Tess Of The D Urbervilles Morality

“Do not do an immoral thing for moral reasons.” This wise maxim from Thomas Hardy, amply sums up his personal challenge of Victorian society, which he continuously kindled throughout his controversial career in literature. Among many aspects of society, he criticised the hypocritical sexual double standards which eventually came to characterise the Victorian era, as well as the social immorality constructed by the Catholic church and the aggressive spread of industrialisation. His philosophical critique is arguably most vivid in his novel Tess of the d’Urbervilles, which he achieved through a meticulous weaving of contentious morals into his literary technique.

Throughout the novel Hardy personifies his criticism of sexual double standards in the form of the title character Tess. Tess undergoes a somewhat cliche ‘fallen woman’ tragedy, by amplifying the tragedy, Hardy is allowed to lend the reader an empathetic insight into the impartial condemnation of women. By the conclusion of Tess’ journey it is indisputable that the blame for her inevitable downfall does not belong to Alec but rather with the society that condemned her. The extent to which the socially constructed dogma reaches is manifested in Angel who reveals to Tess his own past sexual adventures but when informed of her own rape concludes that she is no longer the same person ‘No, not the same’, he views his wife as amoral rather than the victim she truly is. In Hardy’s society a female who lost her virginity before getting married, was shun - regardless of context. Hence virtue lay in virginity, diminishing the transcendent worth of a woman’s will. Misguided by their fallaciousness, the Victorian’s had confused virginity with virtue a physical and metaphysical conditi...

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... willed and intrusive in his critique of society; hence the novel’s antithetical although tragic ending divulges an ideological anxiety. Adamant to defend Tess, and in effect his convictions from social condemnation Hardy finally cannot do so himself because of his fear of becoming a radical critic of his culture. In the words of Tess ‘I have had enough; and now I shall not live for you to despise me!’ Although arguably aiming to make the text more digestible for the intended Victorian audience, by making Tess even more impure in the eyes of society through matricide, Hardy indirectly offers his future audience a much more realised insight into the potency of Victorian dogma, ultimately though what would have appeared to have been the partial sacrifice of his own critical philosophy. As Hardy himself said ‘A man must be a fool to deliberately stand up to be shot at.’