How the Beauty Is Damaged by the Ugliness
------The Book Report of Tess of the d’Urbervilles
In the winter holiday, an excellent but sad story was my company. It helps me to make my bitter winter to be rich but also make me feel sad about the fate of the characters in the story. It is Tess of the d’Urbervilles.
Being a poet and novelist, Thomas Hardy was honored as one of the greatest writes in England. Poems made him enter the world of literature. Hardy considered himself first and foremost a poet. To him, novels were primarily a means of earning a living. But not everything will go as we wish, novels did not only resolve Hardy’s financial problems but also built a reputation in the field of literature and made his works immortal, while his poems failed to be published. In 1871, his first river novel, The Desperate Remedies, appeared and the forth one, Far from the Madding Crowd, made him famous in 1874. Among his some 20 river novels, Tess of the d’Urbervilles, Jude the Obscure, Return of the Native and The Mayor of Casterbridge are regarded as the most successful novels of Thomas Hardy. His works reflects the changes in the aspect of social economy, politics, morality and custom and the miserable fate of people, especially women, after the rural areas in England were invaded by the capitalism. They reveal the hypocrisy of the capitalistic moral, laws and religion. He criticized the hypocritical upper class and showed the sympathy to the poor bottom class. The characters of bottom class in his novels struggle to change their fates, but seldom succeed. Most of his novels do not have a happy ending. And Tess of the d’Urbervilles is not the exception.
Tess of the d’Urbervilles was finished in 1897 and it was full of the detailed description of women’s inner emotion.
In the time of Victorian period, a rural clergyman in England tells Durbeyfield, a simple farmer, that he is descended from the noble d'Urbervilles family, which may be extinct now. Durbeyfield sends his daughter Tess to check on a family named d'Urbervilles living in a manor house less than a day's carriage ride away. Alec d'Urbervilles is attracted by Tess’ beauty, but Alec is no relation to Tess; he has gotten his noble name and coat of arms by purchasing them. Alec falls in love with Tess, seduces her with strawberries and roses. Tess leaves and comes back at home. Before long, she gave birth to a baby who dies very soon. Some time later, in order to forget her miserable experience, Tess leaves home and begins work as a milkmaid, and there she meets her true love Angel Clare. They fall in love, but Angel does not know her previous relationship with Alec. On their wedding night, Tess can not bear her bitter secret any more and wants to be honest to her husband, she tells her previous relationship with Alec. To shock to think for a second time, Clare rejects her. Deserted by her husband, Tess meets Alec again. The poverty of her family and no reply form Clare make her lose heart and agree Alec’s proposal. Right after Tess becomes Ms. d'Urbervilles, Angel returns from travelling abroad, regretful at his treatment of Tess. But everything is too late, Tess is married to Alec. Tess loves Clare and thinks that she misses Clare because of Alec again and Alec is the one to be blame. Raged and desperate, she murders Alec in order to run away with Angel. They spend one night of happiness together, before she is arrested and hung.
In life, the right man to love hardly ever comes at the right time for loving. Nature does not often answer a call for love, until the caller is tired of calling. In this case, as in millions, it was the two halves of a perfect whole who met. A missing half wandered somewhere else, arriving much later. This delay was to have tragic results.
Why do the bad so often ruin the good? Why is beauty damaged by ugliness? Thousands of yeas of philosophy can not give us the answers to these questions. These things happen, have always happened.
The two paragraphs above are taken from the novel, Tess of the d’Urbervilles. They are well written and somehow can be used to describe the content of this story.
Human beings are some kind of a curious creature, we always ask why: why does this thing happen? Even we know that there is no definite answer to every question, sometimes things happen without reason. When I pick up this novel, Tess of the d’Urbervilles, I can not help wondering what should be blame to Tess’ tragedy. Some say Alec should take the responsibility, for he seduces her and ruins all her life, some say that Clare abandons Tess and leaves her is the main reason why Tess will do such crazy thing, some say it is the society. Have we thought of Tess? Is Tess guilty?
When we talk about the innocence or guilt of Tess, should we take a deep look into Tess’ character? Character determines destiny.
Responsibility
Tess is the oldest girl in her family. When her father can not work and die, she bears up the responsibility to supporting family and takes care of her family members. When her family faces extreme poverty, she marries Alec, who she does not love and harms her before, against her will. Tess is someone who seems to be boomed to sacrifice and sacrifice her own future for someone else. She has a miserable fate.
Purity
Tess is a girl without the idea that there are bad men in her life. Alec seduces her with strawberries and roses. She kills him and runs away with Clare without considering what kind of punishment she will have if she commits murder.
Adamancy
Tess has a strong personality. When she is seduced by Alec, she chooses to go away. In the society of England about 100 years ago, if a girl had the same experience as Tess, she would be looked down to. Most of them would marry the person who seduced her or killed themselves out of the consideration of her family. But Tess chooses the third way. She goes away with a baby. Can you imagine how much courage she will have when she makes such a decision? If she follows others, she will marry Alec and all her life she will not be worried about money. But she can not allow herself to marry someone who hurts her and who she does not love. She wants to live a life as she wishes.
Honesty
Honesty is a good personality but what is ironical is that it is honesty that ruins the marriage between Tess and Clare. On the wedding night, because of her deep love to Clare and she wants to be honest to her husband, she forgets her mother’s suggestion to tell her miserable past to Clare. She wants to be forgiven even though it is not her fault. But Clare does not accept her confession, he can not ignore her previous relationship with Alec and he abandons her. The defeat of her marriage is the beginning of her tragedy.
Bravery
Because of bravery, she gives a baby without a marriage, which is not allowed in the old society; because of bravery, she kills Alec and runs away to pursue her happiness. She has no fear to what she does.
Being responsible, pure, strong, honest and brave, are the main expression Tess gives me. But I am still wandering: why such a beautiful girl will pick up the knife to kill someone in blood? Except for kill her husband, Alec, is there no way for her to pursue her happiness? Or she kills Alec just out of hatred. Can someone answer this question for me? I show the sympathy to Tess, but I can not agree to such a brave behavior to kill someone out of hatred. It is a life. It just likes time, when it goes and it will never come again. Alec is wrong and should be punished, but Tess has no right to punish him even though she is casualty. The moment Tess picks up the knife and point it to Alec, she is on the way to gallows.
Tess has gone. She is hung in the gallows. Clare loves her and goes on his life with the memory of a happy night with Tess. But Tess is alive in the immortal world of literature. The image of her beautiful face and her admired personality will always live in our readers’ mind. We know that there is a girl in the England society 100 years ago who is so brave to pursue her own happiness. Her behavior is forbidden and punished by the law. She sacrifices her life for one night spending with her true lover.
