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Finding A Place In Life
By human nature, people need a sense of belonging to be happy and fulfilled in life. It is more difficult for some to achieve this goal than others. Having friends and being loved is an important part of life for most people, yet if this is difficult for them to achieve, this goal could consume their life.
This is true in Thomas Hardy's novel Tess of the d'Urbervilles, where Tess, a descriptively pretty young girl goes to great lengths to find her place in the world. She moves from town to town searching for her place in society. She first settles in the city of Marlott where she leads a simple life. "Tess at this time of her life was a mere vessel of emotion untinctured by experience" (Hardy 11). Tess continues to travel to different towns in hopes she will improve her life by finding the person she wishes to spend the rest of her life with. Throughout all this disruption in her life, "she is an ambitious woman in search of a new sensation" (Hardy 15). She continues to travel because she wants more from life and has the ambition to attempt to find her place.
Tess had to cope with many threatening, dangerous, and sad situations during her search. The first occurs when she arrives in the growing town of Tantridge. There she worked as a dairymaid on the Flintcomb-Ash Farm. Even with her dislike for this job she continues to work at it for over two years until she knows for certain that this is not her place in the world. As she "progresses (she) wonder whether it would be wiser to return home. The resolve, however had been taken, and it seems Vacillating… to abandon it now, unless for graver reasons" (Hardy 67). As she continues to live in Tantridge, she gets into fights, drinks, and ends up being raped and impregnated. Alec is the man who attempts to convince Tess that she belongs with him, and that they were meant to be together. In her heart Tess realizes Alec is not the man she wishes to be with. Unfortunately she continues on in the one-sided relationship which leads to Alec raping Tess. She does not yet know how severe the consequences are for not being a pure woman. This idea of being a pure woman is so important in this period of time that Tess keeps it a secret even from Angel, who is her new love and the man she wants to spend the rest of her life with.
Humans need to feel a sense of belonging and acceptance, whether it comes from a large
Tess is no stranger to casual wrong. Throughout her life indifferent nature has occurred. Her parents were not the greatest of parents. She had a tough life, she was poor. When she met Alec d'Urberville, she was considerate and kind, but later on Alec took advantage of her and seduced her in a forest called the Chase, "He knelt and bent lower, till her breath warmed his face, and in a moment his cheek was in contact with hers.
The community and her unsupportive parents’ cold treatment towards Tess following these events emphasize the hegemonic male perspective of society towards women. Furthermore, Hardy shows how women are seen by society through the male gaze as sexual objects, as Tess is blamed for Alec’s lack of self-control. He attempts to justify his cruel actions as he calls Tess a “temptress” and the “dear damned witch of Babylon” (Hardy 316), yet he later says that he has “come to tempt [her]” (340). Tess is also objectified by Alec when he says that if Tess is “any man’s wife [she] is [his]” (325). The narrator’s repeated sexualized descriptions of Tess, such as her “pouted-up deep red mouth” (39), further demonstrate how women are commonly seen through the male gaze in society.
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...
"To feel a sense of belonging, you need to accept yourself and be accepted by others."
...cept her. ?Unadvisable? gives the impression that Angel does not really care one way or another. All of this is unfair to Tess, as Alec?s decision to rape her was not her fault in any way. Also, Angel?s sexual history is more promiscuous than Tess?s, and yet he sees only her flaws. Hardy uses specific word choices and diction to thoroughly inform the reader of the injustice of Tess?s circumstances.
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.
However her constant bad luck caused her to make bad judgements which then caused us the readers to believe it is fate. To conclude Tess’s innocent and beauty proved to do her no good and she was also unaware of her sexuality. Her lack of common knowledge and wanting from her also made her susceptible to other men.
After Tess spends several months at this job, Alec finally manages to seduce her, taking advantage of her in the woods one night after a fair. Tess knows she doesn't love Alec, and she returns home to her family to give birth to Alec's child, which she christens Sorrow. Sorrow dies soon after he is born, and Tess spends a miserable year at home before deciding to seek work elsewhere. She finally accepts a job as a milkmaid at the Talbothays Dairy.
Tess' two "choices" as her husband, Alec d'Urberville and Angel Clare, hold many of the patriarchal stereotypes of the Victorian Age, chasing Tess as more of a metaphorical piece of meat than a passionate lover. As their secrets are revealed on their wedding night, it becomes harder and harder for Angel to love Tess, seeing her as "another woman in your shape" (Hardy 192). The author, at this point in the relationship between Tess and Angel, perfectly exemplifies the values and culture of the Victorian age. Though both Angel and Tess are guilty of the same misbehaviors in their pasts, Angel believes that "forgiveness does not apply to [Tess'] case" (Hardy 191). Under the reign of Queen Victoria, the role of men in sexual relations was strictly reproductive, and the sex act was considered a release of helpless energies, basically holding no sins of love or conjugal travesties. For women, however, it was a softer, more passionate act, meaning more of the love than the fertilization, and emotionally pulling the sex partner too close to just scoff the happening off and move on with life (Lee 1). Such conflicting views in the perspective of sexual intercourse make it nearly impossible for Angel to "forgive [Tess] as you are forgiven! I forgive you, Angel" (Hardy 191). Jeremy Ross also believes that Hardy "abandoned his devout faith in God, based on the scientific advances of his contemporaries" (Ross, Jeremy 1).
Individuals like the feeling that they belong. Sometimes people believe they are alone in the world and no one else faces similar issues.
Having a sense of belonging is a common experience. Belonging means acceptance as a member or part. It is such a simple word for huge concept. A sense of belonging is a human need, just like the need for food and shelter. Feeling that we belong is most important in seeing value in life and in coping with intensely painful emotions. From a psychological perspective, a sense of belonging is a basic human need, with many psychologists discussing this need as being at the level of importance of that as food, water, and shelter. A sense of belonging can be so powerful that it can create both value in life and the ability to learn healthy coping skills when experiencing intensive and
Other people may be seen in a wide assortment of settings. A sense of belonging is also
...e or friendship. We are taught that we don't have an identity if we are alone. Which is why we treat loneliness as a disease, one to be avoided at any cost. Loneliness is viewed as an inadequacy of our personalities. Though all of us are taught to be independent, our independence is superficial. We can cook, clean, and do our laundry but we can't seem to take care of our emotions independently. We are taught that we need to share all our emotions. And I believe that however hard we search we can never get the kind of understanding that we are looking for. We are taught to be uncomfortable in our own world. Society conditions us to believe that we are inadequately equipped to be alone and content. And that alone always means lonely.
Each event that occurred by complete chance left Tess in a predicament where she was compelled to take control and do something to improve the situation. No matter where she was--in the location of her birthplace, a sheltered little town, or in the comfortable landscape that surrounded the dairy, or even in the harsh scenery of the farm-- Tess always knew where she belonged and what she was meant to do in each place. Every coincidence or occurrence that came along, forced Tess to rethink her situation and draw up the courage that to realize who she was and where she was going. The consequences that came, due to her decisions were all ones that Tess was ready for. Even when sixteen men followed her so that she could be punished for the murder of Alec d'Urberville. "'It is as it should be.