Morality

It seems as though Tess is concerned about whether or not God will forgive her for what has happened. This is shown through her brief conversation with the man carrying the bucket of red paint. Later, she sees a rainy day as an expression of God's grief towards her "sin". However, on page 85 Hardy states that "the world is only a psychological phenomenon, and what they seemed they were." I think that this implies that the only reason Tess thinks she has sinned and that God is disappointed with her is because she believes it to be true. If only she stopped believing in it, this stress, anxiety and depression concerning the act would leave her.

Footnote to the Amnesty Report on Torture

One aspect of this poem that I found interesting was the description the author gives of the torture chamber. She describes what an old cliche of a torture chamber would be, a "thirties horror / dungeon with gauzy cobwebs" and a more recent cliche of a torture chamber, "sexy chains and / leather-goods from the glossy porno magazines". However, the reality of the torture chamber is neither of these and is much more familiar to you then would be expected, as she compares it a British Railway station.

As Tess matures...

One part of the reading that caught me was in the beginning of chapter fifteen, in Maiden No More. From page 98-99, it is the process of Tess maturing. Except I wouldn't quite call it a process, as the next page begins with "Almost at a leap Tess thus changed from a simple girl to a complex woman." It is the paragraph before that is an expansion on how she viewed the world as 'blighted'.

It is when she is looking over the important dates of her life year by year and she realizes, quite out of nowhere, "that there was yet another date, of greater importance to her than those; that of her own death". She wonders when it is and how years go by but she does not know the day. It is an odd thought to have, but less odd now that she has gone through the horrors of rape, then losing a child that she had grown to love. While it seems that she may not be the best of mothers, there is respect due because of her maternal instinct. Although seemingly latent, it comes in full force when her child is dying. She feels that she must preserve its soul and that it must be buried with a proper Christian burial. What is sad is that neither of those really come through, she must perform the baptism herself, then the infant is buried with sinners in an almost hellish area of the graveyard.

It is after this that she begins to mature and shortly realizes that it is time for her to move on and away - "she could never be really comfortable again in a place which had seen the collapse of her family's attempt to 'claim kin'". She knows it is time to move on when she still "felt the pulse of life...warm within her". She wants "[t]o escape the past and all that appertained thereto was to annihilate it, and to do that she wold have to get away". She may force herself to believe this but it is obvious that after she falls in love with Angel, no such dream is possible. Her happiness seems doomed. But for right now, she is more mature than she was when the novel began.

Tess' relationship w Angel Clare

Tess is plagued by her very existence. She does not think she deserves happiness. For example, she loves Angel but does not think she is worthy of his affections. She continues to push him away as she tells Angel how “pretty” the other girls look and how “they skim better” than she does. Angel however does not like the other dairymaids as he says they “are not better” than Tess. Tess muses on the idea of marrying Angel but she is jolted out of her dreamlike state when she reckons that she “could never conscientiously allow any man to marry her now, and had religiously determined that she never would be tempted to do so.” Tess has a pure heart but Alec D’urberville ruined her soul. Therefore, Tess feels she can never love another without sinning. She is destined to be unhappy because of the male dominance in her society. Even Angel overpowers Tess and will not let her be herself. After all, she insists upon being called Tess but Clare flirts with her by calling he r “Artemis” and “Demeter.” Throughout the novel Angel gives Tess various names that she does not accept. He casts her as goddess but that is not her true self because she has been corrupted. Although I do think she is like Artemis because like that goddess she has sworn off men.

Tess's Parents

One tragic aspect of the story of the first phase is how Tess's parents essentially push her into going to live with the D'Urbervilles. All the father cares about is having a horse to support himself and his drinking habits, and making the most of his family name. The mother is too excited by the prospect of Tess marrying "a gentleman" to really worry about where it is she's sending her daughter. That bit when the mother thinks, "Hm, maybe I should have made sure that guy was a good person before I let Tess go off with him...Oh well!" (I'm paraphrasing here!) really annoyed me. They seem to know that Tess is the most sensible member of the family, but they don't trust her when she voices her instincts about not wanting to go.

The Name

I found that the first few pages created a foreshadowing of Tess' downfall. As the parson and Derbyfield speak, the importance of history and names is discussed. This conversation highlights the great past that was perhaps Derbyfield’s heritage and yet how it has become fairly meaningless in terms of its affects on Derbyfield's life. What can be seen as the foreshadowing in this section is how the importance of a family name and it's history, a history dominated by males. The idea that Derbyfield was also descended from knights is also interesting because knights are associated with rescuing the virgin maiden from some horrible fate. Here however no one rescues Tess.

Tess v Melia

Hardy’s novel “Tess of the D’urbervilles” has a similar theme as his poem, “The Ruined Maid.” Both works are about a woman’s loss of innocence. In Hardy’s poem the woman; Melia is decadently dressed in “gay bracelets and bright feathers” because she says “that’s how we dress when we’re ruined.” This is an odd way to think of what becomes of a woman once she has lost her virginity. Melia ‘s sarcastic tone throughout the poem hints that wealth is worth the trade for her sexuality. She never has to “work” because she is “ruined.” Yet, she speaks of herself as “ruined,” which means she cannot possibly be fully satisfied with this state. I think Tess in Hardy’s novel feels a lot more “ruined” after Alec takes advantage of her because unlike Melia she would prefer her innocence over the vast wealth Alec can give her. Tess is a tragic character because she is fated to be unhappy. Hardy makes Tess fated because she is a woman, therefore she is forced and cannot get away from Alec’s dominating manhood. Alec asks Tess, “why do you always dislike my kissing you” and Tess responds, “I suppose-because I do not love you.” Alec cannot fathom why Tess resents the kisses he plants on her, yet it is obvious that Tess does not want to be coerced into a relationship especially with someone she has not true affection for. In fact, Alec makes Tess very uncomfortable and she tries to thwart his attempts to seduce her but ultimately fails when he rapes her in the night.