Tess of the D'Urbervilles: A Pure Woman | Social Concerns
In Tess of the D 'Urbervilles, his most influential novel and one that most emphatically offended the more pious Victorian sensibilities, Thomas Hardy directly challenged many of the most deeply seeded social beliefs of the late nineteenth century. Small wonder that many critics in the contemporary press attacked the novel as immoral, for it was little less than a calculated frontal attack on prevailing attitudes toward the social caste system, women's places in contemporary society, and the role of organized religion in maintaining empty social mores rather than addressing the...
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