On the Tragic Factors of Tess of the D

On the Tragic Factors of Tess of the D’Urbervilles

Abstract: Thomas hardy is a famous critical realistic writer at the turn of the 19th century in

England, and Tess of the D’Urbervilles is the most remarkable one of all his works. This novel has a deep influence in the contemporary society. This novel tells the story of the whole tragic life of Tess, who is the heroine of the novel. This thesis describes the tragic factors from three aspects, and they are society environment, family environment and Tess’s character distinctively.

Key Words: Tess’s tragedy, society environment, family environment, character

1. Introduction

Tess is a beautiful and pure girl who lives in a small remote village. Even though she was born in a poor peasant family, she wants to rely on her own hands to pursuit her happiness. However, the society seems not to satisfy her individual humble dream. She has to go to her relatives’ house because there is no enough money to support her whole big family. The fate appears to make fun of her. Alec represents the bourgeois society's authority, the wealth and the evil. When Alec meets Tess in the first time, he is attracted by Tess’s pure temperament, so he tries all the ways to tempt and destroys Tess’s purity. In order to get rid of the miserable life, she leaves her hometown and goes into a farm as a women worker. She meets Clare. They are falling in love, and Tess told Clare the shamed thing and Clare leaves her alone. She comes back her hometown and lives there with Alec without ways. Clare is aware of his serious fault and wants to make up with Tess. Tess killed Alec and she is sentenced to death. The tragedy of Tess is predestinated not only in the society but also in the family and her own character.

2. The Tragic Factors of Tess

2.1 The tragic factors of Tess from society environment

There is no doubt that the society environment is the first reason causing the tragedy of Tess. This story happened in the late of Britain's Victorian era, in this time, Capitalism class is the main stream of the society development, and the law is served for capitalists. Farmers are at the bottle of the society, they have never equal rights as the capitalist class. The industry will replace the agriculture gradually and even completely to some extent. Thomas Hardy witnesses the situations

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of the miserable life of farmers and he hates the enormous change of the society that the capitalism brings to their life, and thus he expresses the dissatisfaction to the current situations in the small village by writing Tess of the D’Urbervilles. This novel is based on the shadow of the individual farmers as a main setting and presents the entire pictures of the farmers at the bottle of the society. The social tragedy is the conflict between human being and society environment. Tess lives in this circumstance where the capitalism is the dominant elements of the society not only in the metropolis but also in the remote village.

Though she has a beautiful appearance and a clever mind with the diligence and kindness in her bottom of heart, she has no enough money to keep the basic living standard. The girls like Tess in the remote village still spread everywhere. By the Capitalist invasion，those self-reliant farmers, who had a small amount of land and the means of production, had followed the insolvency. Female beauty not only regarded as the \"Troubles\" but also become an excuse for men to shirk their crime. They are the poor girls without a plenty of money and the authority as common labors. These girls are naturally oppressed by the capitalist from the economy, authority, body and spirit, church, ethic, and traditional thought. She is the representatives of the labor in the small village. It is the society environment that causes the tragedy of Tess. Alec and Clare are two different powers from the society. They push Tess into the deep difficulties of ethic and pain. Therefore, the tragedy of Tess is the reflection of the society and is inevitable during the period of the capitalism.

2.2 The Tragic Factors of Tess from Family Environment

At the beginning of the novel, Hardy tells us the environment of Tess and her family members around them. Tess’s father is a poor countryside hawker, who has the natural disposition, and he is lazy and has constantly excessive drinking. Tess’s mother is a dairymaid, who sloppy superstition and mind simply. They are pitiful creatures who chart admires the vanity and listens to depend on the time wind and rain willfully to devastate. Just as such terrible patents become the setter of a bad example of Tess’s tragedy. In order to show off the high position over others in their village, they want to flatter the relatives who have no close relationship with them. They didn’t care the real situations of their poor daughter and they just look forward to having some little relationship and show off their status. After their daughter is humiliated by Alec, who they want to flatter, they feel not shamed, and on the contrary, they regard it as a great honor and. They

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think that Alec will get married with their daughter. In fact, Alec just loves the beauty of Tess not the real love with her. After Tess comes back home with the shame, her family members don’t show any care about Tess and think that it is very normal and want to scold her. Under the pressure of the public voice of the neighborhood in the small village Tess faces, they don’t give her comfort. Tess has no choice but to leave her hometown to pursuit a bright life.

The family of Tess is indifferent and cold. Everything they pursuit is money and authority that is difficult for them to get. When Tess comes back from the farm, they laugh at her ignorant. The neighborhood around her always talks about Tess’s shame with bad words. All of these factors caused the tragedy of Tess. The family factor is a great reason to the tragedy of Tess. As is known to us, the family members is the unity that no matter what you have happened and met the great difficulties, they don’t abandon you will be always with you and give you strength and confidence. However, the family of Tess doesn’t give her warmth, and in the end Tess has to return the Alec’s side in order to pay money for the room charge and other economic reasons. It is obvious that the family factor is the cause of the tragedy of Tess. 2.3 The Tragic Factors of Tess from Her Own Character

Her own characters are one of the major causes of the tragic fate of Tess. Tess experienced major changes in human relationships. It is obvious that she has the dual nature of the social character---resistance and compromise. Tess is in a difficult situation, but she never submits to the circumstances around her. She is a kind girl and she always wants to try her best to support and satisfy her parents. So when their parents want her to flatter the family of Alec, she promises. However, she is not a person who is always obedient. Tess revolts constantly. Although she becomes a disgraced woman, she always holds a violable attitude towards Alec. She has the courage to struggle for her better life. Although life only gives her attack and disaster, she all can endure and undertake and never set the excessive request to the life.

The other side of Tess’s social character is resigned to bad conditions. Tess adopts completely another kind of manner to treat Clare. The relationship between lovers should be equal, but Tess constantly disparages herself and raises Clare. She thinks that she is a disgraced girl and she has no luck to get the pure love. Obviously, she doesn’t set herself free in spirit, so when Clare wants to fall in love with her, she refuses. Although she accepts Clare’s love, she still senses the shame. Before their wedding, she makes up her minds to write a letter to Clare and tells him the

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real condition of all things. Clare didn’t accept that and then abandon her. At the same time, her family meets great troubles. She has no solutions and is reluctant to be the lover of Alec. In the end, when Clare finally comes to tell her that he has forgiven her and he still loves her. Tess is bitterly unhappy. She now hates Alec because he ruins her happiness with Clare. She feels so angry with Alec and she would be happy if Alec is dead. She stabs him as he slept. Then she ran out of the house and followed Clare. They have a few happy days together. Living with the husband she truly loves, she is ready for her punishment. When she dies, she feels happy because she lives a few days’ happy time and she sets herself free in the end.

3. Conclusion

In summary, Thomas Hardy reflects some serious problems in his novel---Tess of the D’Urbervilles under the control of the capitalist class. The tragedy of Tess is inevitable under the authority of capitalism. The society environment, family environment and her own characters are the main factors of her tragic fate without any doubt. Therefore, the tragedy of Tess is predestinated.

4. Bibliography

Emest Miller Hemingway. True Nobility[M]. American novelist, 1945.

Thomas Hardy. Tess of the D’Urberville [M]. Beijing: Central Compilation & Translation Press,

2004.

Yu Yang. From the Spirit of Revolt of the Tragic View Tess[M]. Beijing: Beijing Press, 1971. 马弦. 苔丝悲剧形象的“圣经”解构[J], 外国文学研究, 2002 (3).

《新编英美文学概论》 魏晓红主编. 汕头大学出版社, 2004年9月. 张世君，《<德伯家的苔丝>鉴赏》. 重庆: 重庆出版社, 1986. 《20世纪英国文学》王丽丽主编. 山东大学出版, 2001年9月.

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