Analysis of Tess’s Tragedy
As is known to all, clergymanTess of the D'Urbervilles is the most famous novel of Thomas Hardy. Focusing on the tragic experience of its heroine Tess, the plot of story begins. Tess comes from a farmer’s family, the Durbeyfields. She has lived a poor but peaceful life. However, God, “The President of the Immoral” begins to play a cruel joke on this innocent girl. One day her father, John Durbeyfield learns that they are descended from the D’Urbervilles, an ancient family once renowned in England. Tess’s parents are in an ecstasy of delight over the news. Her mother urges Tess to claim kinship with the remaining D’Urbervilles, so that Tess could marry a gentleman. Unwillingly, the girl comes in contact with the Stoke, D’Urbervilles. There she meets Alec D’Urbervilles, who shows off the estate and always seduces her. Having received a job of tending to chickens, Tess stays in the D’Urbervilles. Her tragic life has just begun. Before long the rich and guileful Alec manages to seduce the girl and make her pregnant. Being humiliated and resolute, Tess returns home. Despite the rumors all around, she gives birth to a child, who is called Sorrow but dies soon because of grave illness. For several weeks, Tess is overwhelmed by grief and sorrow. Nevertheless, w
ithout financial support, Tess has to leave home and goes to work as a dairymaid at a distant farm, where she meets Angel Claire. They have met each other before, and Tess has made a favorable impression on Angel. After Angel persistent pursuit of Tess, the two fall in love and become engaged. Then comes the wedding night, too honest to keep any secret, Tess admits about Alec D’Urbervilles and the child. She begs for forgiveness, but Angel leaves her in disgust. Tess again returns home alone, only find that her family remains impoverished and she even has no place to stay. In the meantime, Alec D’Urbervilles, the evil person appears again. He takes advantage of the Durbeyfields’ poverty and continues to tempt Tess. He promises to support her family, only as a means to make Tess dependent. At the end of hope, the girl jumps into the trap of the shameless man. However, the tragedy has not finished yet. Angel Claire, who is remorseful for his mercilessness, comes back, but to find the cruel reality. And his arrival makes Tess even more desperate. After Angel leaves, she stabs Alec in the heart and kills him. Then she follows Angel and escape with him. They manage to hide for a while in a wood before they come to Stonehenge, where she is arrested. She is hanged later. The turn of events
and the moment of catharsis prove that the novel is a classic Aristotelian tragedy. I believe if I want to analyze this novel, I should pay more attention to the Tess’s tragedy. So I will say more about the elements lead to Tess’s Tragedy.
I) Analysis of the Social Environment
By the end of the 19th century, the Victorians had experienced fundamental changes. Tess of the D’Urbervilles is set in such an age “when the pastoral village life is on its way out and the encroaching feet of modern civilization have moved in. agriculture and dairy farms are being replaced, and the railway lies a solid menace on the fringe of the village—the backbone of rural life.” At that time, capitalism prevailed in the whole England that made broad masses of peasant went bankrupt and then they had to live in poverty and grave situation. In Tess of the D’Urbervilles “there is an apparent nostalgic touch in Hardy’s description of the simple and beautiful though primitive rural life, which was gradually declining and disappearing as England was marching fast into an industrial country.” Tess is just living in such an environment, and from her we can see clearly the hi
nt of that special period. In Hardy’s opinion, Tess’s tragedy is first caused by the epoch. Tess is a poor peasant’s eldest daughter. In one accident, their only poor horse is killed. The death of the horse destroys the family’s livelihood and finishes the family’s hauling business. In order to survival, Tess is forced to claim kinship which begins her tragedy.
In the novel, there are many descriptions of Tess working in the field. She is first working on a dairy farm. At the beginning, the living condition on the farm is quite acceptance. “She appeared to feel that she really had laid a new foundation for her future.” Tess is full of expectations. Then after Angel deserts her, she cannot return to farm again. Tess returns home, where her family remains impoverished and Tess have no place to stay. In order to earn a living on her own, Tess journeys to Flintcomb-Ash. There Tess works as a Swede-hacker; Flintcomb-Ash is really a barren and rough place. Her job is to “grub up the lower or earthy half of the root” because “the upper half of each turnip had been eaten off by the live-stock.”  Sometimes is rains, but they could not stop working, for if they did not work they would not be paid, so they works on. And because “it is so high a situation that the rain has no occasion to fall, but raced along horizontally upon the yelling wind, sti
cking into them like glass splinters, till they were wet through.” Sometimes when there is frosty even their thick leather gloves could not prevent the frozen masses they handled from biting their fingers.
From the above description, we can get a vivid picture of Tess, who is exhausted with manual labor, but still could hardly support he family. The self-supporting peasants were displaced and impoverished. Hardy successfully revealed “the tragic fate of the simple rural folk when confronting the intrusion and influence of the urban civilization that is degenerated… by the bourgeoisies.”
II) The Hypocritical Morality of the Bourgeois Society
“The rapid development of science and technology, new inventions and discoveries in geology, astronomy, biology and anthropology drastically shook people’s religious convictions.” Tess of the D’Urbervilles holds up a mirror for the spirit of the time. When the modern civilization spread the countryside, it took broad masses of peasants into a bitter living condition, nature stops being benevolent and caring, and so does God. “Life b
ecomes cold and indifferent, man’s ethical being dwindles, and humans are as powerless as are so many flies.” Tess of the D’Urbervilles came into conflict with Victorian morality. It explored the dark side of his family connections in Berkshire. In the story the poor village girl Tess Durbeyfield is seduced by the wealthy Alec, she becomes pregnant but the child dies in infancy. Tess finds work as a dairymaid on a farm and falls in love with Angel Clare, a clergyman’s son, who marries her. When Tess tells Angel about her past, he hypocritically deserts her. Tess becomes Alec’s mistress. Angel returns from Brazil, repenting his harshness, but finds her living with Alec. Tess kills Alec in desperation, she is arrested and hanged.
Hardy bravely challenged many of the sexual and religious conventions of the Victorian age. “Tess, the heroine, is depicted as a victim of the society. Being a beautiful, innocent, honest, and hard-working country girl, she is easily taken in and abused by the hypocritical bourgeoisie, constantly suppressed by the social conventions and moral values of the day, and eventually executed by the unfair legal system of the society. The tragedy of Tess’s tragedy is the tragedy of one society, is the tragedy of the economy, poli
tics and morality in bourgeois society. The hypocritical morality of the bourgeois society can be seen everywhere in the novel. Alec is a villain; he doesn’t think woman’s rights should be respected. He is thoroughly sensual, violent and headstrong, and determined on getting his own way at all costs. He treats Tess just as a tool to satisfy his desire for sex. After seducing Tess, he is never thinking of marrying her out of morality reason and be responsible for his conducts.

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