Thomas Hardy’s Tess Of The D’Urbervilles (A Pure Women) - Do You Agree with Hardy’s Subtitle, A Pure Women?
‘Tess Of The D’Urberville’ was written by Thomas Hardy in 1891. Tess is
the main character who gets exploited by the character, Alec. The
question is whether Tess is pure or not. The subject
of purity caused a lot of controversy in the Victorian times. The dictionary
definition of the word purity is that if someone is pure they are
innocent, fresh, virtues, chaste and very trustworthy.
Thomas Hardy English poet and novelist, famous for his dispictions of
the imaginary county “Wessex”. Hardy’s work reflected his stoical
pessimism and sense of tragedy in human life.
In the Victorian times you were able to buy names depending on
whether you were rich or not this will show if you have social status
or not. Victorians believed that any man or women having a sexual
relationship or sexual contact before marriage was seen as a sinner.
If you pregnant and was not married society will not accept you they
were very strict and very religious. In the Victorian times there were
three classes. The Masses, the Nouveax Riches, and the Landed Gentry.
The Masses were the poor working class, the Nouveax Riches were the
people who worked in factory’s In the city they get the new money and
that is were the name came from, they were hated by the Landed Gentry
because they were almost the same standard as them, the Landed Gentry
were the rich people who didn’t work but got their money from their
ancestors (old money).
Tess a young cottage girl ‘she was a fine and handsome girl… and large
innocent eyes added eloquence to colour and shape…’ Tess and her
family were the poor working class and were happy the way they...
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...Angel and tells him what she has done
and says that if anything happens to her he has to promise to look
after her younger sister Liza- lu this shows us that she is very
loving towards her sister and is willing to do anything for her
happiness. Tess is then captured and is hanged in the last chapter.
Conclusion:
To conclude I think Tess is a pure woman. I have shown how fate has
taken a major part in her life. Thomas Hardy is a person who wrote
most of his novels in a pessimistic way. His view on life and in women
was completely different to the rest of the society; he reckons that
men and women should have an equal right. The reason why he wrote ‘A
Pure Woman’ as his subtitle is because he wanted to put it out to the
rest of the society and because this is a question everyone wants an
answer to. This subject caused a lot of controversy at the time.
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.
The reformation also brought into question the ideals of the “natural law” that governed the lands of Europe. This natural law stated that the hierarchies that were in place across Europe such as that of the sovereigns over their subjects were as natural as a father being in control of his children.
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...
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
...ancial Times stating, “The bottom line here is that Americans don't believe in President Obama's leadership. He has to find some way between now and November of demonstrating that he is a leader who can command confidence and, short of a 9/11 event or an Oklahoma City bombing, I can't think of how he could do that.” When the president is popular and integrity of the Executive branch is high, the President can lead public opinion on specific issues. When the factors are low, generating support can be a challenge to overcome and they may engage in strategies (major policy speeches, bold policy initiatives, raising public awareness on national security) to increase popularity, competence, and prestige. We see many of these strategies now as the President campaigns for a second term and also in his running mates as they try and sway public opinion during their bus tours.
He wrote through more of a female point of view. He over looked both points of views, and included societies views.
Martin Luther inspired another thinker of the time that questioned the Church’s beliefs. That man was John Calvin. The Catholic belief during the Renaissance and Reformation was that one’s good deeds hel...
The nineteenth-century woman was defined by her adherence to submission and resistance to sexuality. She was portrayed by most writers as a naive, accepting figure with strong concerns about living up to the prescribed societal ideals for a respectable woman. The women in Jane Austen's novels offer a clear representation of the nineteenth-century woman. Austen refuses these women any sexual expression and focuses more upon their concern with marriage and society. Thomas Hardy resists Austen's socially accepted depiction of the female with his radically independent heroines.
... well to portray how life actually was in those times. Most of his elements are true and add to the validity of the story and personality of the characters in it. He gives his readers a look into the world of a Southern style of life in the given time period.
One of our previous Kings, Henry VII, was undoubtedly Catholic, but when Henry VIII succeeded his father’s position, he became the first of all our Kings to separate the Church of England from the Roman Catholic Church. The cause for this sudden shift in religious disposition was because of many events. Henry VIII saw that the Pope seemed to be a participant in secular matters, and the Italians had only designated one cardinal out of fifty to England, who had no chance of becoming Pope. Henry VIII could not tolerate the fact that many major religious matters in England were settled by the Italians. This was the first step in England’s shift towards Protestantism. Consecutively, hi...
Henry VIII and Queen Elizabeth I may have been the English Reformation’s greatest benefactors, all because of self interest. Henry VIII was not originally Protestant, but after the pope denied him of his divorce, Henry VIII took things into his own hands. Due to the power kings had in the Middle Ages, Henry VIII was able to control Parliament and force it to do whatever he wanted. So in 1534, Henry VIII forced Parliament to pass a law he made known as the Act of Supremacy. The Act of Supremacy stated that the king ought to be the head of the Church of England. This law gave the king complete power over the Church of England, instead of the pope. However, the type of church and state relationship did not change. Rather all the Act of Supremacy did was take power from the pope and give it to the king. Surprisingly, the Catholics did not retaliate against this strong change. The pope had always been the head of the church, but now the king had taken his position. This serves as an example of nationalism. The Catholics did not think about how removing the pope could harm their religion in any way. However, instead the people blindly followed Henry VIII because he was the leader of the nation and they assumed he was right. Also, by imposing other laws that punished Protestants, Henry VIII did not give the people much of a choice. Fortunately, for Henry VII, nationalis...
The Catholic Encyclopedia. New York: Robert Appleton Company. Retrieved February 21, 2010 from New Advent: http://www.newadvent.org
...Maria Beadnell. In his fiction, however, he was able to hold complete control over the incidents of his past. Through his novels, he was able to relive his childhood and finally come to terms with what he had experienced.
A Patriarchal society is the social construction of male authority over women in an attempt direct their behaviour. In Tess of the d’Urbervilles, Thomas Hardy presents a story of suffering and pain caused primarily by the men in the novel. Hardy’s bitter critique, mocks the Christian ideals of Victorian thinking (1) which brings about Tess’ demise, a once “innocent country girl”. Similarly, in Perfume: The Story of a Murderer, Patrick Süskind portrays Grenouille, a child of the gutter who is brought up and dies in hate through social condemnation.