In the novel Tess of the d’Urbervilles, the author, Thomas Hardy, explores
compassionate and obsessive love between the protagonist, Tess and her pleasant or
unfortunate encounters with men. He also explores the hardships women had to go through
back then and how hard it was for a family when the father, or head of the family dies and he
also examines the misery that spreads around Tess’s life when she has to take care of her family
and battles with her consciousness thinking she does not deserve true love since she was raped
and therefore not worth being with anyone. This kind of guilt has a heavy burden upon Tess
because she feels unsuitable of someone else’s care and kindness and does not view herself as
the victim, but to blame for what happened to her. As she struggles with this matter, family
issues arise when her father passes away and she is left to take care of her entire family, and still
in the meantime, kept her hopes up about the person she does love, Angel to stay
with her regardless of her shameful past.
Thomas Hardy explores the obsessive love by revealing Alec’s exaggerated love for Tess,
who he abuses and takes advantage of while she slept, thinking that he wasn’t going to harm
her because she did work for the d’Urberville family and mistakenly thought they were all civil.
And as this happened, Tess never got over it and thought about it constantly until it became a
part of who she is because she got a lot less confident as she was before and judged her own life
by claiming that the hardships that she went through in life, was what she deserved, believing
she was not pure or worthy of anyone’s love. This tragedy shapes her life in a negati...
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...ightened out.
In conclusion, the author showed what women back then go through which is quite
similar and actually no different than what women go through nowadays. Tess was sexually
abused by a man, Alec, that left her devastated and affected her decisions and personality, but
she was strong enough to resist this man that caused such calamity in her life when things got
tough. And she had to take care of her family, even though that meant that she had to leave her
husband in the process and go back home and be the leader of the family. These problems did
not only have to occur back then, but they also happen now and the women in this aspect of
life, are very similar despite the fact that they lived in different centuries.
Works Cited
Thomas, Hardy (1981). Tess of the d’Urbervilles. New York, NY: A Division of Random House, Inc.
She was seduced at an early age and then fell in love with a preacher, but was overcome by an exciting younger man. She experienced every form of lust and desire as well as loss. Somehow though all the hardship she was able to come out on the other side a more complete woman and ironically did so without any of these
A child is known for having innocence, and bad experiences strip kids of it. In Sarah’s
faced society only to protect and be close to the man she still loved. The
herself, and how she was brought up, as I think this has had a big
the others that they reconciled and he was putty in her hands from that day forward. She
her, she has his children, and he wishes her dead, so he could have custody.
How was a woman who has experienced nothing but rejection by her own family and abuse, able to do well in life? Adeline Yeh Mah, the author of her memoir Falling Leaves was that woman. From the beginning of her life, she was blamed and rejected by her brothers and sister for the death of their mother. She was bullied by her brother Edgar and was forced to help her sister do her daily task. As Adeline got older the abuse got worse. Her mother remarried a woman named Jeanne, called Niang by the children. Adeline experienced more abuse from Niang than she ever did with her brothers and sister. Adeline did well in life despite the abuse and rejection from her family because she was a determined, persistent, and strong person.
had to carry on working the family farm by herself. With the death of his
was raised by an upper-class family who resented her and did not want her, therefore
But with Tess, this is not the scene. She begins a journey from the villain to the hero, from hell to heaven, as is evident from Hardy's description of the Vale of Great Dairies later. She recovers from the trauma, regains her optimism and is all set to start a new independent life. Hardy creates a job oppurtunity that beckons her. Tess begins her journey southwards.
away, and we knew that with nothing left, she would have to cling to that which had
tragedies that befell her. She is an example of a melancholic character that is not able to let go of her loss and therefore lets it t...
warning her earlier. In fact, her mother does not have any right for blaming Tess for
The potent tragedy of Tess’s life is that her decisions have always been made with good and pure intentions, but have resulted in damaging consequences. Tess is undoubtedly a victim as misery punctuates her life. Tess is a victim of circumstance in that her individuality makes little difference to her fate. She is a victim of society in the sense that she is a scapegoat of narrow-mindedness among her fellow man. She is a victim of male ideology on the grounds that her powers of will and reason are undermined by her sensuality. Tess herself sums up her own blighted life best, “Once a victim, always a victim - that’s the law”.