Angel and Tess: A Romance Fit For the Books?
Romeo and Juliet, Antony and Cleopatra, Napolean and Josephine. Throughout society's entire existence, we have known almost innately that these couples belong together, and yet fate intervened to deal their relationship a tragic blow. Yet readers persist on viewing these couples as the most passionate of all times. What makes them so unique? What makes them so compatible? What makes everyone see them as half of a whole instead of two? These couples proved to society that they belonged together, no matter what circumstances they faced . They possessed True Love, the rare gift that makes a relationship last, amidst outer turmoil. In the novel, Tess of the D'Ubervilles, by Thomas Hardy, another literary couple is portrayed. Tess Durbeyfield and Angel Clare appear to be in such an invincible love. The audience believes that they could have a happy life together as a unified couple, but, here too, fate intervenes and Tess is killed. However, the question remains in readers' minds: Would Tess and Angel’s relationship reached the level of perfection in these examples had Tess remained alive? Would their relationship have been successful? There are several factors that can define a successful relationship. In order for a relationship to be worthwhile, the relationship must possess mutual love, respect, and trust, characterized by similar backgrounds, harmonious personalities , and compatibility. Tess and Angel’s love could not have survived for long, because they did not possess these things. Their differences made it too difficult for them to be compatible for long. They had different pasts, different personalities, and different goals and aspirations that prevented true love.
Tess Durbeyfield has a difficult past, and it impacts who she grows up to be; her
past is always a part of her, a perpetual learning experience. Though she spends some years away from home, Tess's personality is still influenced by her humble beginnings, making it impossible for Angel to fully understand her, because his own childhood was relatively easy compared to Tess's. Tess bears most of the burden in her family. The responsibility of the family's welfare is solely on Tess's shoulders. Her parents, immature and impractical, unwittingly force her to care single-handedly for the family. Her mother even says, "The lady must be our relation, and my projick is to send Tess to claim kin." (21) Joan Durbeyfield wants to take the easy way out and inherit the D'Uberville fortune.
Tess is almost immediately seduced by one of her cousins. She became pregnant, but her child dies soon after it is born. She never tells the cousin that their child has died. But later, after she falls in love with the son of a local minister and marries him, she confesses her past. This is to much for her new husband to deal with. He "married down" because he was attracted to Tess's humble origins. Back then, men married down to lower classes if the women was beautiful because it would make the man look good. Obviously women were not well respected. But he is not prepared to accept the reality of her past. He leaves on a bizarre mission to South America.
Tessie’s reaction is normal. When her family was chosen she was upset and insisted that Mr. Summers had cheated. She kept repeating that her hadn’t given her husband enough time. Like any mother, Tessie is concerned about the wellbeing of the member of her family.
At the beginning of the story, we see her desiring going to the lottery. She was laughing, joking, and encouraging her husband to go up and get a drawing when he didn’t move right away. She never would have suspected her family would be chosen, and furthermore, herself. Jackson creates a great contrast between Tessie’s nonchalance and the crowd’s nervousness (Yarmove). When her family is chosen, her character changes around knowing that there’s the possibility of her own death. Tessie’s character change is shocking, but falls into place with the holocaust. She symbolizes the human instinct of survival, and tries to offer up her own children and their families to lower her chances of death. In Yarmove’s analysis of Jackson’s work, he writes “It is the peevish last complaint of a hypocrite who has been hoisted by her own petard” to drive this thought home. The Nazis involved in the roundup of the ‘lesser’ people, alongside with whoever aided, did so because either they were naïve enough to believe they wouldn’t be killed themselves, or because they believed in the cause. Tessie symbolizes those who did so because they thought they wouldn’t be
Sex discrimination is still a major problem of today. In many different ways, women are deemed “lesser” than men, and one major example of this problem is the wage gap. Unfortunately, the wage gap still exists, and it is completely sickening. Many people disagree and say that the wage gap is non-existent, but that is far from the truth. The wage gap needs to close, because women don't deserve any less than men do.
...s by being role models of self-empowerment.” (Burkhardt & Nathaniel, 2014, p. 520) There are many constraints and issues which can affect the empowerment process. As nurses, we must address the “social, political, and environmental factors affecting empowerment” in order to provide the highest quality of nursing care. It is important to remember that “empowerment is an essential part of nursing care.” (Burkhardt & Nathaniel, 2014, p. 521)
Women are more than half the work force and are graduating at higher rates then men and continue to earn considerably less then men. There are several contributing factors to the gender wage gap. Women experience gender discrimination in the work force even though it’s been illegal since the Equal Pay Act in 1963. One of the challenges for women is uncovering discrimination. There is a lack of transparency in earnings because employees are either contractually prohibited or it’s strongly discouraged from being discussed. Discrimination also occurs in the restricting of women’s access to jobs with the highest commission payments, or access to lucrative clients.
Throughout ‘Tess’, she believes that she is punished for her immoral action, however even to Tess a simple country girl, the injustice treatment for her mistakes does not seem justifiable, these punishments are due to Tess’s central injustice of being raped/seduced by Alec - ‘whatever her sins they were not sins of intention…why should she have been punished so persistently’ (pp.313). Furthering this argument, in Hardy’s ‘Tess’ the moral code of ‘no sex before marriage’ is broken by the protagonist herself and sets in motion her fate eventually leading Tess to becoming a fallen woman. In Victorian society, women were expected to practice sexual resistance if this was not conduct...
Thomas Hardy challenges the sexual principles of the late nineteenth century in his novel Tess of the D'Urbervilles. Tess Durbeyfield, a young woman, looks for work at Trantridge, where she meets the charming Alec Stoke-d'Urberville. Alec becomes attracted to Tess and later rapes her in a forest. This drives Tess to look for work elsewhere, and she meets Angel Clare at Talbothays Dairy, where they fall in love with each other and marry. However, when Tess tells Angel what happened to her at Trantridge, he leaves her and goes to Brazil. Hardy presents two men who inflict different types of pain on Tess; while Alec harms Tess physically, Angel harms Tess psychologically. Hardy establishes that people are victims of fate and, although both men have many faults, Angel is the better man.
The subtitle of the novel, however an after idea, focuses on the basic virtue of its champion. In spite of the fact that she is fallen, she is to be judged not by her ethical inconvenience but rather by her goal, her life and her temperament seen all in all. One side of Tess is the question of male strength, run of the mill of the Victorian time frame, the respectably traditional and preservationist age. At the time of Tess, even in late Victorian period, a lady ought to be rationally and physically devoted to men, called a "blessed messenger in the house." Else she was a "fallen heavenly attendant." Tessʼs dispositions as a Victorian lady are spoken to in her externalization by her honest to goodness spouse Holy messenger, and her physical
Tess, the protagonist and heroine of Hardy's novel, becomes a victim of rape and in turn, her life grows to become degraded, humiliating and depressing; of which none of these things she deserves. Although initially striving to be heroic and providing for her family, (after she was responsible for the death of Prince) the position she takes on at the d'Urbervilles' ultimately leads to her death as she is raped and then pursued by her seducer Alec d'Urberville until she must murder him. This courageous yet dangerous decision to murder Alec epitomises her character as a heroine as she is brave enough to perform such a malicious act in order to kill her suffering at the root rather than being passive and perhaps choosing to take her own life instead.
Today in the United States, men make more than women in various sectors, including education and other trades favoring women workers. The gap gets bigger when comparing the wages earned by men to those of women in jobs favoring men workers such as construction or other physically demanding jobs. Women are less likely to work those jobs, therefor; men have the advantage of having more experience and get paid better. In addition, employers would rather hire a man instead of a woman because they believe that a man will be able to sustain the difficulty of the job and work longer hours which crate a disadvantage for women because they are unable to gain experience and become skilled in that certain field. Gender pay gap based on this information is explained as the result of the discrimination of employers toward the feminine sex in terms of pay, which discourage them to work certain jobs leading to create a bigger gap due to the lack of
The novel Tess of the D’Urbervilles written by Thomas Hardy was an interesting novel with lots of suspense. The main protagonist is Tess D’Urbervilles, a young, attractive, intelligent, and sensitive girl. In the first chapter, Tess’s father finds out he’s the last descent of one of the oldest families in England, the D’Urbervilles. Tess’s family lives in poverty and faces difficult to get through life. In the process of all this happening Tess experiences many bad things. The book introduces many symbols; one of the many was Red and White. These colors foreshadow future events in the novel such as pureness, beauty, carelessness, innocence, sin, evil and more.
Many countries have not recognized women’s contribution, including the United States. Women have become targets of many genders discriminate, especially in the workplace. Even though the laws have changed, gender pay gap still exists and seemingly does not disappear by itself. Therefore, women should be aware of the gender pay gap negative impact and be more activate in taking an appropriate action to close the gender pay gap.
When advocating on behalf of a population experiencing a social problem, empowerment seems to be more prevalent than one may think, although this remains a difficult skill to master. Empowerment is the process of enabling an oppressed or marginalized population to think, behave, and take action in autonomous ways. The purpose of empowerment is to assist an oppressed and/or marginalized group in overcoming feelings of powerlessness and negative valuations so they can resolve their problems and influence political change (Hardina, 2003). In social work, the goal of empowerment is to increase the power of the oppressed population or community (Hardina, 2003).
Despite government regulations to promote equality within the workplace, women’s salaries continue to lag behind males in similar career with similar experiences. According to research performed by Blau & Kahn (2007) “women salaries averaged about 60% of men’s until the 1970s and rose to nearly 80% by the 1990s” (as cited in Bendick, Jr. & Nunes, 2012, p.244). Today, women on average earn approximately $.81 for every dollar that men earn in the United States (Guy and Fenley P.41 2014).