《德伯家的苔丝》中苔丝的悲剧命运分析

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The Tragedy of Tess in Tess of the D’ Urberville

Abstract: Tess of the D’Urbervilles is the famous British novelist and poet Thomas hardy’s masterpiece. It is known as the treasure of English literature and world literature. The novel describes a pure girl’s tragic fate. This thesis tries to probe the inevitable factors and significance of her tragedy from the aspects of social environment, religion, moral, family, nature and so on.

Key Words: tragedy; factor; Tess; Alec; Angel.

Thomas Hardy (1840-1928) is one of the representatives of English critical realism at the time of the 19th century. In his whole life he published fourteen accomplished novel, forty-seven short stories, more than nine hundred poems. In his youth, Hardy had been greatly influenced by some liberal thinkers such as Darwin and John Stuart Mill. In his novels, Hardy incorporated many of these themes in order to portray a real world. Darwin’s challenge led Hardy to lose faith in Christianity, and this lack of faith gave his novels their tragic, bleak element.

Tess of the D’ Urbervilles written by Thomas Hardy in 1891, is a tragic story of a beautiful country girl, Tess Durbeyfield, who is the daughter of a poor villager. She is a pure and loyal young woman. In order to support the poor family, she has to follow her parents’ advice and visit the so-called distant relative—D’Urbervilles. Later, she is seduced by Alec D’Urbervilles, the son of a rich merchant. From then on her destiny changes greatly. At last, Tess manages to elude Alec and gives birth to her baby, but she loses the baby finally. After the death of her baby, she leaves home and goes to work as a dairymaid at a distant farm, where she meets Clare, a pastor’s son. They fall in love and get married. On their wedding night Angel confesses to her the sins of his past, Tess forgives him and tells him her story with Alec, but Angel can’t accept the truth, he deserts her and leaves her to Brazil. After Angel’s leaving, Tess lives a very hard life. She meets Alec again and is pursued by him once more. Without hope for Angel’s back, Tess has no choice but go to Alec again. Unfortunately, Angel comes to find Tess and tell her he still loves her. Now, Tess hates Alec deeply. With deep sad she kills Alec and runs away with Angel. They live a

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happy life in the outdoors, but after a few days they are seized by the policeman. Tess is hanged at last. Tess’s tragedy is caused by many reasons.

Tess’s tragedy is mainly caused by the outside factor—from being raped to being abandoned Tess couldn’t choose by herself. Tess isn’t wrong; it is the fault of her living world! At that time, male dominated female, men were powerful that they made all the decisions and controlled everything, while women were nothing but the private property of their husbands. Male requested female to be loyal and bodily pure. Women must obey to men. When either men or women engage in sexual lapses, the former would be forgiven and the latter would be condemned. For Tess, she just makes a big mistake in her young age, so she can’t be forgiven by the society. In the contrary, Alec and Angel can be accepted by the society just because they are men.

From other aspect that is her poor personal background and the ignorance and vanity of her parents. Tess, as the eldest daughter in the family, has more responsibility to support the family. She has no choice but follow her parents’ advice. From then on, her life is changed completely. Unexpectedly, Alec, the son of the D’ Urbervilles, who is seduce Tess. At last, Tess has to return home in disgrace. Tess is a victim, but her father can’t accept her, he cares about is what other people will think about the collapse of his family’s fame. Her mother is the same, she wants Tess to rise in the world by getting married with a rich man without thinking about the type of man that her daughter will be associated with. After her father dies, her mother loses her rights to their cottage. Tess loves her brothers and sisters and because of the sense of responsibility, she thinks that she must protect them. Under the pressure of helplessness, Tess is forced to go back to Alec to be his mistress. The returning of Angel makes Tess fall into contradiction; finally, in order to stay with her husband, she kills Alec in despair. With Tess’s death the tragedy ends.

Alec D’ Urberville and Angel Clare, the two heroes in the novel both play an important role in Tess’s tragedy life. Alec is the chief criminal for Tess’s tragedy. Alec is the character that the author criticizes straightforward in this novel. He is deeply attracted by Tess’s beauty at his first sight of Tess. He tricks the innocent young girl and rapes her on a Saturday night. Poor Tess loses her virginity and begins her miserable life. It is the coincidence that brings about her tragedy inevitably and that moves Angel to abandon her.

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In a word, Alec brings endless pain to Tess, ruins her life and leaves her in miserable life.

Angle conduct accelerates Tess’s course of tragedy. Angle calls Tess’s names like “a fresh and virginal daughter of nature” ( Hardy, 2004: 115 ) he regards Tess as the incarnation of pureness to adore and pursue, but when he finds Tess has lost her chastity he comes to be crazy and throws away his mask. He could not make himself accept this fact. Comparing with the physical invasion from Alec, Angle’s spiritual torture is much more unbearable to Tess. He brings endless pain to Tess, ruins her life and leaves her in hopeless situation. Tess is heavily stricken by Angel’s abandonment on both her spirit and her morality.

There are more self-abased factors for Tess’s tragedy. As a country girl from a very poor family, Tess has her self-abasement characteristic. After being raped by Alec she sees herself as a sinner and becomes more self-abased. She regards herself no longer pure, so she decides not to marry any people. For her lost virginity, she is scared by others’ rumour, she always works and stays alone and avoids communicating with others. She blames herself endlessly and struggles desperately in her heart at last, she pushes herself into despair. When she meets Angel, she loves him deeply but she dares not be close to him. She is afraid that Angel will disgust her if he knows she loses her chastity. Tess doesn’t tell all her stories to Angel until their wedding night. From then on, Angel is cold to her and deserts her at last, while the poor girl doesn’t revolt but endures all of these quietly. After Angel’s leaving for Brazil, Tess wants to go to Angel’s home to inquire his information. On the road she meets Angel’s two brothers and a lovely girl, Tess hears all their discussions about her and Angel, she is self-abased again.

The tragedy of Tess is indeed related to the economic and social situation at that time, but as an individual, we could not change the objective situation we involve in. Facing the social injustice and the outdated tradition, if we could be brave enough, the victory will certainly belong to us! From Tess’s miserable life we also learn that a woman who is not independent on economy is hard to protect herself. Woman who wants to get happiness in her life must be independent from man first. For woman, to be independent financially is a prerequisite for being equal with man and gaining happiness.

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