Tess of the d'Urbervilles

One of the themes of the novel is the power and truth of nature and pagan religions over Christianity. At the beginning of the book, Tess is dancing in a May Day festival, and Hardy writes: "The...

If by justified we mean, does Tess deserve to be hanged for killing Alec, I would say no. The subtitle of the novel, which causes controversy at the time, is "A Pure Woman," and I agree that Tess...

As you know, Thomas Hardy considered Tess in Tess of the D'Urbervilles a pure woman since the subtitle of the work is "A Pure Woman." I have not taught or researched the novel, so you may get a...

The subtitle is important to know about because it was part of a tremendous controversy that Hardy's book ignited surrounding what was called by his Victorian society "the Woman question." This...

Hardy was a naturalist, part of a Darwinist-influenced literary movement at the end of the nineteenth and beginning of the twentieth century that saw nature as indifferent to humankind. He also was...

Hardy depicts conventional religion and morality as cruel and destructive forces. Tess has a pure heart. She is a victim, raped by Alec, but she is morally condemned by her society for being...

It seems in Hardy's novel that murder and betrayal are not controlled directly by the characters in the novel. The plot is mired by tragedy after tragedy, all of which appear to be completely out...

The subtitle of the novel, A Pure Woman Faithfully Presented, leads us to the heart of Hardy's intention. "Faithfully Presented" speaks to Hardy's naturalism: the phrase tells us that, in this...

This phrase occurs in "Tess of the d'Urbervilles" when Angel remarks that Tess has the "ache of modernism" which seems to refer to Hardy's dislike, as Marcelle Clements writes in the introduction,...

In Hardy's naturalism, nature is not full of signs of God's purpose or wonder, but is largely indifferent to the fate of Hardy's characters. Protagonists and antagonists alike are crushed as...

In "Tess of D'Urbervilles" the story is told with third person omniscient—meaning the narrator is outside of the story but can see and hear the thoughts and emotions of every character in the...

Alec is a rich and entitled man, who thinks he can take whatever he wants from the world and from the people around him. He tries to woo Tess when he first meets her, but she's too proud and...

By the time Hardy wrote Tess of the D'Urbervilles, he was a successful novelist with an established reputation. Earlier in his career, under the advice of such mentors as Leslie Stephen, Virginia...

Hardy's subtitle, A Pure Woman Faithfully Presented, gets to the heart of his intentions. First, even though Tess would be considered a fallen, impure woman by most of her society, Hardy wants to...

In Thomas Hardy's poignant narrative of Tess of the D'Ubervilles, the plight of the repressed woman in Victorian Times is clearly evident. Women were expected to be frail and virtuous--Tess is...

Answering this question largely depends on how we perceive the role of women in the rural society of Hardy's day. According to the prevailing moral standards, Tess is to blame for her own...

Naturalism as a literary movement is distinct from Romanticism or Realism in that it takes a detached, dispassionate view of human life. As the eNote on naturalism puts it: Naturalism applies both...

Hardy's feminist perspective can be seen on the very cover of the novel. The book's full title is Tess of the d'Urbervilles: A Pure Woman Faithfully Presented. His description of Tess as pure goes...

Chance plays a big role in the story of Tess. In the first chapter, Tess’s father, John Durbeyfield, has a chance meeting with Parson Tringham in the road. The parson, as a joke, addresses him as...

As with any great author, it's hard to identify a single point or theme that is expressive of Hardy's overall vision. I would focus, however, on the "randomness" of the way the universe operates...

In Tess of the d'Urbervilles, Phase the First is called "The Maiden," referring to Tess's innocence at the start of the novel. Hardy introduces Tess during the May-Day celebration. In this chapter,...

By "true faces" if you mean what are Alec and Angel's true intentions or character, they are the following. Alec certainly does not sincerely care about anyone else but himself. He seeks pleasure,...

The fiction of Thomas Hardy is concerned with the fate of common people in the grips of an indefinite destiny. What he termed the Immanent Will is an all-inclusive mind or ultimate reality of the...

Tess of the d’Urbervilles was written by Victorian novelist and poet Thomas Hardy in 1891. It tells the story of poor farm girl Tess Durbeyfield whose father discovers that their family is...

Tess of the d'Urbervilles by Thomas Hardy focuses on how love and sex affect the life of a young woman, Tess, from a peasant family in the fictitious English county of Wessex. The basic plot of...

Tess is seduced, not raped; although, it might as well be called rape due to the many variables that weakened her before succumbing to Alec's selfish desires. On page 45 on the enotes.com etext...

In a traditional tragedy, it is fate, sin, or a combination of the two that ushers in the tragic events. For example, in Oedipus Rex, the gods have decreed that Oedipus will kill his father and...

Realism, with regard to literature, is a relative term. Thomas Hardy's novels, in my view, exemplify realism more fully than other English writers of his time and earlier, but less than a...

Tess of the d'Urbevilles is a social tragedy in that it shows how, at that time in English history, one's fate was inextricably bound up with one's class. Tess may fondly imagine that she has blue...

It's difficult to know whether or not the term "fate" accurately describes the philosophy at the center of Tess of the d'Urbervilles and other works by Hardy. Fate implies a force beyond human...

In more modern criticisms of Hardy's novel, there are those who perceive Tess Duberyfield as a true Humanist, ...a human being free of supernaturalism...a part of nature [who] holds that values-be...

Bird symbolism can be important in Hardy. Tess is identified with herons not only in terms of The Heron Inn but also when she arrives at the dairy. It is worth quoting the passage below at length,...

The conflicts of the story include all that you list. Certainly one conflict is "man" vs. "woman" because Tess is raped by a man, which triggers the rest of the story. However,...

According to Veidemanis (see the source below), Polanski's 1979 film of the Hardy novel portrays Tess as passive, weak, and childlike. However, Hardy conveys the strength and unrelenting quality of...

A physical description of Alec d'Uberville is in Chapter 5 of Tess of the d'Ubervilles: He had an almost swarthy complexion, with full lips, badly moulded, though red and smooth, above which was a...

Important literary elements in Tess of the D'Urbervilles are the pathetic fallacy, synesthesia, tragic irony, and omniscient narrative. A good starting point is examining the way Hardy's use of the...

The quotation refers to the main character of the novel, Tess. She is a victim of rape, and feels tremendous guilt because of the loss of her purity. She blames herself throughout the novel for the...

The way in which the title of this novel by Thomas Hardy Tess of d'Ubrevilles may affect the readers is by giving a false impression that the main character is a well-to-do person with a strong,...

The word "tincture" means to have a trace of something, or a small amount. In this quote, Tess is a carrier of surface-level emotion without a trace of life's experience to guide her through any...

When we consider that Hardy makes a point to judge Tess's life at the end of the novel, we could safely assume that Hardy feels the following way: First, he would agree that Tess's life has been...

It is difficult to measure the intention of a novelist when writing a piece of literature, for their might be ostensible and subconscious motives involved. These are often referred to as the text...

The quote is not only all-important to Tess but also to Hardy's overruling philosophy. In Tess, right before the all-seeing narrator makes the aforementioned observation about justice, Tess was...

Tess of the d'Urbervilles: A Pure Woman is an exploration of the profound effects of naivete and gullibility on women in the 18th century who are shown to be at the mercy of men in all regards,...

The subtitle of Tess is "A Pure Woman Faithfully Presented." From the title onward, Hardy is attacking Victorian sexual morality. Tess, a naive 15-year-old, is not well protected by her parents,...

When you set out to write a close analysis of any text, you must first read the piece carefully, paying close attention to the details. After all, an analysis seeks to break down a text into its...

This is certainly situational irony because during that time period, it was just assumed that young girls were virgins. Why would anyone think anything else of a beautiful, young girl? But it...

Before Tess cries out to Alec Stokes-d'Urberville "Once victim, always victim—that's the law!" she has been abandoned by Angel (who is not such an Angel: "[Mr Clare] loved his misnamed Angel") and...

What makes most sense to me is the "new woman" criticism (which I refer to in a q and a as to why Hardy wrote the novel--something impossible to answer, really). This criticism sees the...

It may not be correct to say that Hardy "explores" pathetic fallacy in Tess of the d'Urbervilles because "explore" implies a novice experimenting with or developing usage or usage skill. Since...

First, the beautiful and innocent fifteen-year-old Tess is raped and impregnated by her employer, Alec d'Urberville, who she trusted as a relative—although he simply adopted the d'Urberville...