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Anchor Academic Publishing
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A textbook on short story
Thomas Hardy's Portrayal of a
Pure Woman in Tess of the D'Urbervilles
Ali Alhaj
Alhaj, Ali: Thomas Hardy's Portrayal of a Pure Woman in Tess of the D'Urbervilles: A
textbook on short story, Hamburg, Anchor Academic Publishing 2015
PDF-eBook-ISBN: 978-3-95489-934-0
Druck/Herstellung: Anchor Academic Publishing, Hamburg, 2015
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1
Thomas Hardy's Portrayal of a Pure Woman in Tess of the D'Urbervilles
Ali Albashir Mohammed AlHaj
1
1
Faculty of Arts & Humanities, Department of English & literature, Jazan University,
Jazan, Kingdom of Arabia Correspondence: Ali Albashir Mohammed AlHaj, Faculty of
Arts & Humanities, Department of English & literature, Jazan University, P. O. Box
114, Jazan, Kingdom of Arabia. Email: dr_abomathani@yahoo.
Abstract
The current study aims at exploring the depiction of a pure woman in Thomas Hardy's
Tess of the D'Urbervilles. It also provides a brief commentary on Hardy's quality of
writing, contributions and reputation and some related matters.
In this novel, Thomas Hardy depicts Angel's obsession with purity may taken as a
uniquely important determinant of Tess's fate. It is not going too far to say that
without it there would have been no tragedy, especially of a 'pure' woman.
The conflict of Angel's image of woman with real woman Tess becomes the turning
point in the novel. The characterization of Angel is sufficiently plausible, in spite of a
certain flatness, to make his attitude seem natural both to him and to the mental
landscape of the novel/
1. Introduction
Tess of the D'Urbervilles is one of Thomas Hardy's best novels- perhaps it is his very
best. The beautiful simplicity of his style when, as usual, he forgets he is writing, the
permeating healthy sweetness of his description, the idyllic charm and yet the reality
of his figures, his apple-sweet women, his old men, rich character as old oaks, his
love-making, his fields, his sympathetic atmosphere- all these, and any other of
Hardy's best qualities we can think of, are to be found widest commonly spread in
Tess.
Tess of the D'Urbervilles is not only the richest novel that Hardy ever wrote, it is also
the culmination of a long series of Victorian texts, which identify, enact, and condemn
2
the alienated condition of modernity. The undermining of a reader's expectations is
already common in the Victorian novel form. Yet Hardy goes further with irony and
surprise than even his favorite novelist, the equally subversive William Makepeace
Thackeray. Doubleness, multiplicity, and irony are key aspects of a strain of Victorian
aesthetics and artistic practice working at the limits of conservative doxa from the
1830s until the end of the century. It is through this intellectual formation that Hardy's
work can best be understood.Hull,2005.p.159)
In Tess of the D'Urbervilles, it is not the image of girl that is split into two characters,
although the tendency, although the tendency is represented in Angel has prolonged
inability to reconcile his image of the innocent milkmaid with the reality of a sexually
experienced girl. His remark to Tess that' You were one person; now you are
another'(Tess of the D'Urbervilles, p.292) might be interpreted as an attempt to deny
or defend against the possibility that he might love her in spite of her experience. The
double standard that he employs in judging Tess and not himself is both a curious and
characteristic example of the kind of doubling one finds in the attitude toward girls in
a great deal of fiction. The sleepwalking scene at Wellbridge, for example, when
Angel attempts to bury Tess, might be interpreted as an extension of the doubling, an
attempt to deny the sexual nature of woman. It is rather the attitude towards woman in
Tess of the D'Urbervilles that is split into two characters. Alec and Angel, one taking
an attitude that woman is primarily a sexual object, the other an attitude that denies
her sexual nature through idealization. The approximate representation of these two
attitudes may be seen in an apparent doubling of male characters similar to the one of
female characters, at least to the extent that the heroes or other principal male
characters are frequently to be found in rivalry with a rake or other figure who has had
a wider and often socially unacceptable sexual relationship with a woman or whose
relationship with women seems primarily sexual .
Tess is the most satisfying of all Hardy's heroines. She is by no means so empty-
headed as they are wont to be, but, like her sisters, she is a fine Pagan, full of
humanity and imagination, and, like them, though in a less degree, flawed with that
lack of will, that fatal indecision at great moments.
All of Hardy's fiction reflects his deep pessimism. In his novels, man never seems to
be free; the weight of time and place presses heavily on him, and, above everything,
3
there are mysterious forces, which control his life. Man is a puppet whose strings are
worked by fate, which is either hostile or indifferent to him. (Kettle 1990, p.209).
In the world Hardy describes, man cannot fight against a malign fate, which corrupts
any possibility of happiness and leads him toward tragedy. Tess , for example, whom
Hardy describes as a '' pure woman' in the full title of the novel, is subjected to
endless indignities , assaults and defeats before finally surrendering to her destiny and
dying for her' sin'.
2. Thomas Hardy's Contribution, Reputation and Quality of Writing
2.1 Thomas Hardy's Life: Family background
Thomas Hardy in the south-west England, the son of a mason. His mother encouraged
his early interest in reading and although he was self-taught, he had a good grounding
in the classics. At the age of sixteen he became an apprentice to a local architect and
in 1862 he moved to London, where he worked as an architect's assistant.
In 1867 he started work his first novel, which was rejected by the publishers, despite
this initial disappointment, he continued writing and in 1871 his first published novel,
Desperate Remedies, appeared. This was followed by Under the Greenwood Tree
(1872) and A Pair of Blue Eyes (1874), which were moderately successful. The
publication in 1874 of Far from the Madding Crowd launched his literary career. The
success of this novel allowed him to give up his job in architecture and dedicate
himself to writing.
Having finally reached financial stability, Hardy married and started a long fruitful
period (1875-1895) of intense writing. He travelled on the Continent and spent three
months of the year in London. Most o his time was spent in the countryside o his
native Dorset which he used as the setting for most of his novels and called 'Wesex'
after the Anglo- Saxon kingdom of Alfred the great.
He dedicated himself to writing short stories, but then returned to writing novels and
produced two works of great stature. Tess of the D'Urbervilles (1891) and Jude the
Obscure(1895). Literary critics of the day attack these works, accusing Hard of
pessimism and immorality. This hostile reaction convinced Hardy to give up fiction
and to go back to poetry, which he had written since his youth.
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