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 redefine purity. Innocent Tess is raped and impregnated at 15 and gives birth to an illegitimate child who dies. In the eyes of Victorian England she is, therefore, spoiled, impure goods, even though it was not her fault she was raped.

Hardy, however, wants his readers to judge Tess by the purity of her heart, not the purity of her body. He shows throughout the novel how good and kind she is, with a desire to live honestly. All of this harms her because her society judges her by a different standard.

Second, Hardy was a naturalist. He thought of nature as indifferent to humans, buffeting them around carelessly. In presenting her "faithfully," he shows Tess as at the mercy of a universe that doesn't care about her goodness and is not about to reward her virtue with a happy ending. Innocent women like Tess are ground up mercilessly and end tragically, Hardy says.

Some schools of literary analysis contend that it is not possible or necessary to determine an author's purpose or intent. Yet other schools put much credence on relating theme and author background to author purpose. In this tutorial format, we'll restrict our discussion of purpose to the most important social theme in Tess of the d'Urbervilles.

Hardy criticizes the social value that allowed men who were promiscuous to go unchastened by society or family while punishing women who were promiscuous by social out-casting and family rejection (though Tess's family did not reject her). For a woman, it did not matter whether she was seduced and impregnated against her will--as Tess was--or not; she suffered the same punishments regardless.

Let's examine the cases of Tess and Angel Clare to illustrate Hardy's purpose in exposing this double and unjust social standard. Recall that Tess refused Clare's proposals of marriage because she was not worthy and that her mother--after Tess broke down and yielded to Clare's importuning--advised her to keep silent about Alex Stokes-d'Urbervilles' seduction. Tess is terrified to tell Clare her reasons but knows she must refuse him. He wears her down, gains her consent and they marry.

On their wedding night--spent ironically and tragically in an old, half-ruined d'Urberville mansion in Wellbridge--Clare confesses to Tess that in an angry depression railing against his father's edicts for him, he spent forty-eight hours in drunken promiscuity in London:

[narrator]: tossed about by doubts and difficulties in London, like a cork on the waves, [Angel Clare] plunged into eight-and-forty hours' dissipation with a stranger.

To this, Tess replies that she is now free to tell her sad tale because now their falls from religious and social graces are identical, they are "just the same":

"O, Angel—I am almost glad—because now you can forgive me! I have not made my confession. .... Perhaps, although you smile, it is as serious as yours, or more so."
    "It can hardly be more serious, dearest."
    "It cannot—O no, it cannot!" She jumped up joyfully at the hope. "No, it cannot be more serious, certainly," she cried, "because 'tis just the same! I will tell you now."

While Tess instantly forgives Clare and loves him more than before, Angel Clare (no angel he) rejects Tess. He estranges himself from her from that moment on until after a punishing year in Brazil when he relents and seeks her out only to find he is in time to try to help her escape the hangman's noose for murder.

Hardy's purpose is to make it clear that society and the favored status of men over women is to blame for Tess's downfall and tragedy, a tragedy Angel Clare learns to regret too late to save her from.

the d'Urberville knights and dames slept on in their tombs unknowing. The two speechless gazers bent themselves down to the earth, as if in prayer, and remained thus a long time, absolutely motionless: the [execution] flag continued to wave silently.

Why did Thomas Hardy write the novel Tess of the D'Urbervilles?

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 Woolf's father, he moderated his criticism of repressive Victorian social restrictions and Victorian hypocrisy. By the 1890s, however, he was secure enough as a literary figure to write a novel that expressed his true feelings about the double sexual standards applied to men and women in his society. It bothered him that men got a pass in his culture for being sexually promiscuous, while a woman who "strayed" in the slightest way, even if it was not her fault, was severely condemned and often had her life ruined.

Hardy portrays the injustice of what happens to the innocent and pure-hearted Tess, whose life is ripped apart because she is raped and impregnated by a predatory man when she is only a teenager. Even after she "buries" her past by moving to the dairy and starting over, her past still dogs her. When she is honest and good-hearted enough to confess her past to her new husband, Angel Clare, who has just confessed his sexual misdeeds, Angel turns against her. He applies a double sexual standard in which it is perfectly reasonable for he, a male, to be sexually experienced but an unpardonable sin for Tess, a woman, to be in the same situation. He leaves her and goes to Brazil because he can't handle that she is not a virgin, even though he is not a virgin.

The book was criticized at the time for asserting Tess was a "pure woman." Today we can more easily see Tess as the victim she was of a cruel social system which held women to almost impossibly high sexual standards.

Why did Thomas Hardy write the novel Tess of the D'Urbervilles?

Thomas Hardy was a popular writer during his era. One reason he wrote “Tess of the D'Urbervilles” was to support himself and his family.  “Tess brought him notoriety—it was considered quite scandalous—and fortune.” Another reason for the novel was to through a light and questions on society's sexual mores by compassionately portraying a heroine, Tess, who is seduced by the son of her employer, Angel, and who thus is not considered a pure and chaste woman by the rest of society.  She was considered “fallen.”  Hardy criticized the social mores of his own late-Victorian era and considered not only the “rights of men, but also the rights of women”  in his criticism of what he saw as stifling aspects of the institution of marriage and conventional views of sexuality,  This novel is often said to be a “bridge” between 19th century and 20th century literature.   Hardy also wrote “Tess” because he found himself often torn between different social spheres with which he could not fully align himself. Tess of the d'Urbervilles reflects that divide.  Hardy was very aware and condemning of the class system in Victorian England.  He tried to voice his dislike for this through his novel.   

Why did Thomas Hardy write Tess of the d'Urbervilles? What was his purpose?

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 and the subtext. Although at first publishers refused the novel, when it was published it attracted criticism for its sympathetic portrayal of a "fallen woman." Its subtitle, A Pure Woman: Faithfully Presented, was intended to raise the eyebrows of the Victorian middle classes. However, recent criticism of this and similar novels by Hardy suggest that while it might have been intended to shock its audience, the subtext of the novel was that women who break the rules must pay for their mistakes, as Tess does.  This novel was part of the “new woman” genre of the late 1800s, which typically shows a woman who crosses boundaries of what is proper for a woman and ends up, unfortunately, dead.

Why did Thomas Hardy write Tess of the d'Urbervilles? What was his purpose?

Hardy explores the issues of religious, moral, and women's issues in Tess. He uses the main character's to explore these issues. Tess is central to all these issues-it illustrates the double standard of morality in this society.

What were Thomas Hardy's reasons for writing "Tess of the d'Urbervilles"?

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