and there she met her true love Angel Clare. They fell in love, but Angel does not learn of her previous relationship with Alec until their wedding night, and abandoned her. Deserted by her husband, Tess met Alec again, and poverty forced her to resume their relationship. Angel returned from travelling abroad, remorseful at his treatment of Tess, but found her with Alec. Tess murdered Alec in order to run away with Angel. They spent one night of happiness together, before she was arrested.

My viewpoint towards this book

After reading this book, what cause me to deeply think is that Tess’s tragedy is a result of lots of factors.

First of all, Family background caused Tess’s Tragedy

Tess’s father was a poor countryside hawker, who is lazy and is addicted to drinking and Tess’s mother was a dairymaid, who was sloppy and simply-minded. They sent Tess there not only wanted Tess to have a better life, but as well hoped that they could get rid of their poverty and led a noble life. In order to show off their so-called "aristocrat" status and satisfied mere vanity, Tess’s parents wanted to claim relative relationship or marriage to improve their own status. Although Tess felt anticipated towards her parents’ hypocrisy and looked down upon her noble origin, she still went there because she thought she was the family's oldest daughter who should take the family burden. She loved her little sisters and brothers so deeply that she cannot be cruel enough to look they suffer hardships. Afterwards, in order to protect her family from forcing to leave the native place after her father died, Tess came back to Alec again with no choice, just for her family. The God gave Tess a woman of glory soul, which was called the daughter of nature, such as considerate, caring for her families, responsibility. However, she was ruined by her family background and the cruel reality.

Secondly, Tess’ personal characteristics were also the cause of her tragedy.

Towards life, Tess never surrendered. No matter how difficult life is, she tried her best to overcome the hardships. Facing Alec, she always resisted the temptation. She gave up enjoying the comfort of life, raised children alone. She was not knocked downed by the discrimination around, and she kept silently, endured the injustice of life. Although her life was full of combat and disaster, she endured and never made excessive demands of life. When she met Alec again, which were also the most difficult times of her life, however, she is unmoved upon temptation. As it is said in the book “passionately swung the glove by the gauntlet directly in his face……A scarlet oozing appeared where her blow and alighted, and in a moment the blood began dropping from his mouth upon the straw.”（Hardy, 2004, P389）,how uncompromising she was. But on the other hand, Tess was not a success in love. She was a slavery in love. “To her sublime trustfulness he was all that goodness could be——knew all that a guide, philosopher, and friend should know. She thought every line in the contour of his person the perfection of masculine beauty, his soul the soul of a saint, his intellect that of a seer. The compassion of his love for her, as she saw it, made her life up her heart to him in devotion.” (Hardy, 2004, P230) In this sentence, we can clearly see how cheap she was. In love, Tess lost herself, lost her own dignity. It was this blind, unequal loves that made Tess lose some rights of a true wife, who could seek happiness.

At last, it was the morality and ethic in the Britain's Victorian era that caused Tess’s tragedy. 

Tess was a poor peasant girl who wanted to rely on her hands to pursuit individual happiness right, but the society forced her to change. Reading this novel can let us know the view of morality and ethic in the hypocritical bourgeoisie in the Britain's Victorian era, Tess’s tragedy is due to the moral root of society and the stable view of women chastity in the society where male is center. “An immeasurable social chasm was to divide our heroine’s personality thereafter from that previous self of hers who stopped from her mother’s door to try her fortune at Tran ridge poultry-farm.”(Hardy, 2004, P86) Tess was no longer virginity. She blamed her herself, but she had no choice because she is the weak in that society. Instead, Alec, who should be blamed, still led a carnal life, just for he was the upper class who had a lot of property. This book became the one of the most great works in the late of Victorian era, because it boldly expose hypocritical moral in the Capitalist society and condemned the Capitalism in the late 19th century caused impoverishment and decay of small farmers in rural England .

Of course, there were some other factors that caused Tess’ tragedy, but some factors are beyond my understandings. Maybe I don’t have a deep understanding of capitalism in the 19^th century, some behaviors of Tess seems unreasonable to me.

Love is great and selfless. If you love a person, you should accept her past, because her past is also a part of her life and is a part of her soul. If you can not accept her past, you will never be able to enter her heart world just like Angel. If he can accept Tess’s past, he would not abandon her. Of course, Tess would not come back to Alec, and she would have led a happy life. Being a man or a woman, I suppose we should be tolerant when facing love. There is no doubt that Tess’s love far greater than Alec’s and Angel’s. Alec thought Tess was just a toll. He hurt Tess so deeply partly because his nature of being a upper class person and partly because he was a playboy. Angel’s love was no greater than Alec. Although he claimed he thought everyone was equal in this world, he could hardly carry it out when facing the lower class. In contrast with the two man’ love, Tess’s love was pure. She tried her best to make her love perfect. No matter who she was facing, if this man deserved her love, she devoted all her heart to love him. Her love is selfless. Love is understandment and tolerance. You can let our hearts as wide as the blue sky, the sea all because of love.

Having read this novel, I like the heroine very much because of her purity, warmness, nobility and the spirit of devotion, she dared to fight against the evil, bravely seek and struggle for the rights of love. In the past, people always hoped to have one boy to keep the family name going. They thought girls had no use for the family and be others’ wives sooner or later. So they were extremely hard on girls.

Girls were supposed to be hard working, faithful, loyal, intelligent, and virtuous and what mattered most was her chastity! If her husband was the first man who touched her then she was a good girl, otherwise she wasn’t. But what about men? People did not care anything about them. They thought man equals power and power equals rights…Nowadays women’s situations have become much better. However, in today’s society, we can see that woman is no longer an attachment of man. Through study and working, woman can have a right to choose their own lives, as a housewife or as a career woman．It is a symbol of the development of our society. On the other hand, some class consciousness still exists. Some are because of the change of society and some are because of civilization. Just let those poor painful women like TESS be just a memory.

 If the beauty of Carmen is the wild treason, the beauty of Jane Eyre is stubborn tenacity, and then the beauty of Tess is pure nature. She is the daughter of nature. She's as pure as the blue sky even though occasionally obscured by clouds. When the clouds disappear, she is still amazingly beautiful.