Tuesday, February 26, 2008
Angels Love for Tess?
I was not in class on Thursday so I am not sure what was discussed, but from the time Tess tells Angel about what happened to her until the end of the reading (pg 303) I find it very hard to seriously consider Angel to be "in love" with Tess. Tess is obviously extremely vulnerable after she informs Angel of her past and instead of being sympathetic or sensitive at all, he is upset with her and says that she is not who he thought she was. This upsets me, the reader, because it implies that it was her fault that she was raped as if she had done something wrong. This is a sad reality if that's what the times were like at this time period, because Tess has had to deal with so much in her early life and the fact that nobody has any sensitivity or sympathy for her is sad. Also, the fact that this story would change his view on her makes me seriously question whether he loved her in the first place, or if he just loved that idea of her and marrying a beautiful country girl. I think Angel is a fake, because he talks of how much he likes the farming life-style and does not care for organized religion and rich family custom; however, he refuses to be with her because of how other people will judge them and look down upon them. Either he is a coward, or he is a fake, because prior to this moment the reader can only assume he is a man of character. I also do not understand why he is not held accountable for his "sins" which were worse than hers. I am not sure if these questions can be answered in the book or if these characters are a product of their time and culture, but reading this section I must say I do not think Angel genuinely loves Tess and furthermore I think he is a coward and a fake. When he goes to visit his parents he does not tell them about what happened with Tess because he is too much of a coward, where as Tess, who in fact has more to loose by telling her parents, almost immediately tells her mother that she told Angel the truth and that he went away from her. She shows great character and strength in my opinion by the fact that she is honest with Angel, her parents and anyone else, even when it is hard to do so.
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2 comments:
I have to agree on this blog, I do not know whether to believe that angel truly loves tess or if instead the author is writing in a delusionary sense that angel left not knowing ?"that he still loved her". To treat her as contemptibly as he does within the novel-abandoning her during their first year of marriage, simply because of her past seems slightly outrageous. Did people not comprehend the idea of rape as an INVOLUNTARY act of the victim? Tess has been put through so much and the very idea that Angel who obviously had WILLING sexual relations with another older woman in Europe and yet Tess puts no blame on him. Is it perhaps because Angel is jealous? it has been suggested by Freud that jealousy in men is actually combined factors of grieving over the loss of a loved one and a narcissistic attitude. This seems to fit Angel perfectly as he appears to worship the pure (which he wishes to be), yet at the same time grieves over the loss of Tess' chastity. What would have occured had Tess lost her virginity to him? would she not also lose her "purity" in his eyes and be reduced to the same position which she is in now. Alone and suffering from love for a husband who deems the reputation of his wife as defining of his own.
I do not think that Angel was ever in love with Tess, but was rather in love with the idea of her. He says, “The woman I have been loving is not you [but] another woman in your shape.” He was in love with the idea that she could be a “peasant woman” from a lower society and also maintain her purity at the same time. He put her up on an unobtainable pedestal and as soon as that pedestal was knocked down his true feelings come out. He says, “I thought that by giving up all ambition to win a wife with social standing, with fortune, with knowledge of the world, I should secure rustic unsophistication.” He is admitting that he was not in love with Tess, but rather he thought she had something that he wanted. He’s saying that she had a duty to provide him with purity and to amuse his upper class self with her silly and uninformed hillbilly antics, and by not providing these things she has let him down.
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