The Concept of Purity in Tess d’Urbervilles by Thomas Hardy –Is Tess a

pure woman?
Contents
The Concept of Purity in Tess d’Urbervilles by Thomas Hardy –Is Tess a pure woman? ............................ 1

Introduction ........................................................................................................................................ 3

Chapter I (theoretical) ......................................................................................................................... 6

Tess of the D’Urbervilles: publication and sources of inspiration ...................................................... 6

The fallen woman in the nineteenth century.................................................................................. 12

Views on women’s condition ......................................................................................................... 15

Tess of the D’Urbervilles – A Victorian tragedy ................................................................................... 19

The Individual between genetic inheritance and environment ....................................................... 20

Hardy and Naturalism .................................................................................................................... 21

The ideal of purity in the Victorian Society ..................................................................................... 29

Eve between Adam and the Serpent .................................................................................................. 34

Conclusion ......................................................................................................................................... 53

Bibliography .......................................................................................................................................... 54
Introduction
The aim of this paper is to analyze the concept of purity in Tess of the D’Urbervilles. I
have chosen this topic for my BA thesis because I wanted to approach a topic related to
psychology and history. Why I found this novel engaging is because of the contrast between
appearance and essence and because of the psychological depth. Thomas Hardy lived at the
interface of centuries, his lifetime covering the period between 1840 and 1928. His novels
illustrate how human being strives for accomplishment in a disintegrated world in continuous
change. His literature reflects the religious, psychological and social oppositions resulting from
the divergence between what was conventionally acceptable and his personal conscience. The
novel follows the course of life of Tess, a tragic character, who wears on her shoulders the
burdens of her mistakes as well as the others’. The manner in which Hardy’s novels were seen
throughout the ages is complex and diverse, however, one of the most important vantage points
was his representation of women. The British author uses his novels as a medium to express the
struggle of women for civil and moral rights. He attacks the hypocrisy of the Victorian society,
which viewed men and women differently for performing the same act. My motivation to
research this topic rises from the fact that Thomas Hardy’s literature is socially oriented, being
inspired from the contemporary real world and exposing social problems with the aim of making
the reader aware of the need for change. My paper is structured into three parts.
In the first chapter I will present some events from real world that the author transposed
in fiction, for example the hanging of Martha Brown, the dramatic death of the horse and the
blood stain from the ceiling. Tess of the d’Urbervilles takes its title from the protagonist, who
was seen as a fallen woman. Thomas Hardy encountered many difficulties in the way of
publishing this novel and he edited some parts from it. My analysis revolves around the author’s
determination to defend the central figure of his narrative in front of his many critics, even from
the subtitle  Tess of the d’Urbervilles: A Pure Woman Faithfully Presented. When the book
came up, it stirred up a storm of reactions. Critics questioned Tess’s virtuous consciousness and
the choices she made. They considered the episode from Chase forest intriguing, criticizing the
protagonist’s decision to go in the middle of the night with a man she despised for his sexual
advances. I decided that before analyzing the concept of purity reflected in Thomas Hardy’s
masterpiece, Tess of the d’Urbervilles, I shall look at the historical context and explore different
views over the issue of women’s status in relation with society and men. The term “fallen” was
often associated to women who violated the principles of chastity, notwithstanding there was no
such thing as a fallen man. It was accepted the deviation from this principle of chastity only in
the case of men, women being reviled, Angel being the personification of the nineteenth century
double standard. I will illustrate the Victorian exaggerations and their ideals of women as “the
angel in the house”, subservient and chaste.
In the second chapter I will analyze Tess’s behaviour from a psychological perspective,
taking into consideration not only her actions alone, but also examining the depth of her psyche.
I will consult several theories of renewed psychologists, in particular Sigmund Freud’s, with the
aim of proving that she is not solely responsible for her fate, because her family had a negative
influence upon her. She received a defective education from irresponsible parents who fed
themselves with illusions, and moreover who relied on her help. Tess inherited from them an
acute sense of insecurity, finding shelter from the unforgiving reality in a dream like state. The
study will cover Tess’s evolution from the age of sixteen when she left her parent’s home, until
her persecution, few years later. It will be centred on the Freud’s theory of infantile perception of
a traumatic event which triggers an unconscious guilt obsession, the most representative episode
in this sense being the death of Prince from the beginning of the novel, which haunted Tess’s
childhood and forced her to take the responsibility on her shoulders.
In the third chapter I will change the direction of the research from the influence of her
family to Alec and Angel, who had an exceedingly contribution in shaping her course of life. I
associated Tess with Eve from the Eden Garden, illustrating her struggle of being caught
between these two opposed men, the seducer and the idealist. Alec and Angel are embodiments
of the id and superego, concepts developed by Sigmund Freud. Thomas Hardy did not idealize
his characters, instead aimed to render a realistic characterization of them, exposing not only
their virtues, but also their flaws and weaknesses. He did not create stereotypes, instead he
depicted human nature in highly realistic manner. Therefore, Alec should not be regarded as the
negative personage who destroyed Tess’s life, because at the end of the novel it is evident that
Angel had a more destructive effect over her. He wanted Tess to be his and together dreamed of
blissfulness, to later deceive her, living his wife in a deplorable condition. I connected the guilt
obsession discussed in the previous chapter with the predisposition for criminal impulses, which
is, as Fred demonstrated, an effect of the suppressed feelings and traumas Tess confronted with
all her life.
Chapter I (theoretical)

Tess of the D’Urbervilles: publication and sources of inspiration Commented [A1]: La cursul optional pe care il fac semestrul
acesta, dna. prof. Macari mi-a sugerat ca acest subtitlu este
Hardy is deliberately revising the Victorian urban legend that the fallen woman ambiguu.
Mi-a sugerat “Publication of Tess of the D’Urberville and sources of
is permanently stained. (Morgan 102) The Victorian author rendered in his art the essence of inspiration of Thomas Hardy”

human nature and diplayed in a very realistic manner genuine experiences of human beings, M-am gandit la:“Tess of the D’Urberville: publication and sources of
inspiration”. Ar fi potrivit?
exploring the depths of their counsciousness, from which flow pure blissfulness and intense
suffering. His works bring to light timeless issues of religious beliefs and dissent, of love and
indiferrence. In his commentaries about Tess of the d’Urbeervilles, Peter Widowson mentiones
Hardy’s words about his craft: ‘My art is to intensify the expression of things…so that the heart
and inner meaning is made vividly visible.” (qtd. in Bloom 80)
Tess of the d’Urbervilles is Thomas Hardy’s penultimate novel, and the most outstanding
of all. He began working on this book on the autumn of 1888, and published it three years later.
Thomas Hardy’s principles were somewhere between the feminist ideas about sexuality and
patriarchal norms. He was very emotionally involved with this novel and determined to “say his
say without literary or social compromise.” (Millgate 276) Thomas Hardy illustrates how
heredity, personal experience and the pressures of traditional cultural values shape the course of
life of his tragic character, Tess.
Thomas Hardy presents a “fallen woman” as a central character and concentrates the
conflict on this single figure, following her path from juvenility to womanhood. The novel is
structured in seven phases, different from the classical units of division, such as parts and
sections. Rosemarie Morgan explains that each phase refers to a stage in Tess’s evolution- ‘The
Maiden’, ‘Maiden No More’, ‘The Rally’, ‘The Consequence’, ‘The Woman Pays’, ‘The
Convert’ and ‘Fulfilment’. She also identifies the symbolism of the phases’ number, saying that
seven is
[t]he redolent of universal meanings: it is given as the Age of Reason, the Seven Ages of
Man (Shakespeare), and the Seven Pillars of Wisdom. And, of course, the seventh day is
the Christian Sabbath—the sacred day of fulfillment in the Genesis story of Creation; the
day of rest from labor and of thanksgiving. (Morgan 89)
 Tess of the d’Urbervilles tells the story of a young and beautiful country girl who lives in
a marvellous rural landscape. Her family is poor and does not provide her a proper education.
After her father is told that he has noble blood running through his veins their lives change
radically: not in the sense that they receive any fortune which could improve their miserable
living, as their ancestors died long time ago, but because this marks the beginning of Tess’
suffering. On her mother’s insistences, at the age of sixteen Tess leaves home to work for a
family with the name of d’Urbervilles. Her mother threw her in the arms of their supposed
relatives, which lived not far from them, hoping her daughter to be remarked and to find a
wealthy aristocrat to marry. Instead, Tess is seduced by her assumed cousin, Alec, who was
nothing more than an irresponsible rich man, an upstart and not a real aristocrat. She returns
home as an unmarried mother of a child, Sorrow, who dies soon after birth. Her life continues in
this obscure tone, the past having repercussions over the present. Pushed by necessity, she lives
home again to earn her living, this time working as a dairymaid at a farm. Here nobody knows
her, except a man, named Angel, whom she has met at the May dance few years ago. He brings
happiness in her life and they live a beautiful love story. She is finally content to find the man
she loves and decides to unite with him in marriage. Unfortunately, this blissfulness fades away
soon, because, when Tess confesses her traumas from youth, Angel cannot forgive and accept
her completely, deciding to abandon her. Left alone in the storm of life, struggling to make her a
living in a society that marginalized her because of her past, Tess surrenders to Alec, who all this
time tried to persuade her in many ways to return to him. Surprisingly, Angel changes his mind
and returns to his wife. Under the pressure of such shocking events, she kills Alec and runs away
with her husband. The end of the novel presents her tragic demise: she receives her punishment,
being hanged for the man who caused her ruin from the very beginning.
In Thomas Hardy: His Career as a Novelist, Michael Millgates asserts that Hardy’s novel
Tess of the d’Urbervilles is a collection of many episodes which occured in his life, all together
inspiring him to write such a tragic masterpiece. Thomas Hardy witnessed a scene with a man
singing of happiness after discovering his previous relatives were of high social rank. This is
reflected in the first chapter of the novel, in the scene where Parson Tringham tells Mr. John
Durbeyfield that he is the descent of a glorious knight, named Sir Pagan d’Urberville. The news
brings great joy to the poor countryman who soon after celebrates and begins to dream with his
eyes open at a brilliant future. The death of a horse caused by a vehicle oncoming and the blood
stain from the ceilling were incidents recorded in newspapers. (Millgate 265) The author
transposes these scenes in the novel firstly in the part where Durbeyfield family’s horse, Prince,
was killed by a morning mail cart because of Tess’s lack of attention and respectively in the part
where Tess kills Alec.
Nevertheless, the episode which had the strongest impact upon Thomas Hardy’s mind
was the public hanging of Martha Brown. Michael Millgate accounts in his book, Thomas
Hardy: A Biography, that the British author remembers in detail "what a fine figure she showed
against the sky as she hung in the misty rain, and how the tight black silk gown set off her shape
as she wheeled half round and back". Hardy also said that he “saw--they had put a cloth over the
face--how, as the cloth got wet, her features came through it. That was extraordinary.” (qtd. in
Clark ) So impactful was this event, that it haunted him all his life. His literature mirrored this
trauma from the past and it is obvious that this unknown woman, Martha Brown, was the source
of inspiration for the character of Tess. Richard Clark recounted that Hardy was only sixteen
years old when, accompanied by a friend, climbed a tree to have a better view of the execution
scene. Martha Brown was a lower class woman, married to John Brown, twenty years older that
her. He did not truly love his wife and the two had an unhappy conjugal life. The drop of water
that has made the vase overflow was the discovery of her husband’s affair. She was furious and
later that day, when he came home drunk, they argued and he became violent. Not being able to
control her impulsses, she hit him to death with an axe. She later declared that her husband’s
injury was caused by a horse, but her version did not convince the jury, who accused her of
murder. Some people understood her anguish and the reasons for her actions, they intended to
help her, but she was not granted a reprieve. Martha was enprisoned and eventually confessed
the truth, bravely accepting the verdict. He was hunged in front of three, four thousands people,
by a renowed hangman in England, know for his sadist techniques which assured a slow death.
(Clark)
The prudish society of the nineteenth century viewed with reluctant eyes Thomas Hardy’s
intention to expose a multiplicity of contemporary issues regarding sexual relations and
marriage. Censorship was very common in the nineteenth century, considering the “’purity
movement’ which became more and more vocal at various levels of society: in associations,
organisations and circulating libraries, but also among editors of literary reviews publishing
novels in serial form”, the main aim being to protect the exposed women and children from
immorality. (Goater) Michael Millgate accounts how the British author had to mould his piece of
work according to the demands of the publishing houses. The publication of Tess was therefore a
difficult process, the book having to be revised.
[H]e had been obliged to make radical cuts and revisions to his manuscript. He was
forced to remove the (sacrilegious) baptism scene, which was published separately in The
Fortnightly Review as “The Midnight Baptism” (May 1891), as well as the Chase
episode, which was adapted as “Saturday Night in Arcady” and published in the National
Observer (November 1891) (Morgan 88)
In A Biography Revised Michael Millgate accounts how the British author had to mould
his piece of work according to the demands of the publishing houses. Few months after starting
to work on the Tess manuscript, Hardy had already written almost half of the whole, until the
part with Tess’s arrival at Talbothayas. He sent it to the Tillotson & Son and they printed it,
without asking Hardy to give more details about his intentions. They later seemed to be not
contempt with “the narrative content and the moral emphasis” and decided to withdraw from the
initial agreement. Hardy tried again, this time at the Murray’s Magazine. The editor Edward
Arnold, although did not agree with the author desire to expose of the badness and sinfulness of
this world, accepted to publish the manuscript. After consulting his superior, they decided that
the story is not suitable to be published in their magazine. The same thing happened with the
Macmillan’s Magazine, their rejection having the same justification: Tess’s story was morally
inappropriate. Hardy revised the novel, deleting and changing some offensive scenes, and sent it
to the Graphic, which accepted to publish it in series, weekly. The process of publishing Tess
and some other works was humiliating for the British author, considering his age and his status.
Hardy was saddened by the reactions of the critics and of the public. The first part of the
manuscript was finally published in October 1890, one month later than it should have been.
Many parts of it were adjusted, like the parts referring to Tess’s baby, his birth and death. Some
were even removed, like the scene in which Alec seduces and rapes Tess, which was ulterior
replaced by a marriage. He tried once again to send his writing, this time to a newly- established
firm of publishing, named McIlvaine & Co., part of the larger New York house of Harper &
Brothers and the serialization of Tess was scheduled in the near future. It began in the winter of
1890 and it brought a considerable joy for the author, although he was no fully content with its
layout, he considered that it was typed very small, and also it was not divided clearly for each
week. In the summer of 1891 he was preparing Tess for its delayed publication in volume form.
He restored the sections which were previously bowdlerized and the changes the writing suffered
though the process of serialization. Some scenes, like the dance at Chaseborough, were
reintroduced in the book many years later, in 1912. In October, 1891, he proposed Osgood,
McIlvaine a title page for the book, which emphasized the subtitle which asserted upon Tess’s
purity. (Millgate 276-93)
In the biography written by Michael Millgate, the issue of the title is also discussed. The
author considered many titles for this novel. When he began writing it, he had in mind the name
Sue for his protagonist. The initial title of the book was The body and soul of Sue and reflected
the emphasis the author intended to put upon the duality of the human being. Hardy was
determined to defend his protagonist, because he knew that in her simplicity she distinguishes
between flesh and soul. She had something special which detached her from the others, a sparkle
kept hidden inside of her, unseen by many who tend to judge her on the surface: moral strength,
conscience, spirituality. She may not have a pure body, but what is most important is that she
demonstrates throughout the novel that her soul is pure. Not long after, the author replaced the
title with Too late, Beloved! which was excessively melodramatic. Hardy then took in
consideration A Daughter of the d’Urbervilles, this phrasing including the allusion to the issue of
heredity. Tess’s dignity was highlighted, as she had royal ancestors. (Millgate 272)
“In Tess of the D’Urbervilles it is the narrator who claims that Tess is a ‘pure’ woman…
Hardy’s narrator claims purity for Tess on the grounds of good intentions.” (Patricia 157) The
author placed his moral evaluation of his disputable protagonist in the very beginning of his
book. “The ‘pure woman’ formulation only serves to make explicit what is everywhere implicit.”
(Milligate 268) This subtitle encapsulates all the Hardyan beliefs and attitudes towards sexuality
and social acceptance. The author supports his Eve who has fallen by defying the conventional
notions and perceptions of purity and unjust moral standards. In the preface of the novel,
Thomas Hardy explains that the controversial subtitle-A Pure Woman Faithfully Presented- “it
was appended at the last moment, after reading the final proofs, as being the estimate left in a
candid mind of the heroine’s character- an estimate that nobody would be likely to dispute. It
was disputed more than anything else in the book.” He also says that “the novel was intended to
be neither didactic nor aggressive … charged with impressions than with convictions.” (Hardy,
Tess of the d'Urbervilles (with the author's prefaces))
 Considering his family background, Hardy was familiarized with questions related to
passions and impulses. His mother, named Jemima, was pregnant when she married his father,
this was not the only case in his family. His great-grandmother and both his grandmothers gave
birth before exchanging the wedding vows. They “flouted the rules of sexual behaviour as laid
down by the Church and gentry.” (Tomalin 17) Resembling them, many of Thomas Hardy’s
female characters had the same fate and he shows sympathy to his struggling fictional characters
rather than condemnation. He empathizes with them, but does not intervene, letting them be
judged by the laws of the society. As Rosemarie Morgan remarked, Thomas Hardy was
“painfully sensitive to negative criticism”. (Morgan 86) The author confessed to his friend
Edmund Gosse “[a]s to despondency, I have known the very depths of it you would be quite
shocked if I were to tell you how many weeks & months in bygone years I have gone to bed
wishing never to see daylight again.” (qtd. in Morgan 86)
Critics focused on the attachment of the author to his victimized protagonist and his
tendency to protect her. Mowbray Morris, a contemporary critic of Hardy, expresses in an article
for the Quarterly Review, his indignation towards Tess’s purity. He claims that the novel does
not stand on a solid basis, because Tess’s behaviour is unfitting for a pure woman: “she rises
through seduction to adultery, murder, and the gallows.” (qtd. in Cox 232) Mrs. Oliphant gave
another critical response in a review for Blackwood’s Magazine, attacking the disparity between
the expectations created by the subtitle and Tess’s behaviour. The story alone provokes pity, but
the subtitle intrigues her. She questions Tess’s intentions in the scene where she chooses to go in
the middle of the night with Alec, whom she despised for his insistences, instead of remaining
with her companions, who were drunk, but who could have offered her protection. However,
leaving behind her annoying companions gave her a sentiment of superiority. The fact that the
author added the detail that she would not have done that in other circumstances does not change
the situation, because Tess left herself be dominated by impulses and chose to go with Alec. (qtd.
in Cox 222) In the preface from 1892, Hardy declares his indignation towards the critics who
showed no mercy and understanding for Tess’s decisions. They judged her actions alone, which
are indeed unconventional, but they did not take in consideration her intentions and what
determined her to react like that. Hardy claims that they “drag in, as a vital point, the acts of a
woman in her last days of desperation, when all her doings lie outside her normal character.”
(qtd. in Pinion 132) She was at the brink of despair, she was striving to survive the long winter at
Flintcomb-Ash being haunted by the solitude her husband left behind him when he abandoned
her without saying many words. He left his vulnerable wife in the grips of the man who triggered
her suffering when she was just a child.
Thomas Hardy illustrates in his novel how human consciousness is in conflict with itself
and with others. Michael Millgate also insists on the wave of opinions the British author’s novel
received soon after publication by quoting various remarks. Thus, Frederic Harrison regarded the
book as “a positivist allegory or sermon” and Charles Kegan Paul considered it “a really great
novel”, although he finds the episode with the burial of the baby is exceedingly problematic. The
Speaker, Pall Mall Gazette and The Chronicle proclaimed Tess the most outstanding novel from
lately British literature and agreed with the author’s emphatic attitude towards his protagonist.
(qtd. in Millgate 293) Although the book received many appreciations from publications such as
St James’s Gazette, the Athenaeum and The Times, the critiques and objections to the novel were
sure to follow. Thomas Hardy was affected to find out that George Saintsbury wrote for the
Saturday Reviw that “Tess’s sexual attractions were too much insisted upon.” Andrew Lang
expressed his disagreement on the scene from the ending with the “President of Immortals’”. He
wondered ironically “If there be a God’, who can seriously think of Him as a malicious Fiend?”
(qtd. in Millgate 294) All the comments about a book in which he invested so much feelings and
in which he saw a chance for change left a mark on him. As Michael Millgate revealed, the
author was hurt and disappointed. Hardy had no desire to continue his mission as a novelist,
wondering “how strange, that one may write a book without knowing what one puts into it-or
rather, the reader reads into it! Well, if this sort of thing continues no more novel-writing for me.
A man must be a fool to deliberately stand up to be shot at.” (qtd. in Millgate 295)

The fallen woman in the nineteenth century

Queen Victoria’s reign, the longest in the history of Britain, covered the years between
1832 and 1901. Under her ruling, Britain became one of the most influential countries in the
world, and because of the territorial conquests, it was called the empire in which the sun never
set. The Victorian Era was characterized by paradox and contradiction, because although it was a
time of prosperity and many progresses in science, there was also injustice and social unrest,
existing disparity between the poor and the rich. In other words, only the upper layers of
inhabitants who controlled the manufacturing resources were living their existence in abundance
and prosperity. The lower classes, at the other end of the spectrum, were less privileged, being in
a continuous state of concern about their material stability.
In his book entitled English Social History, George Macaulay Trevelyan illustrates the
condition of Britain in the nineteenth century saying that there was “...constant and rapid change
in economic circumstance, social custom and intellectual atmosphere…… …the whole period
was marked by interest in religious questions and was deeply influenced by seriousness of
thought and self-discipline of character, an outcome of the Puritan ethos.” (Trevelyan 522) It
must be emphasized that the Victorian age was a time of antithesis, when the depraved practice
of prostitution clashed with the high ethical aspirations.
George Trevelyan also explains that prostitution flourished because the first decades of
the nineteenth century were overshadowed by poverty and deplorable conditions of living. The
Industrial Revolution and the Reform Bills implied radical changes: the social structure changed
and new classes emerged. This climate fostered women to enter the workforce, which regrettably
brought the degradation of their moral character. Women lived in horrible conditions in the
overcrowded industrial centres and they were exploited by the men in superior positions.
Mistreated and underpaid, women were put in a very weak position, the only solution for their
survival being prostitution. In contrast with this disgraceful reality, The Evangelical movement,
which exerted a considerable influence on the principles of the Victorian society, promoted strict
moral standards and discipline. The end of the nineteenth century “had been a period … of
puritanism in ethical and sexual ideas, qualified by the too frequent weakness of human nature in
practice.” (G.M. 576) The Evangelicals rejected the libertine morality and considered the loss of
chastity to be the worst of all sins. Their set of values provoked a general repulsion and apathy at
unchaste women. They gave a great importance to woman’s purity and respectability, her role in
the frame of family, as a mother and as a wife, expecting from her to be self-less and devoted.
Therefore, the Victorian age can be defined by a strict social code and strong sense of morality.
The Victorians set really high-standards, honouring the purity of body and soul, but they might
be regarded as hypocrites in sexual matters, because they had a pretence respectable society,
which in fact was depraved by prostitution.
For many centuries, the conception that a women’s sex life is allowed only within
marriage predominated. But why was such high value put upon a woman’s immaculateness?
Unfairly, only women were expected to follow this principle of chastity, whereas men were
exonerated from all responsibilities and consequences of an affair. John Ruskin, a famous British
critic, in his famous essay, “Of Queen’s Garden”, part of the volume Sesame and Lilies,
illustrates the angelic presence of women in the family. She had a capacity for “sweet ordering”
and she was considered a refuge for man who was the explorer of the turbulent public life.
Woman was therefore sanctified, being seen as “the angel in the house.” (Ruskin 91) The
violation of the principles of chastity brought terrible consequences for a woman, regardless the
circumstances, she was labelled as morally depraved, she was seen with different eyes,
abandoned by the man she loved and even by her family and friends. After the scene from the
Chase forest, Tess returned home. She left Tantridge, a place where she never integrated, in the
hope that she would continue her life in the natal village of Marlott. Aware that she would be
judged by the community, to her surprise, she discovers that even her father questions her
morality and intentions. She captures a discussion of her parents, in which her father asks for his
wife’s opinion towards their daughter’s credibility.
‘D’ye think he really have married her?—or is it like the first—‘
Poor Tess, who had heard as far as this, could not bear to hear more. The perception that
her word could be doubted even here, in her own parental house, set her mind against the
spot as nothing else could have done. How unexpected were the attacks of destiny! And if
her father doubted her a little, would not neighbours and acquaintance doubt her much?
(Hardy 377)
All persons who had connection with a fallen woman and intended to help her were
endangering their reputation. That is why Tess’s parents were not content with their daughter’s
decision to return in Marlott, thinking that this would affect the society’s perception of them. The
Durbeyfields expressed many times publically their noble origins and their plans to marry their
beautiful daughter with their aristocrat relative. However, when she returned home pregnant and
without a husband they had to face the shame, fearing that it would be even more difficult to earn
a living after this event. In addition to the change of attitude towards a fallen woman, there is a
relevant scene in the novel where it is illustrated the mistreated of Tess and her mourning family.
After the death of John, who was a lifeholder, the Durbeyfields, who “had not been shining
examples either of temperance, soberness, or chastity”, were evacuated from their home, mostly
because of “moral reasons”. (Hardy 517)
 In other words, the life of a fallen woman was compromised and once ruined she could
never go back. It is indisputable that the loss of chastity was considered blameworthy, but upon
whom shall the blame fall? The inclination of the traditionalist Victorian society was to put the
blame for sexual deviance on the woman’s shoulders, the man being seen as simply misguided.
“There was a tacit but universal acceptance of men’s fairly ungovernable sexual appetites, which
were natural enough. Female sexuality, however, was deviant.” (Patricia 23)

Views on women’s condition

Since Antiquity woman was not perceived as being equal to man. The justification of
women’s subordination lies primarily in religion. Women have been associated with Eve’s
transgression in the Garden of Eden. She was deceived by the Devil, embodied in the serpent, to
eat the apple from the forbidden tree, leading also Adam to sin. Her fall triggered humankind’s
suffering. Since then, it was expected from women to endure and to pay for the mistake of their
predecessor, through childbirth and submissiveness. John Stuart Mill brings into relief woman’s
statue in relation to man, saying that “(Women) are brought up from their earliest years in the
bilief that the ideal of character is the very opposite to that of men; not self-will and self-
government by self-control, but submission, and yielding to the control of others.” (Shea and
Whitla 283)
In her book entitled The Second Sex (1949), the French philosopher Simone de Beauvoir
expresses her opinion towards the subject of female ‘marginality’ or ‘peripheric condition’,
claiming that “women have been always pushed to the margin of the system, being taught that
this position is legitimate in their case, as they represent ‘the second sex’”. (qtd. in Cutitaru 46)
This presumption of subordination prevailed for many centuries in human history and in the era
of Enlightenment, it was supported by emblematic figures like Jean-Jacques Rousseau who
claimed that “nature herself decreed that woman, both for her and for her children, should be at
the mercy of men’s judgment.” (392)
From a more scientific approach, women’s condition was also associated to their
psychology. They were portrayed as being delightful and sensitive, but also susceptible to their
emotions, often inclined to be hysterical, as Jane Austen illustrates in her novel Pride and
Prejudice (1813):
[Mr. Benet], captivated by youth and beauty, and that appearance of good humor which
youth and beauty generally give, had married a woman whose weak understanding and
 illiberal mind had very early in their marriage put an end to all real affection for her.
(250)
The second half of the nineteenth century was a period of great changes in many aspects
of life: social, moral and political. Little steps were made from tradition to modernism without a
distinct line of demarcation. Queen Victoria’s reign was at its sunset. In the late eighteenth and
the early nineteenth century in the minds of women arose a spirit of revolt against the inequitable
treatment. After a long period of resignation, women become increasingly aware of the injustice
of the laws and the issue of women’s rights. Their status in society has received considerable
critical attention.
In 1798, a politically turbulent period at the close of the eighteenth century, the novel
“Maria: or, The Wrongs of Woman” was posthumously published. It was written by Mary
Wollstonecraft, an English writer and advocate of women’s rights, whose radical books illustrate
the condition of contemporary women, who were frequently wronged and subjugated. The novel
tells the story of a woman named Maria imprisoned by her husband in an asylum for insane
people. Her book undoubtedly has some autobiographical traits. There are links between Mary’s
own family relations and the depiction of Maria’s family. Like Maria, Mary had an unhappy
family life: her father was violent and spendthrift, her brother was favourized and being a male,
he inherited everything, according to the primogeniture practice. Not content with this way of
living she considered that “it is time to effect a revolution in female manners-time to restore to
them their lost dignity. It is time to separate unchangeable morals from local manners.”
(Wollstonecraft 51) Writing about female education, she points out that women were perceived
as frivolous, this being used as an argument against their participation in serious male-dominated
pursuits. She argues that women are indeed foolish, but they are not born this way, but instead
they are made this way. The eighteen century polite society encouraged certain patterns of
behaviour, women were intelectually subordinated and discouraged from exercising reason.
(Clemit 147)
Another theme presented in Wollstonecraft’s novel is women seen as property. Her views
on marriage were radical, maybe due to her own experiences or her husband’s influence. She had
a child with Gilbert Imlay, an American, although not married. After the birth of their daughter
he left her. This hearbreacking event left her in depression and she attempted suicide twice. A
couple of years later Mary Wollstonecraft met William Godwin. They fell in love, married and
soon after she gave birth to a girl, named Maria, the future author of Frankenstein. (Hampsher-
Monk 104-5) In a world ruled exclusively by men, women were totaly relying on their husbands,
not having the opportunity to express their will. With this in mind no wonder that Wollstonecraft
wanted to escape and to be financially independent. Bravely she decided to leave family, and
tried to make it on her own persuing all the occupations open to middle-class women, which
were few: a lady’s companion, a schoolmistress, a governess and a writer. (Rendal 71)
Wollstonecraft attacked the sexual double standards of the period and the idea of the
ruined woman. She is intrigued by the fact that only women suffer, they are left with the burden
of the child and of the shame, being driven to desperate measures. Hardy seems to share the
same ideas expressed by Wollstonecraft and he reflects them in the novel. His opposition
towards the 19th century double standard is illustrated in the scene of the confession, where he
accentuates the different reactions towards the same issues, from man’s and also from a woman’s
view. He objects to the patriarchal judgment that focuses exclusively on women’s purity, and
ignores the behaviour of men, wanting to modify social expectations regarding sexual relations
and marriage. Knowing this double standard, Tess foresees her future troubles. Thus, as the day
of the wedding was fast approaching, the suffering Tess, haunted by a strong sense of guilt, finds
the bravery to confesses to her husband her past. At first, she writes him a confessional letter and
slips it under his door. Unfortunately, her effort is in vain, because he never sees it. She cannot
bear the burden anymore and in the morning of the wedding wants to tell him the truth about her
condition. He does not seem to be very curious about Tess’s concerning attitude. He idealized
her from the beginning and not a single thought that she might not be pure had ever crossed his
mind. He postpones the discussion thinking that after marrying they will have a lifetime to discus
all that is to be discussed. Tess submits herself to Angel’s wish and they do not talk about this
issue, up until the wedding night. The revelation of the events from her past, her relation with
Alec and their illegitimate child, are an overwhelming shock for Angel. He cannot accept her
anymore as she truly is, although in his youth, he also had an affair with an elder woman. As he
was blinded by a strong feeling of disappointment, he abandoned her.
In The Cambridge Companion to British Literature of the French Revolution in the
1790’s Gina Luria Walker discusses Catharine Macaulay’s Letters on Education (1790), in
which she talks about girls’ education and responsibility for their integrity. Also she expresses
her disagreement with the prejudiced views of women and the discriminatory treatment they
received at the violation of the exceedingly valued principles of chastity. Macaulay informs girls
of the
... great utility of chastity and continence; that the one preserves the body in health and
vigor, and the other, the purity and the independence of the mind, without which it is
impossible to posses virtue or happiness. I shall intimate, that the great difference now
beheld in the external consequences which follow the deviations from chastity in the two
sexes, did in all probability arises from women having been considered as the mere
property of men; and, on this account had no right to dispose of their own persons. (qtd.
in Walker 148)
Gina illustrates Macaulay’s indignation towards the gender inequality reflected in the
different treatment of boys and girls for the same issue, asserting that “[t]o assign chastity
exclusively to women was to enslave them.” Macaulay also objects to the idea that the loss of
chastity triggers woman’s destruction, because “[t]he first fault against chastity in woman has a
radical power to deprave the character. But no such frail beings come out of the hands of Nature.
The human mind is built of nobler materials than to be easily corrupted.” (qtd. in Walker 148)
Tess of the D’Urbervilles – A Victorian tragedy

Hardy presents in his novel the inner self of the individual in relation with the outer
environment. When reading Tess of the d’Urbervilles in 1929, Sigmund Freud was profoundly
impressed by the psychoanalytical insight reflected in Thomas Hardy’s impressive tragedy.
Freud remarked that: “...creative writers are valuable alies and their evidence is to be prized
highly, for they are apt to know a whole host of things between heaven and earth of which our
philosophy has not yet let us dream.” (qtd. in Martin)
In discussing Thomas Hardy’s novel Tess of the d’Urbervilles, I will concentrate on the
author’s preoccupation with the alienation of human consciousness. The author captures in his
book the struggles of the individual, who, from the beginning of his life, is subjected to the social
and cultural requirements of society. The novel follows the course of life of Tess, a tragic
character, who wears on her shoulders the burdens of her mistakes as well as the others’, striving
to keep her head above water. Symbolically, Tess’s turbulent life is like an ocean and she never
reaches a state of stability and peace. She is in a continuous conflict with herself and with the
outside world, being caught between her arduous emotions and the rigorous discipline of the
nineteenth century.
In his book The Victorian Novel (2004), Codrin Cutitaru referred to Hardy saying that is
an author who “reactivated the classical tragedy in a modern artistic character.” He illustrates
three forms of tragedy, of destiny, of duality and of hybris, asserting that Tess of the
D’Urbervilles combines all these three form. (Cutitaru 70) The central character was brought to
life in a depraved family, questionable in its attitudes and responsibilities, however proud of
having noble roots. Delicate and beautiful, Tess can be associated with a flower, which had taken
her sap from this decayed environment. Fate and inheritance were the hallmarks of her tragedy.
With an unwavering determination to defending the purity of his protagonist, Thomas
Hardy considers that it is more probable that life is unmerciful with the innocent kind persons,
than with the mal intentioned ones, Tess of the D’Urbervilles echoing this belief: “‘twas a
thousand pities that it should have happened to [Tess], of all others. But ‘tis always the
comeliest!” (Hardy 132)
The Individual between genetic inheritance and environment
Sigmund Freud is an outstanding figure in the realm of psychology of the 20th century,
his fame continuing to increase in the years that followed, up until present times. In an age when
society was highly conservative and the inner processes that governed the life of the individual
were treated with rather indifference than interest, Freud sheds light to this aspect, asserting that
“a great deal of what one thinks and does is determined by the unconscious processes.” (qtd. in
Smith/Fredrickson et al. : 660) It was set a clear line of distinction between feelings and
rationality. Therefore, his theories had a considerable impact over the contemporary society,
being perceived with astonishment. He developed numerous innovative theories about human
psyche, the most influential of them being the therapy based on free association, consisting in the
flow of apparently insignificant words, which in fact lead to the source of the patient’s illness, as
well as the division between the conscious and unconscious and the structure of personality.
Sigmund Freud acknowledged the depths of human mind and saw the personality of the human Commented [A2]: Aici ar trebui sa zic : “In the book entitled
‘Introduction in Psychology’ sau ‘Introducere in psihologie’(cartea
being in a continuous defining process under the action of opposing psychological forces. The este in romanasi are sase autori) it is presented the fact that FREUD
AKNOWLEDGED THE DEPTHS.....” si abia la finalul paragrafului sa
renowned psychologist associated the mind with an iceberg, which functions at three levels: pun sursa?

Nu stiu daca in cazul in care parafrazez cateva fraze trebuie sa

conscious, preconscious and unconscious. What can be seen above water represents the mentionez titlul cartii inainte sa incep sa parafrazez sau doar sa
citez sursa la finalul paragrafului, intrucat sunt multe referinte din
conscious, the current conscience, as well as the preconscious, the facts that are not immediately aceasta carte in acest capitol. ESTE SUFICIENT SA CITATI SURSA LA
FINAL, NU TREBUIE SA SPUNETI SI CARTEA SAU ARTICOLUL.
accessible, but which can be remembered using a certain amount of effort. What cannot be seen
Commented [I3]: Ati gasit pe net cartea aceasta?
at the surface, the part hidden under water, symbolizes the unconscious, the source of desires and https://eduardolbm.files.wordpress.com/2014/10/a-general-
introduction-to-psychoanalysis-sigmund-freud.pdf poate va ajuta sa
impulses. (Smith/Fredrickson et al. : 661) citati direct

Can the biological inheritance as well as the family’s atmosphere influence the course of
life of a person? What contributions have these factors to his development? Freud focused on the
study of the cryptic side of the mind, the unconscious, centring his attention towards the
determinism of human behaviour. This notion encapsulates the essence of the bound between
past and present experiences.
As it is presented in Introduction in Psychology (2005), John Locke, a British
philosopher who lived in the age of Enlightenment, developed an innovative theory of the mind,
which contradicted many of the contemporary beliefs. He claimed that a child does not possess
innate ideas and competences, his minds being rather a tabula rasa, meaning a blank slate.
Knowledge is acquired from the early stages of life only by experiences through senses. (Smith/
Frederickson et al. : 96). In contradiction with this, at the end of the nineteenth century, Charles
Darwin’s revolutionary theory of the evolution of species brought into relief the role of heredity,
his beliefs influencing many theoreticians. He asserted the importance of inherited traits
necessary for survival and reproduction, believing that these factors contribute to a natural
selection. (Smith/ Frederickson et al. : 96) The twentieth century theory of Behaviourism focused
on the importance of education. Remarkable figures who promoted this belief, like John B.
Watson and B. F. Skinner, affirmed that human nature is entirely flexible. Therefore, the heritage
has no influence because an education started in the early stages of life can mould the child’s
personality. (Smith/Fredrickson et al. : 96)
However, nowadays psychology acknowledges the influence of both education and
heredity in the process of development. The brain of a newborn has 100 billions of neurons, but
few connections. In his first years of life the brain begins an abrupt process of development, his
volume increasing by three times. This process is determined by the genetic characteristics
inherited and by the sensorial perceptions from the familial environment. (Smith/Fredrickson et
al. : 96) The individual also relates to school, church, society, authorial figures and other facts,
depending from case to case, being guided by their morals and principles. Without doubt, the
most influential is the family, the environment in which the bases are set and from which
commence all other paths the child will follow. He observes what surrounds him in an analytical
manner and seeks to adapt his conduct according to its requirements. (Smith/Fredrickson et al. :
662)
Aici se rupe textul. In primul rand, capitolul este intitula Freud... si vorbiti putin despre Freud si
mai adaugati si altii. Incercati sa spuneti mai mult despre Freud, eventual citati si din cursul de
literatura victoriana al Dlui prof Cutitaru cand il prezinta pe Freud (la Wuthering Heights, cred).
Am putea schimba si titlul subcapitolului sa fie ceva de genul The Individual between Genetic
inheritance or Environment
Hardy and Naturalism (aici deja aveti o alta directie de cercetare si e bine ca prezentati si
naturalismul)

Hardy and Naturalism

Critics regarded Tess of the d’Urbervilles as a naturalistic novel, its main defining
characteristic in the verisimilitude. This principle has its origin in the concept of mimesis or
imitation of nature developed by the Greek philosopher Aristotle. (Baldick 270) The literary
style which emerged in France developed in the second half of the nineteenth century. The writer
has an objective attitude towards his literary work, as well as an unbiased perception of its
content, representing the details of life “with clinical accuracy and frankness.” (Dictionary.com)
Naturalism derived from the literary movement known as realism, which depicted reality in a
highly accurate manner, capturing the effects of the contemporary society upon the individual.
Naturalism “involves a view of human beings as passive victims of natural forces and
environment.” (Baldick 167) In The Routledge Dictionary of Literary Terms it is explained that
Naturalism was inspired to a certain extent by Charles Darwin’s Origin of Species by Means of
Natural Selection, 1859, the publication of this controversial book shaking the foundations of
numerous societies and their religious beliefs. (Childs and Fowler 198) The man is a superior
animal, its course of life being dictated by the powerful spheres of influence of heredity and
milieu.
So to the Naturalists man is an animal whose course is determined by his heredity, by the
effect of his environment and by the pressures of the moment. This terribly depressing
conception robs man of all free will, all responsibility for his actions, which are merely
the inescapable result of physical forces and conditions totally beyond his control. (qtd. in
Laubová 5)
In other words, the central idea around which this movement developed is that the course
of life of the human being is determined by the environment and his heredity, the naturalistic
novels abounding in detailed descriptions of the milieu. The character cannot oppose to the force
of determinism, wandering in a labirith and not being able to find a way to escape. (Baldick 213)
This condition of the struggling personage dictates a general atmosphere of hopelessness and
melanchony. Tess felt she was a martyr of the unmerciful fate which persecuted her since
childhood, untill she gave her last breath, being aware that “[o]nce victim, always victim—that’s
the law!’” (Hardy 484) Feeling overwhelmed by the multitude of tormenting problems, she
reached a state of despair when she saw death as an eliberation from this never ending race with
detrmination.
As Michael Millgate remarks, the situation of the Durbeyfields is depicted in a highly
realistic manner, “with a conscious concern for the actual conditions of rural life and for the
precise quality of human relationships involved”. (Millgate 274) They are representative for the
pastoral world, the critic suggesting that even their names are expressive, John and Joan
Durbeyfield having rural as well as Christian resonance. In the very first pages of his novel
Thomas Hardy exposes the central theme of heredity. John Durbeyfield is told that he is “the
lineal representative of the ancient and knightly family of the d’Urbervilles.” (Hardy 5)
Throughout the novel, heredity proves to have a considerable influence upon Tess’s course of
life and the development of events. As every act a human being performs is more or less
connected to a previous event, Tess’s behaviour should be analyzed in relation with the external
factors which shaped her consciousness and led her to act in a particular way. Nothing happens
by chance, but it certainly happens for a reason.
Freud considered that all thoughts, emotions and actions have a cause and he went
forward analyzing their source. He concluded that behind most of them stand the unfulfilled
desires and repressed sensations. (qtd. in Smith/Fredrickson et al. : 660). Thus, the noteworthy
influence that parents have upon their children’s mental outlook, with whom they share many
traits is highlighted. In an unconscious way, children often attribute themselves some of their
parents’ characteristics, as result of their belief in the inheritance principles. This process is
known as identification. If a child perceives his parents as being affectionate and inspiring, he
will suppose he also possess some of these virtues. He will be confident in his own forces and
will overcome problems with easiness. In the contrary case, when a child is aware of his parents’
predominant defects he will develop repulsion towards them. He will feel ashamed thinking that
it is very probable that he also possesses these displeasing traits, his confidence and trust in his
own forces being debilitated. Consequently, a person feels annoyed when his family is criticized
for this particular reason that he associates himself with his parents and in an unconscious way
he redirects the critique towards himself. (Smith/Fredrickson et al. : 145) In the case of Tess, it is
clear that all through the novel this woman appeared to be respectable and proved to have a
strong dignity, an illustrative scene being her reaction to her father’s humiliating manifestation of
joy in front of the community. As everyone from Marlott knew that John Durbeyfield was an
impoverished man, seeing him passing by in carriage singing about his nobility was ridiculous.
She tried to keep up appearances, although she felt deeply affected by this. When her friends
made jokes of him, she defended her father’s strange behaviour, saying that he is very tired.
Parents and Children: Tess’ Unbringing (aici aveti un lung capitol care reflecta relatia parinti-
copii si felul in care aceasta influenteaza destinul lui tess. Eventual, renuntam la titlul Hardy and
Naturalism pentru ca este un subcapitol f. scurt si il legam de acesta )
 As far as the psychological relationship between parents and children is concerned,
researchers mention that in the first stages of life parents guide the behaviour of their child
through rewards or punishments. Growing up, the child, who becomes aware of his parent’s
standards and demands, begins to have control over his own conduct. The anxiety emerges when
some of the principles generated by them are violated. The child, not having yet developed a full
sense of reality, fears that his actions would have the consequence of losing the parental love.
Although unconscious, this fear degenerates into a guilt obsession. (Smith/Fredrickson et al. :
662)
An emblematic scene in the novel, which triggers all sufferings for Tess of the
d’Urbervilles, is the death of the family’s horse, Prince. This episode has its roots in this
Freudian theory of infantile perception and repercussions of a shocking event. Freud claimed that
“there are people in whom the faculties of self-criticism and conscience … are unconscious and
unconsciously produce effects of the greatest importance [under the form of an] unconscious
sense of guilt”. (Freud, The Ego and the ID 11-2) John Durbeyfield planned to go to
Casterbridge early in the morning to sell some beehives. He could not follow his initial plan, as
the night before the departure he got very drunk. When seeing her father in such a deplorable
state, Tess realized that she would be charged with this task. John Durbeyfield could not walk on
his own feet, his wife and daughter having to sustain him. They were looking very humorous as
they were returning to their home in the middle of the night. Joan accompanied her husband that
night and she seemed not to be very angry with his behaviour, this reflecting their irresponsible
conduct. However, for Tess this occurrence was highly shameful, as the author himself judged
that as “... most comical effects, this scene was not quite so comic after all.” (Hardy 35) Once
arrived home, everyone went to bed, as if they had nothing to do the next day. Few hours later,
Joan Durfeyfield enters the room where Tess and her little brothers were sleeping so peacefully.
She woke up Tess, asking her in a flattering way to find a solution for the beehives issue,
because “the poor man can’t go.” (Hardy 36) She suggested Tess to talk to one of the boys she
had danced at the Cerealia procession, but the girl refused categorically this embarrassing
proposal. She assumed the responsibility to go at Casterbridge by herself, accompanied by
Abraham, her little brother, not knowing that things will turn out badly. On their way to the
Sunday market early that morning, as her little brother fell asleep, she “become abruptly still,
and lapsed into a pondering silence” (Hardy 38), watching the stars and meditating at the latest
events in her life, her parents unrealistic expectations of nobility and their marriage proposal for
her. “She seemed to see the vanity of her father’s pride; the gentlemanly suitor awaiting herself
in her mother’s fancy; to see him as a grimacing personage, laughing at her poverty and her
shrouded knightly ancestry.” (Hardy 40)
She could not think of an luxurious living, considering the fact that all her life she was a
prisoner of poverty, the idea of taking advantage of someone else’s fortune being inadmissible
for her. With all this thoughts revolving in her mind, little by little she detached from reality, to
wake up brutally when the horse was killed by a mail-cart. When realizing the gravity of things
she went white as sheet and a strong feeling of guilt dominated her. All the childish fears
vanished immediately and Tess began acting like an adult, thinking about her family’s future,
now that because of her negligence one of the few sources of incomes was gone. Usually, people
tend to avoid looking at a shocking scene, turning their heads around. However, in those
moments of despair, Tess did an unexpected gesture: she approached the agonizing horse and put
her fragile hand in his bleeding wound from the chest. Defying any dreads, she went towards the
core of the problem and little drops of the horse’s blood splashed on her. Tess imagined that
because of Prince’s death, although an old and weak horse, the situation of the Durbeyfield
family would significantly worsen and so it was.
In an unconscious way, little Tess feared her parents’ reaction. She was still under their
wings and considering her age, still not experienced to fully appreciate their incompetency as
parents. All her life the strong feeling of guilt, which dominated her, left permanent scars on her
innocent soul. This tragic event in her childhood urged her to take the responsibility on her
shoulders and to think about a solution. Surprisingly, her parents did not react as bad as Tess
thought initially. The author emphasised the Durbeyfield’s foolishness from the beginning of the
novel. Surprisingly, when experiencing the considerable problem with the death of the horse,
which affected the entire family, Tess’s parents did not come down to earth from lofty heights to
reality, but instead they “rendered the misfortune a less terrifying one to them than it would
have been to a thriving family, though in the present case it meant ruin, and in the other it would
only have meant inconvenience.” (Hardy 43)
They reacted in this manner because of their idleness and also because they had a backup
solution, although illusory. One of their most defining characteristic is their inclination to thrive
on false impressions. From the moment Parson Tringham brought to light the Durbeyfield’s
noble roots, John and his wife Joan dreamed of a sumptuous life and prestige, although they were
stuck in their miserable state, with no intention to change it. Knowing that Tess was not only
beautiful, but also endowed with many qualities, Joan Durbeyfield proposed her daughter to ask
her aristocratic aunt who lived nearby for help. Although Tess acknowledged that her parents’
behaviour was irresponsible and revolting, she was mature in thinking beyond her age. She
eventually accepted her mother’s idea to send her at the residence of the d’Uurbeville family,
although she did not agree to humiliate in front of some strange people. “The oppressive sense of
the harm she had done led Tess to be more deferential than she might otherwise have been to the
maternal wish.” (Hardy 46) Therefore, her departure at Sheston was highly influenced by her
parents’ insistences, especially her mother’s.
As she grew older and wiser, Tess developed a strong feeling of indignation towards her
parents. She could not understand their serene attitude in front of the tormenting problems of life
and the fact that they were acting more like children than like adults with numerous
responsibilities. While she was in a constant state of awareness of the struggles life implied,
being determined to go beyond, they simplified their existence, relying solely on providence.
Sigmund Freud investigated the reactions of a human being towards a traumatic
experience, being highly interested to discover how the individual develops some defence
mechanisms, which help him overcome the problems he encounters in his life. At an unconscious
level, all people adopt these measures of protection and, as Freud claimed, “we couldn’t get
along without them.” (Kahn 122) This measure of protection is commonly called a “defense
mechanism” and it is defined as “a manipulation of perception intended to protect the person
from anxiety. The perception may be of internal events, such as my feelings and impulses, or it
may be of external events, such as the feeling of other people or the realities of the world. (Kahn
135)
One of the most common is rationalization, which occurs when the individual struggles to
accept a tormenting experience by trying to find reasons for what happened or by sharing the
guilt with other persons who contributed to it. (Smith/Fredrickson et al. : 664) Sooner or later,
the uninitiated child confronts a wider social world. The discipline and guidance inflected by
parents play a crucial role, as he has not acquired a fully developed sense of reality. The
protagonist of the novel left home at a young age to venture into an unmerciful world full of
mysteries. The Durbeyfields were not involved in their children’s education, being more like
(personaje figurante) rather than active participants in this extensive process of formation. When
Tess was overwhelmed by the traumatic incident of rape, she returned home to cry on her
mother’s shoulder: “Why didn’t you tell me there was danger in men-folk? Why didn’t you warn
me? Ladies know what to fend hands against, because they read novels that tell them of these
tricks; but I never had the chance o’ learning in that way, and you did not help me!’” (Hardy
120)
Although Tess did not have a close relation with her mother, in those moments of
despair she was the only human being she could confess to. Joan’s first reaction was not to
comfort Tess, her child who was soon to give birth to another child. Instead, as she was
dominated by anger, she reproached Tess “Why didn’t ye think of doing some good for your
family instead o’ thinking only for yourself?” (Hardy 119) She vented her spleen at his suffering
daughter, reminding her the miserable state of the family, which by Tess’s fault became even
more deplorable than it was before. The reaction of the mother is revolting, considering the fact
that she was the one to throw Tess to the lions. After Parson Tringham’s confession, days passed
quickly and without much time to meditate, Tess just found herself in an unknown village,
surrounded by people she never saw before and faced with problematic situations for which she
was completely unprepared. All these sacrifices were for her family’s sake.
Her mother felt deeply disappointed, knowing that her daughter’s future would be
affected by this irrevocable occurrence. From a compassionate perspective Joan’s reaction was
normal for a mother of a girl. The society would judge her for her acts, and also her family,
analyzing the appearances and not the whole context. The fact that she gave birth to an
illegitimate child would eclipse all her other qualities. It was also difficult, almost impossible for
a fallen woman to find a husband, this implying continuing to live with her family. Tess returned
home pregnant and this meant an additional burden for her family, considering the standard of
living for the numerous Durbeyfield family, apart from the ruined reputation and the many
critiques which were sure to follow.
The higher Joan’s expectations were the more devastating the disappointment. All her
dreams about her daughter marrying a rich man, who would help his parents-in-law, vanished in
seconds and she had to face the painful reality. Joan considered marriage to be the only solution
for this problematic situation her daughter was involved in. She insisted that Tess should merry
her Alec, because in her opinion they made a great couple. Joan d’Urbeyfield was a mediocre
human being with a limited perception of reality. Like many working people from rural areas,
she was hindered by hard work, not having much time to meditate about philosophical aspects of
life. When urging her daughter to marry, she did not take into consideration Tess’s feelings and
the fact that she would spend the rest of her life with this man. Joan did not know Alec’s
character, she judged him solely from appearances. He won her admiration only because he was
rich and good looking. He also achieved the Durbeyfield family’s confidence by bringing gifts
for the children and buying them a horse. In other words, what Tess’s parents did was to sell
their daughter, symbolically speaking, to an unknown man who at the beginning showed them
respect, but as soon as he obtained what he wanted, he changed radically his attitude.
The entire family was upset when Tess left home for the first time to work at the
d’Urberfield’s residence. Her little brothers were crying, because they were separated from their
caring sister. Joan, in turn, was also dominated by melancholy. The thought that her daughter
was far from home, making her way in an unpredictable life, was concerning her. When night
fell over the village of Marlott, she began reflecting on this issue: “’[P]erhaps it would ha’ been
better if Tess had not gone’... ‘if ‘twere the doing again, I wouldn’t let her go till I had found out
whether the gentleman is really a good-hearted young man and choice over her as his
kinswoman.’” (Hardy 70)
While Joan was having a qualm of conscience, John Durbeyfield, as the supposed
dominant figure in the family, was completely indifferent to this important event in the life of his
eldest daughter. Apart from not investigating effectively the details about the persons Tess was
sent to, instead of spending with her the few hours left before her departure, he preferred to be in
a state of euphoria caused by drinking. He said goodbye to Tess quickly, “raising his head from
his breast as he suspended his nap, induced by a slight excess this morning in honour of the
occasion.” (Hardy 67)
For a child, heredity and education have a substantial impact in the forming process of his
conduct, his mental processes being determined by these aspects. A great percent of the
teenagers who struggle with depression have suffered in their childhood from anxiety or from
other psychological disorders. (Smith/Fredrickson et al. : 140) Tess’s parents did not involve
actively in the process of education and she felt neglected and vulnerable in front of the
problematic situations she faced. Being raised in a questionable environment with parents who
fed themselves with illusions, the eldest daughter of the Durbeyfields developed a feeling of
uncertainty, tending to get lost in her thoughts. The only possibility to escape from the hostile
reality was to let herself shrouded in a state of dreaminess.

The ideal of purity in the Victorian Society

In Women’s Studies Encyclopedia, Karen J. Taylor examines an influential ideology in
Great Britain of the nineteenth-century: “the cult of true womanhood” or “the cult of
domesticity”, which promoted a female ideal characterized by “piety, purity, submissiveness and
domesticity”. (Karen J. Taylor) Women were seen, as Karen herself tells, “the moral guardians
of the family”. As they were endowed with feminine features such as tenderness and patience,
they were best suited to take care of the principles of this sacred institution, a symbolical piece of
heaven in the middle of a contaminated world. Men, on the other hand, departed from the holy
ambiance of family to gain a living by working in an industrialized environment, which degraded
their moral integrity and virtues. Women’s contact with the outer world was minimized and they
were spending most of the time taking care of children as well as of the house’s chores, this
permitting them to preserve their righteousness and principles, and above all, a closer relation
with divinity. Karen J. Taylor gives a very poetic definition of woman’s crucial role in the frame
of family, saying that woman
“… nurtured her children both physically and spiritually, comforted her husband and
soothed away the wounds of his encounters with the outside world, and stood as an
invincible sentinel at the portals of the home to keep worldly pollution from entering and
despoiling the family.” (Karen J. Taylor)
The historian Barbara Welter focused her studies on the first decades of the nineteenth
century, analyzing the expression of sexual stereotypes. In this period, it was promoted a set of
beliefs concerning woman’s conduct. She had the sacred responsibility “to uphold the pillars of
the temple with her frail white hand.” (Welter) The principles of true womanhood were
incontestable and society view with reluctant eyes anyone who intended to alter them, as if these
rebels were acting against religious and social moralities. Barbara Welter reflected upon this
phenomenon of the nineteenth century, affirming that “in a society where values changed
frequently, where fortunes rose and fell with frightening rapidity, where social and economic
mobility provided instability as well as hope, one thing at least remained the same - a true
woman was a true woman.” (Welter) England, and other nations, was moving into a new epoch
of great industrial development, which changed radically its outlook, shaking its foundations
built in thousands of years. These changes were reflected also into the realm of family. The
nineteenth-century man was spending most of the day far from the peaceful ambient of home, in
a climate of growing unrest and competition. For him, there was little time left to meditate about
religious aspects, having often regrets. His family and especially his wife represented his
consolation, as he saw in them his refuge.
The preservation of the four fundamental attributes of an ideal woman, “piety, purity,
submissiveness and domesticity” (Karen J. Taylor), assured her the road towards a tranquil
family life and a good reputation. The religious devotion was the most valued quality a woman
could posses: “The vestal flame of piety, lightened up by Heaven in the breast of woman diffuses
its light and warmth over the world; and the dark would be the world.” (Welter) Barbara Welter
illustrates the idealisation of chastity, which was at that time the most valuable treasure the wife
could gift to her husband. After marriage the woman became his property, without having
initiative and control over her emotional or legal existence. The infringement of this attributes
would put the woman in the centre of attention of her neighbours and the rest of community. An
unmarried woman would ruin any chance to find a good man, as she will be labelled as flawed,
being seen with different eyes for the rest of her life. “A fallen woman was a fallen angel,
unworthy of the celestial company of her sex. To contemplate such loss of purity brought tears.”
(Welter)
Human’s sexual behaviour is heavily influenced by culture, as every society imposes a
set of rules and restrictions. In those times, mothers or aunts were limiting their girls’ contact
with the outside world supervising them very closely, as they were conscious that the world was
full of dangers which could stray their girls’ purity, this ruining their marriage expectations. This
was not the case for Tess d’Urbeyfield, who was not kept under the protecting wing of her
mother. Instead, the one who should have supervised her threw her in the arms of the man who
ruined her life. Joan was fascinated by Alec with his wealth and good manners. In her
imagination, he was the perfect match for her beautiful daughter, the perfect man to drag her out
of her miserable existence and to offer her a luxurious living. She instilled her children the idea
that their elder sister is going to marry a rich man and will live a happy life. Tess was revolted by
their innocent reactions, always explaining them how things really are, bringing them down to
earth. She had developed repulsion towards her mother’s initiative:
 Being mentally older than her mother she did not regard Mrs Durbeyfield’s matrimonial
hopes for her in a serious aspect for a moment. The light-minded woman had been
discovering good matches for her daughter almost from the year of her birth. (Hardy 64)
Joan wanted to be sure that her daughter would not lose this perfect opportunity, this
portal towards a better life. She was excited when receiving the letter from Mrs. d’Urberville, in
which she expressed her wish to welcome Tess to take care of her fowls. Joan also affirmed that
this proposal is only a pretext, believing that their aristocratic relatives want to keep Tess closer
to them, as the charming girl was an enjoyable presence and a good company for Mrs.
d’Urberville’s son, Alec. Tess, due to her inexperience and also of her detachment, was not fully
aware of what these persons were planning for her. The day she left her parents’ house to move
to Sheston, she dressed neutral, with no intention to stand out, this decision shocking her mother
who clearly had other intentions for her. Eventually, “the girl put herself quite in Joan’s hands,
saying serenely—‘Do what you like with me, mother’”, accepting her ideas with a “calm
abandonment”, trusting that she “knows best.” (Hardy 65)
... [S]he put upon her the white frock that Tess had worn at the club-walking, the airy
fulness of which, supplementing her enlarged coiffure, imparted to her developing figure
an amplitude which belied her age, and might cause her to be estimated as a woman when
she was not much more than a child. (Hardy 66)
The Victorian age is regarded as a period of contrasting principles. On the one side, it
was undoubtedly defined by a strict social code and strong sense of morality. In that period,
sexual relations inside marriage were considered to be the only acceptable manifestations of
sexuality. Michal Kahn investigates in his book, Basic Freud, the sexual anxiety which, as he
says, “cause[s] repression of the sexual impulses.” (109) He gives an example of a person who
was taught that sexual relations are shameful. Most probable, at some point, this person will face
a sexual opportunity, but he will not follow this impulse right away, as his conscience controls
him, reminding him that this act is not acceptable. Therefore, he is caught between two opposed
forces, desire and guilt: “The very anticipation of satisfying some of the impulses raises the
specter of punishment and thus produces great anxiety. A conscious decision to forgo the
impulse, however, may be severely fustrating.” (Kahn 122) As Kahn explains, anxiety appears
when a person is tempted by impulses to do forbidden acts. As a defence mechanism, the person
tries to change the outlook of his impulses in order to make them socially acceptable and to
avoid judgments from part of the others and also from part of his consciousness. He is aware that
not respecting what he was taught would have consequences, but not fulfilling its desires causes
regret. The individual searches for a solution for this conflicting situation, in many cases, ending
repressing his impulses.
The Victorians set really high-standards, honouring the purity of body and soul,
appreciating the value of work and charity. Although for all this goals to be accomplished, they
paid with many sacrifices, repressing their feelings and emotions. However, on the other side the
behaviour of the Victorians was dominated by hypocrisy. “Dickens and other Victorian authors
... satirized what they took to be the excesses of Evangelical religion”, suggesting that under a
godly appearance of a religious practicant often stood vices as alchoolism, gorging, even
adultery. (Landow)
The harsh criticism Tess recived is unjust, taking in consideration that she was not an
isolate case of nonconformism. In those times occurred many deviations from the laws of
society, as it always happened in history. However, the Victorians, out of an keen sense of pride,
tried to disguise their impulses, which are in fact a normal component of human nature,
developing an repulse towards Tess’s case. Moreover, it was not taken in consideration her
judgements of the situations or her intentions, being solely judged by appearences.
The religious doctrine influenced considerably the psyche of the Victorians in many
aspects of everyday life, as they were exceedingly devoted to divinity. The Bible, regarded also
as the most important book ever written, stands at the basis of the Christian religions. It is a
sacred collection of historical accounts and allegories, which gives its readers plenty of advice.
The Bible refers to many situations from the life of a human being, approaching issues related to
sexuality as well. An extensive amount of passages are about the significance of the colossal
union between man and wife in marriage and also about the punishment of those who, though
sexual immorality, profane the sanctity and purity of their bodies, the temple of the Holy Spirit.
Therefore, God expects from humans to preserve their moral integrity.
In the New Testament is included a series of letters of Paul, the disciple of Christ,
addressed to the community he had pastured from many regions of Asia and Europe. Paul is an
outstanding figure in the religious realm, leaving a valuable treasure in the hearts of the Christian
people. The eminent German scholar, Adolf Deissmann, said that the Apostle Paul “rising from
the mass of the insignificant many...is still molding the world at the present moment.”
Although at the beginning he was a persecutor of the Christians, symbolizing the Church of
Christ, he had a revelation that changed his life completely. (Johnson) One day while Paul was
on his way to Damascus, God appeared to him as an intense light and castigated him for his
unmerciful acts. Paul remained blind for three days, but this encounter changed completely his
life, he becoming a devoted follower of Jesus Christ. All his life he travelled a lot, struggling to
make the people aware of the consequences of their sins.
In his fourteen books from the New Testament the apostle Paul expresses his disapproval
attitude towards carnal sins. In the first epistle he wrote for the people of Corinth, Greece, he
tries to awake their consciousness by exposing them the gravity of their acts in front of God. In
the sixth chapter, verses twelve and thirteen, he preaches:
All things are lawful for me, but not all things are helpful. All things are lawful for me,
but I will not be dominated by anything...The body is not meant for sexual immorality,
but for the Lord, and the Lord for the body. (Bible Hub)
Later on, the eighteenth, nineteenth and twentieth verses say:
Flee from sexual immorality. Every other sin a person commits is outside the body, but
the sexually immoral person sins against his own body. Or do you not know that the body
is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, whom you have from God. You are not your
own, or you were bought with a price. So glorify God in your body. (Bible Hub)
However, the prophet Isaiah accounts that a person can redeem through suffering, as all
his sins, which can be intentional or unintentional, can be forgiven: “Come now, and let us
reason together, saith the LORD: though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow;
though they be red like crimson, they shall be as wool. If ye be willing and obedient, ye shall eat
the good of the land”. (Bible Hub) Through all her gestures, tears and qualms of conscience,
Tess washed her sins, which in fact were reflections of other people faults, beginning with her
family, where she spend great part of her life, and continuing with the two man, Alec and Angel,
who influenced tremendously her course of life.
Eve between Adam and the Serpent

Thomas Hardy portrayed Tess as being a spiritual human being, with a vertical morality,
who is true to herself, obeying a personal code of values, rather than obeying society’s
conventions. Her nonconformity attracted many harsh critics, leading eventually to her
persecution. In a time when the contrast between appearances and essence was striking, many
Victorians hiding their true self under a rigid attitude, Tess’s case was perceived as an
abnormality, treating her intransigently and severe.
There are several aspects Hardy insists upon when portraying the central character, the
two most representative being her beauty and the colours red and white. Whenever she travels,
many persons admire her angelic face. Hardy describes her as “a handsome young woman with
deep dark eyes and long heavy clinging tresses, which seem to clasp in a beseeching way
anything they fall against. The cheeks are paler, the teeth more regular, the red lips thinner than
is usual in a country-bred girl.” (Hardy 129-30) Beyond her distinguished physical traits,
numerous scenes reveal also an astonishing depth of thoughts and feelings. She was a support for
her family, helping her mother with the chores and taking care of the house and of her little
brothers, who were very attached to her. She bravely faced the all the sufferings fate brought in
her life and no matter how difficult the situation was, she never asked for help and never
complained. Passion, dignity and meekness were the main traits of her character. Hardy uses
colours to suggest the changing spectrum of Tess’s condition, white implying purity and chastity,
while red is associated with passion and sexuality. Rosemarie Morgan remarks that the blood
motif is included in each in of the seven symbolical phases of the novel, “[t]he pattern [being]
clear and satisfyingly appropriate for a young girl’s growth to womanhood.” (Morgan 104) In
the beginning of the novel, while she is dancing with the other girls at the Cerealia procession,
she wears a white dress and a red ribbon in her hair, being "the only one of the white company
who could boast of such a pronounced adornment" (Hardy 15) Due to her dualist personality, the
author often associated her with nature. On the one side she has a radiant beauty, a comforting
presence, but on the other side she is unpredictable and towards the end of the novel, the reader
gets to know the cruel side of her.
Tess, as an symbolic Eve, dreamy and innocencent, is deceived to bite from the forbidden
apple from the tree of knowledge of good and evil.
 ‘By experience,’ says Roger Ascham, ‘we find out a short way by a long wandering.’ Not
seldom that long wandering unfits us for further travel, and of what use is our experience
to us then? Tess Durbeyfield’s experience was of this incapacitating kind. At last she had
learned what to do; but who would now accept her doing? (Hardy 143)
Like Don Quixote, she is condemned to fight in vain against powerful forces which she
never defeats. “If Tess is trapped by the fatalities of her heredity and environment, she is equally
caught between the contrasted personalities of the two men – both superior to her in class,
wealth, and education – who dominate her life.” (Milliegate 275)
Sigmund Freud structured human personality in three theoretical components. As the
psychologist illustrated in New Introductory Lectures on Psychoanalysis (1932) each person has
an id. The id is the basal part, which takes the form of strong impulses and instinctual drives,
especially sexual and aggressive, the brain aiming to fulfil them as promptly as possible,
regardless the consequences. Their fulfilment brings a state of pleasure and satisfaction, or in the
contrary case frustration, accompanied by tension or aggressiveness. The id is described as being
unconscious. It can be regarded as the
… dark, inaccessible part of our personality, (…) most of that is of a negative character
and can be described only as a contrast to the ego. We approach the id with analogies: we
call it a chaos, a cauldron full of seething excitations. ... It is filled with energy reaching it
from the instincts, but it has no organization, produces no collective will, but only a
striving to bring about the satisfaction of the instinctual needs subject to the observance
of the pleasure principle. (Blumenau) Commented [A4]: Am patru citate din New Introductory
Lectures si On Metapsychology – The Ego and the Id pe care le-am
Alec represents the id, as he is passionate human being controlled by strong impulses. He gasit in cursurile surorii mele care studiaza psihologia. (Le-am
marcat cu gri)
is the only son of the d’Urbervilles, a wealthy family with an enigmatic history. Their initial
Cartile apar pe Google Books, dar nu am acces la ele. Am putut doar
sa verific daca aceste citate sunt de acolo.
name was Stokes, but his father Simon wanted to disappear from the public scene and to
O varianta ar fi Wikipedia, dar nu cred ca este o sursa potrivita
commence a new life in a different area, where he could not be traced anymore. He was a pentru licenta.

merchant who in his life had gained a fortune, however, with doubtable honesty. After doing
some short researches, he appropriated the name of an unknown old family which was in a
process of disappearance. Although Parson Tringham knew that “the Stoke-d’Urbervilles were
no more d’Urbervilles of the true tree then John was himself” he did not say a word. (Hardy
50) His confession would have changed radically the situation which followed, preventing Tess
from stepping in the dangerous environment. Considering that Tess lived all her life in a rural
area, she was amazed when she saw for the first time the imposing residence of the supposed
relatives, partly because it was luxurious and impressive, but mostly because it did not match her
expectations. In her simplicity, she imagined it to be an old place full of history, but instead she
encountered a building erected recently. When she realized she was on her own in a confusing
situation, she was dominated by a state of uncertainty, starting to feel reluctant to her parents’
idea to send her there. As she walking alone many thoughts revolved in her mind, being very
tempted to leave that place, but her cousin appeared.
He had an almost swarthy complexion, with full lips, badly moulded, though red and
smooth, above which was a well-groomed black moustache with curled points, though his
age could not be more than threeor four-and-twenty. Despite the touches of barbarism in
his contours, there was a singular force in the gentleman’s face, and in his bold rolling
eye. (Hardy 51)
Fate has arranged the scene for the encounter between the victim and her abuser. Without
having the slightest suspicion, the innocent Tess was standing right in front of the man who
would destroy her life. Due to his sly character, Alec can be associated with the Serpent from the
Eden Garden which tempted Eve and drag her towards her fall. At the beginning, Alec treated
her with great attention and did his best to please her, although his first impression of her was not
very good. In his eyes, she was a poor country girl which came to him with a pathetic demand.
Tess was always remarked for her outstanding beauty, her mother considering that she could win
the heart of any man. She was right, because Tess’s physical appearance, as well as her naivety,
triggered Alec’s interest. “It was a luxuriance of aspect, a fulness of growth, which made her
appear more of a woman than she really was.” (Hardy 55) He flattered Tess and make her feel
like in a dream by addressing her compliments, giving her roses and strawberries.
Tess Durbeyfield did not divine, as she innocently looked down at the roses in her
bosom, that there [in front of her was standing] the ‘tragic mischief’ of her drama—one
who stood fair to be the blood-red ray in the spectrum of her young life. (Hardy 55)
In fact, Alec was behaving falsely, hiding his real self, allowing Tess to see only a mask
of him. After she left, he “reflect[ed], with a pleased gleam in his face. Then he broke into a loud
laugh. ... [W]hat a crumby girl!’” (Hardy 57) In reality, Alec is nothing more than a villain with a
rebel attitude, who believed that he controls the world. His parents’ fortune and the absence of a
father figure fed his impulses to always break with conventions, without fearing the
consequences. He did not have a strong bound with his blind mother, the old Mrs. D’Urberville,
who deep inside of her acknowledged that she “was not the first ... compelled to love her
offspring resentfully, and to be bitterly fond.” (Hardy 83)
Alec’s mother accepted Tess’s proposal to work at their house, without knowing that she
is the member of the old Durberville family. From that moment on, her supposed cousin changed
radically his attitude. If at their first encounter he was doing his best to make her feel
comfortable, in order to convince her to work for them, after managing to have her near him he
changed the strategy. Right after he took Tess from her parents he started to make advances
towards her. He began, little by little, to reveal his negative traits, especially his uncontrolled
wild spirit. As Tess was moving away from the comforting space of her natal village she felt
increasingly worried. Her supposed cousin drove very rapidly and even told her that horse once
killed a human being and was very close to kill him as well. “Sometimes a wheel was off the
ground, it seemed, for many yards; sometimes a stone was sent spinning over the hedge, and
flinty sparks from the horse’s hoofs outshone the daylight.” (Hardy 73)
The second side of the psyche is the ego, which has a strong connection with the id, as
the psychologist himself asserted that “where id is, there shall ego be…” (Freud, New
Introductory Lectures ) The individual, unlike the creatures lacking of rationality, little by little
becomes increasingly aware of the restrictions of the outer environment and keeps under control
his id, which sends him signals to follow the path towards pleasure. Therefore, the ego is guided
by reason, always following the reality principles, while the id represents the pleasure principles,
such as the forbidden desires and hidden intentions, unaccepted by the rules of society in their
blunt outlook, taking in consideration that it “knows no judgments of value: no good and evil, no
morality.” (Freud, New Introductory Lectures 107) This component of personality, the ego,
intends to do only what is acceptable from society’s perspective and as well from his
consciousness, conforming to the requirements of the real world. It does this by controlling the
impulses and by trying to find a middle way. In other words, it fulfils the urges without altering
the social expectancies.
Freud illustrates the relation between these two interrelated components of the psyche,
the id and the ego, by associating them with a rider and his horse, underlying that the rider does
not always have total control over the horse, which sometimes does not obey, but instead follows
its own desires.
 The horse provides the locomotor energy, and the rider has the prerogative of
determining the goal and of guiding the movements of his powerful mount towards it.
But all too often in the relations between the ego and the id we find a picture of the less
ideal situation in which the rider is obliged to guide his horse in the direction in which it
itself wants to go. (Freud, New Introductory Lectures )
Alec was driving very fast and Tess, inevitably, held him, as she was trying not to fall
from the carriage. What could have been judged as a daring gesture from part of Tess is
immediately clarified by the author, who all through the novel strengthens his protagonist’s
moral purity. Alec began flirting with her, asking for a kiss as a reward for getting her home
safely, on an ironic tone, of course, because what he did was to intimidate her. From the
beginning she rejected firmly his advances and felt repulsion towards the manner he addressed to
her, with words such as “my Beauty ”. (Hardy 74) Eventually, Alec manipulated Tess to let him
kiss her cheek at least, if not her lips, as he wanted initially. Considering that she was a young
girl who did not have contact with men before and with no experience of their behaviour, the
emotional impact of this scene was devastating, causing her tears to fall from her eyes. She lost
her trust in her cousin and regretted the departure, reproaching him that he is not the good man
she expected. However, Alec was not affected by her opinions, being visibly annoyed because
due to her cold attitude he did not achieve what he wanted.
However, Alec’s dominant characteristic is his persuasion. Her rejections din nothing
more than to provoke him. Tess fascinated him from the beginning, and he did everything to
obtain what he desired, no matter the circumstances. His strategy was to insist, and when things
were pushed too far, causing Tess a feeling of anger mixed with repulsion, he stopped, changing
totally his behaviour, just not to lose her completely. He then assured his cousin that his
intentions are good and that he will keep distance, although he admitted being tempted by her
good looking. Inexperienced, Tess was enchanted by his words, although in reality what he did
was to play with her mind using the power of rhetoric, an area which he mastered. Alec’s power
of conviction is illustrated in the scene when Tess accepted eventually to go home with him,
because her companions were drunk and were making her feel uncomfortable due to their
inappropriate jokes. During the night she refused radically his many proposals, hoping to find a
solution. Realizing that she alone in the night with a bad company, she eventually accepted to go
with her cousin, although having many doubts. The innocent Tess did not knew at that time that
in the attempt to avoid a bad situation, she was trapped in a far more terrifying one, from which
she would have no way out.
As the two were walking in foggy dark he asked her the reason for not accept his gestures
of affection. Many girls, especially from rural areas, would have accepted the advances of a
charming aristocrat, but this was not the case for Tess who was reserved and refused him all
along. Although not having knowledge of these feelings, considering her mother’s absence in the
process of the education of her daughter, she listens to her unblemished conscience and answers
him in simple words that she does not love him. When realizing that they were wandering in a
different direction and he did not keep his word to take her home she felt deeply angered and his
first impulse was to go home on her own. Alec managed to manipulate her once again only with
words, trying to comply with her wish. Admitting that he was the one who brought her in this
situation, he felt responsible for resolving this inconvenience. He made her feel safe, saying that
he is going to search for a solution. He also mentioned that her “father has a new cob to-day.
Somebody gave it to him.” (Hardy 104) He knew this is her sensible point and that she would be
touched by this news, because her family’s grinding condition was affecting her. Tess was a
faded white silhouette swallowed in the darkness of the forest. When Alec returned, found Tess
asleep and approached her, feeling her breath. The atmosphere was so mysterious and calm.
[W]here was Tess’s guardian angel? where was the providence of her simple faith? ...
Perhaps, like that other god of whom the ironical Tishbite spoke, he was talking, or he
was pursuing, or he was in a journey, or he was sleeping and not to be awaked.
Why it was that upon this beautiful feminine tissue, sensitive as gossamer, and practically
blank as snow as yet, there should have been traced such a coarse pattern as it was
doomed to receive;” (Hardy 107)
In only one dark night the life of Tess changed completely. It was the begging of her
tragic ending. From the innocent creature she was in the past, being always remarked for her
outstanding beauty and kindness, as it illustrates first chapter with a highly symbolical title - The
Maiden, her status degraded entirely. She was the same Tess, in principles and morality,
although in the eyes of the others she was a completely different human being. “Most of the
misery had been generated by her conventional aspect, and not by her innate sensations.” (Hardy
134) Without having knowledge of the danger she was exposed to, she was overshadowed by
Alec, ending up defeated. Her innocent soul did not foresee the danger hidden behind the
beautiful words, the fate condoning her to learn the hard way that “the serpent hisses where the
sweet birds sing.” (Hardy 110) Nor she, or her parents, did not think that in the beautiful estate of
the D’Urbervilles, heavenly in its abundance, the serpent was waiting for its victim, hiding under
the image of the sympathetic cousin. Tess, as Eve from the Old Testament, was seduced by the
Serpent, which convinced her that biting from the forbidden apple would not have such terrible
consequences as she was told. Only after committing the act Eve becomes aware of the gravity
of her decision, regretting the situation. Sadly, the grieving regrets do not change her condition,
as she committed something which cannot be undone.
In one of his famous books, On Metapsychology - The Ego and the Id, Sigmund Freud
explains how the ego arbitrates between the demands of the id and reality, striving to maintain
equilibrium. The ego keeps under control powerful contrasting impulses, represented by desires
and needs, which flow from within in contrast with the demands and rules from the outside
setting.
"The ego is that part of the id which has been modified by the direct influence of the
external world. ... The ego represents what may be called reason and common sense, in
contrast to the id, which contains the passions.” (Freud 363-4)
After the terrible incident, Tess returns home, leaving Tandridge with many regrets in her
soul. Dominated by an acute feeling of disappointment and sorrow, she says to her cousin who
does not understand her decision to leave on a rush, without saying a word: “I wish I had never
been born. … I didn’t understand your meaning till it was too late.” (Hardy 111-12) With strong
confidence, Alec assures Tess that she will return to him. She discredits his opinion, being
determined to break any ties with him. The unfortunate Tess did not think at that time that no
matter how much she will try to run from her past, life will bring her again in from of the person
who ruined her. Few months later after the traumatic scene which took place in the Chase forest,
she gave birth to a child whom she named Sorrow, who did not live long, his death accentuating
Tess’s state of despair.
[An] intrusive creature, that bastard gift of shameless Nature, who respects not the social
law; a waif to whom eternal Time had been a matter of days merely, who knew not that
such things as years and centuries ever were; to whom the cottage interior was the
universe, the week’s weather climate, new-born babyhood human existence, and the
instinct to suck human knowledge. (Hardy 140)
 He was the fruit of the wicked relation she had with Alec. She develops a defense
mechanism, known as the reaction formation, characterized by the concealment of a traumatic
event. The individual hides his true feelings and instead, expresses an opposite attitude. An
example for this would be a mother who feels guilty for giving birth to an illegitimate child. She
does not feel aversion to his innocent infant, but does her best to protect and to love him.
(Smith/Fredrickson et al. : 665) Tess felt deeply remorseful and she hid her face from the eyes
of any human being. She was dejected, being aware that comments about her situation were
inevitable. Therefore, Tess wanted to limit interactions with the curious inhabitants of the
village. The little room she was sharing with her brothers was her refuge. “She watched winds,
and snows, and rains, gorgeous sunsets, and successive moons at their full.” (Hardy 124) Tess
was a prisoner between these cold walls, troubled by the multitude of thoughts which revolved in
her mind.
Nobody ever knew what devastating storm was in Tess’s heart. As the German
philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche claimed, what does not kill you makes you stronger. She was
aware that life followed its course and from all that happened she learned a lesson: “[m]eanwhile
the trees were just as green as before; the birds sang and the sun shone as clearly now as ever.
The familiar surroundings had not darkened because of her grief, nor sickened because of her
pain.” (Hardy 133) Being depressed, Tess found alleviation in the forest, the only place where
she could feel free. The forest was her refuge when she could not find peace in the immoral
society, although little time before she was dominated by the acute feeling of alienation, the
forest was the scene of her tragedy. “She had no fear of the shadows; her sole idea seemed to be
to shun mankind—or rather that cold accretion called the world, which, so terrible in the mass, is
so unformidable, even pitiable, in its units.” (Hardy 124)
Unusual for a girl at her age, she was not afraid of the solitude of such a vast space, nor
of the shadows, because through the traumatic experiences, she became aware of the existence of
far more frightening things in life, such as the emptiness from a person’s heart and their immoral
intentions. However, her choice to avoid people could not be permanent, and at some point she
found the strength to face them. She realizing that “[s]he was not an existence, an experience, a
passion, a structure of sensations, to anybody but herself.” (Hardy 133) In the middle of the
summer she joined a group of people for harvesting. Obviously, people discussed her
controversial situation, however, with a slight compassionate attitude as they knew what a kind
girl she is. Proving dignity as she always did, she exposed herself with her child, not having
restraints to breastfeed him on the field, while the others were around.
When the infant had taken its fill, the young mother sat it upright in her lap, and looking
into the far distance, dandled it with a gloomy indifference that was almost dislike; then
all of a sudden she fell to violently kissing it some dozens of times, as if she could never
leave off, the child crying at the vehemence of an onset which strangely combined
passionateness with contempt. (Hardy 131-32)
Rosemarie Morgan analyzed the character of Tess from Charles Darwin’s perspectives
over the issues of survival through adaptation. “The species remains recognizably the same, only
the colors, contours, and nuances of habituation vary… [S]he develops, textually as well as in
personhood, over time and according to chance, hazard, change, ingenuity, risk taking, and
happenstance—in sum, adaptation.” (Morgan 92) The traumatic experiences shaped Tess’s
conscience and she was facing an abrupt process of maturing. While other girls her age were
dreaming of a bright future and a loving husband, Tess’s view on things was increasingly
pessimist. She meditated at the dark night in the Chase forest which changed her course of life,
her child’s short existence and also at her own death.
Almost at a leap Tess thus changed from simple girl to complex woman. Symbols of
reflectiveness passed into her face, and a note of tragedy at times into her voice. Her eyes
grew larger and more eloquent. She became what would have been called a fine creature;
her aspect was fair and arresting; her soul that of a woman whom the turbulent
experiences of the last year or two had quite failed to demoralize. (Hardy 144)
In her situation, continuing to live with her parents was unbearable, therefore, she
decided to search for a job. She longed to go in a place where nobody knew her, not with bad
intentions to pretend what she is no more, because she conformed to her condition. Instead, her
soul which had known many suffering and despair in the past few years was hungry for peace.
She wanted to move as far away as possible from the past in an unconscious desperate attempt to
escape her awful fate. She hoped for something impossible, because her past was haunting her,
either through her own regretful thoughts or through ordinary persons with whom she interacted
at some point in her life and who knew her controversial history.
Tess, at the age of twenty years, arrived at the Talbothay’s dairy, a lovely place which
reflected the harmony of the communion between man and nature. Although a different kind of
beauty compared to the imposing and luxurious estate from Tantridge, this place was closer to
Tess’s heart who always had a bound with the enchanting nature, despising the urban
industrialized areas. “In each location, from Talbothays to Flintcomb-Ash, the physical reality of
the natural world … doubles as a literary device and an external correlative; that is, we read the
external world as mirror to her inner consciousness, and occasionally the reverse.” (Morgan 103)
As the title of the phase suggests, The Rally, her staying at Talbothay was a sparkle in the
darkness of her miserable living.
Either the change in the quality of the air from heavy to light, or the sense of being amid
new scenes where there were no invidious eyes upon her, sent up her spirits wonderfully.
Her hopes mingled with the sunshine in an ideal photosphere which surrounded her as
she bounded along against the soft south wind. She heard a pleasant voice in every
breeze, and in every bird’s note seemed to lurk a joy. (Hardy 151)
The blessed beauty and calm of this place is connected with her mental state. “The the
intensely blue atmosphere of the rival vale, and its heavy soils and scents; the new air was clear,
bracing, ethereal... [H]er spirits, and her thankfulness, and her hopes, rose higher and higher”.
(Hardy 150-2) Here she is received with kindness, being admired as always for her delightful
presence. Tess accommodated rapidly and began working soon after arrival, her new occupation
obliterating the painful memories.
Here she found the mysterious man whom she had met at the Cerealia procession four
years ago. He was excited to dance with the girls dressed in white, seeing Tess only when it was
too late. He regretted not having danced with her, but there was nothing he could do as he was on
the rush. Tess was also disappointed and looked at him as he was going away, thinking that this
was their first and last encounter. However, life arranged things is such manner that their paths
intersected again. Tess recognized him from the beginning, falling under the same spell as he did
when she first saw him. He was “educated, reserved, subtle, sad, differing.” (Hardy 163) The
colleagues from the dairy told Tess some things about this man, named Angel, who was very
dedicated to his work and did not pay attention to the girls.
Angel is the embodiment of the superego, which is at the boundary between conscious
and unconscious, illustrating the norms, values learned from the dominant institutions in the life
of the individual. The super-ego has the function of “persuading the ego to turn to moralistic
goals rather than simply realistic ones and to strive for perfection.” (McLeod) Angel comes from
a family with strong religious upbringing from Emminster, a “hill-surrounded little town”.
(Hardy 229) His father, Reverend James Clare, was
... an earnest, God-fearing man, somewhat gaunt, in years about sixty-five, his pale face
lined with thought and purpose. ...A spiritual descendant in the direct line from Wycliff,
Huss, Luther, Calvin; an Evangelical of the Evangelicals, a Conversionist, a man of
Apostolic simplicity in life and thought, he had in his raw youth made up his mind once
for all in the deeper questions of existence, and admitted no further reasoning on them
thenceforward. (Hardy 231)
The Clares were very kind people, being appreciated for their humbleness and their
numerous acts of generosity. They raised their children in an exaggeratedly moral atmosphere,
expecting from them not to depart from the path of education and discipline. Their daughter had
gone in a missionary trip in Africa with her husband. Reverend Clare’s strongest wish was his
sons to attend the Cambridge University, along the years saving money to sustain them
financially. He had a strong belief that the university studies would help them tremendously,
opening the road towards a better life. Only two elder brothers fulfilled their father’s wish, “Felix
seemed ... all Church; Cuthbert all College.” (Hardy 234) Angel, however, took a different
direction than his brothers. He was very strong willed and more open minded, detaching from his
family canonical convictions. Angel “preferred sermons in stones to sermons in churches and
chapels on fine summer days.” (Hardy 210) He valued more than anything else the “intellectual
liberty.” (Hardy 171) Angel Clare who does not obey a formal religion, echoes Hardy’s views on
this subject. There is synchronicity between his ethical dilemmas and his literary output. The
attitudes of the British author towards religion were conflicted. It is impossible to associate
Hardy with a particular religion. He was christened in the Church of England. Religion occupied
an important place in his family. In his childhood he was attached to the church and attended it
frequently. His grandfather, father and uncle were part of the choir. As he grew up he was more
and more captivated by the religious realm and wanted to enter the Church. He had “a personal
faith that was ardent, orthodox, and evangelically inflected, hence fundamentally different in
order and magnitude.” (Wilson 72) Hardy’s beliefs significantly changed in the years that
followed, as he had distanced himself from the institutions created by men, preserving though a
firm conviction in a divine power. “His acute identification with the world’s suffering rendered
him incapable of belief in a benevolent, omnipotent God, and ultimately led him to conclude that
the Cause of Things must be unconscious, ‘neither moral nor immoral, but unmoral.’” (qtd. in
Wilson 74)
Angel was determined to pursue a career in the realm of agriculture, deciding to live for a
period of time at a dairy where he could learn practical skills. Reverend Clare was clearly upset
by his son’s decision, however he tried to conform to it. Knowing Angel’s plans to become the
owner of a farm, he saved some money to help him, money which he would have preferred to
spend on his education at Cambridge.
After few days living in the same place, Angel, immersed in his occupation eventually
recognized Tess, who until that moment kept the silence, hoping he will not remember her. She
was still worried that someone could discover her past, being condoned to a social isolation like
it happened in her native village. Her fear came true, although after a long time. Lots of things
were to occur to make the revealing of her tragic experiences from the past more dramatic and
devastating. In that stage, most probably Angel’s would have felt repulsion towards her
condition, considering his set of principles and his familial background. He already admired her,
the first words that came in Angel’s mind when he met Tess were “‘[w]hat a fresh and virginal
daughter of Nature that milkmaid is!’” (Hardy 177) As time passed and the two fell in love the
situation became problematic.
Tess was a strong woman with an independent rationality, proving that she is capable to
sustain herself. Angel was impressed by her delicacy, founding in her “that touch of rarity”.
(Hardy 182) He also appreciated her mature thinking, “[n]ot guessing the cause, there was
nothing to remind him that experience is as to intensity, and not as to duration. Tess’s passing
corporeal blight had been her mental harvest.” (Hardy 183) From the discussions they had, as he
was getting to know her better, he began nurturing feelings of appreciation, which soon after,
developed into an intense love. The super ego is structured into two parts: the conscience and
the ideal self, in other words it illustrates the conscience of the individual, as well as his
aspiration towards a perfect morality. (Smith/Fredrickson et al. : 662) The ideal self is
responsible for setting high standards by creating an imaginary projection of how things,
situations, as well as persons ought to be. Angel was idealizing Tess, being blinded by the joy
caused by the sudden appearance in his life of such an enchanting human being. “How very
lovable her face was to him. Yet there was nothing ethereal about it; all was real vitality, real
warmth, real incarnation.” (Hardy 220) Her angelic beauty affected his accurate perception of the
real situation. Angel was venerating the woman’s ideal. “[A]s he looked at the unpracticed mouth
and lips, he thought that such a daughter of the soil could only have caught up the sentiment by
rote.” (Hardy 186)
Tess lives at Talbothay the most beautiful period in her life. In this Edenic landscape she
encounters the symbolical Adam.
There was hardly a touch of earth in her love for Clare. To her sublime trustfulness he
was all that goodness could be—knew all that a guide, philosopher, and friend should
know. She thought every line in the contour of his person the perfection of masculine
beauty, his soul the soul of a saint, his intellect that of a seer. (Hardy 283)
Angel’s love for Tess makes her rise from the ashes, “her nature cr[ying] for his tutelary
guidance.” (Hardy 267) She lets the light enter her soul weakened by so many devastating
storms. However, the events from her past were not vanished, but continued to be part of her
until her death.
A spiritual forgetfulness co-existed with an intellectual remembrance. She walked in
brightness, but she knew that in the background those shapes of darkness were always
spread. They might be receding, or they might be approaching, one or the other, a little
every day. (Hardy 287)
Tess was exactly what Angel wished, a woman used with the chores and the activities a
farm implied and above all, with a spiritual verticality. That is why he refused his family’s
suggestion to marry Mercy Chant, a delightful young woman from his natal village, who had
high aspirations and religious inclinations. Alec was so fascinated by Tess that he never
questioned the decision to choose her form the other many girls who admired him. The days
passed and their feelings were more and more intense, Angel deciding to propose to Tess. To his
surprise, she refused him without thinking too much. Her past was a barrier in her pursuit of
happiness, her conscience not permitting her to dream of a husband and a happy family life,
imposing herself not even to think of a possible relationship with him.
With pain that was like the bitterness of dissolution she murmured the words of her in
dispensable and sworn answer as an honourable woman.
‘O Mr Clare—I cannot be your wife—I cannot be!’
The sound of her own decision seemed to break Tess’s very heart, and she bowed her
face in her grief. (Hardy 251)
 Although she loved him beyond words, it was excruciating for her to accept his marriage
proposal. Instead, she wanted to remain at that stage, because she encountered the man her soul
loved and was happy, after a long period of unrest. “Culture alone insists on marriage just as
society insists on virginity and the church insists on the subordination of the woman in
matrimony.” (Morgan 93) However, out of an impressive appreciation for him, she tried to
convince him that any of her three girlfriends from the farm, Retty, Izz and Marian, were more
suited to be his wife. “[S]he whom he really did prefer in a cursory way to the rest, she who
knew herself to be more impassioned in nature, cleverer, more beautiful than they, was in the
eyes of propriety far less worthy of him than the homelier ones whom he ignored.” (Hardy 217)
She was resigned to do this sacrifice, although she was feeling jealous at the thought that other
woman could be his life partner. However, what was tormenting her most was these girls’ purity.
Tess knew they had the freedom to dream at a bright future, while she trapped in her condition,
being aware that her future had already been settled after the scene from Chase forest. Tess’s
interactions with these girls, Retty, Izz and Marian, “highlight certain preoccupations and
conflicts in [her] that take place behind the scenes…in bedrooms and other domestic quarters,
out of the orbit of her menfolk”, this scenes illustrating “aspects of her character via the tone and
content of her own utterances and the perspective of other women.” (Morgan 101)
Tess repressed her feelings for Angel, avoiding as much as she could any interaction
with the man her soul loved. Angel did not understand the reasons why she was acting this way.
He had the conviction that Tess is the woman created after his heart and he wanted her to be his
wife, ignoring the difference The more Angel insisted with the idea of uniting their destinies
through marriage, the more painful was for Tess to bear the oppressing qualms of conscience.
Angel was so determined to make Tess be his wife that he did not give up when
confronting with her indecisiveness and cold attitude. “He little thought that the Magdalen might
be at his side.” (Hardy 192) At that time she was right to imagine him as the ideal man,
considering his many qualities and his principles of life. “His manner was ... so much that of one
who would love and cherish and defend her under any conditions, changes, charges, or
revelations, that her gloom lessened as she basked in it.” (Hardy 267) However, he was
dominated by a trait which blinded him to see all her many qualities, and instead focused on this
single aspect he could not tolerate. When referring to the pillars of a dream marriage, affection,
appreciation and protection, the author used the conditional tense to suggest the discrepancy
between Angel’s words and acts, contrasting his initial enthusiasm and his detachment towards
the end of the novel, which culminated with the decision to abandon his wife.
Tess as a fallen woman was something Angel could not tolerate, leading him to take a
radical decision to go in Brazil only few days after marriage. “Thus they lived through this
despairing day or two; in the same house, truly; but more widely apart than before they were
lovers.” (Hardy 354) Tess, mild like a lamb which does not oppose to its scarification, was
resigned with the situation, as the author tells that “there had been no exculpatory phrase of any
kind, and she had not wept.” (Hardy 332) Her beloved husband in whom she saw protection and
affection treated her merciless, reproaching her that “forgiveness does not apply to the case! You
were one person; now you are another.” (Hardy 334) Angel thought more about appearances and
the reactions of society towards this situation, than he thought at his wife’s suffering. “She
perceived in his words the realization of her own apprehensive foreboding in former times. He
looked upon her as a species of imposter; a guilty woman in the guise of an innocent one.”
(Hardy 335) He abandons Tess for her past, even though he was engaged in similar behaviour.
Tess explained her husband that she has sincere intentions and that she was a child when this had
happened, however her words were in vain because no words could change Angel’s
stubbornness. However, Angel regretted his impulsiveness when it was too late. His views on
this subject changed completely, returning to his wife after more than a year. He then valued her
as a pure woman and accepted her, but it untimely, because many things had happened in that
time. Tess, as an abandoned wife, struggled on the one side financially, working really hard to
sustain herself and also her family. On the other side, she was emotionally devastated and very
vulnerable. She reencountered Alec, who reminded her of a dark period in her life. Izz and
Marian’s letter gives an important advice to Alec, who because of his departure was judged as
being indifferent and unaware of his wife struggle.
Look to your Wife if you do love her as much as she do love you. For she is sore put to
by an Enemy in the shape of a Friend. Sir, there is one near her who ought to be Away. A
woman should not be try’d beyond her Strength, and continual dropping will wear away a
Stone—ay, more—a Diamond. (Hardy 575-6)
The history repeats itself and Tess was trapped again in Alec’s game. After many
discussions, he succeeded convincing her to come back to him. As it happened in her teenage
hood, he won her body, but clearly not her soul, because Tess always told him she does not have
any feelings for him. Tragedy in Tess of the D’Urbervilles results also from the bad timing. Tess
intersected with Angel when she was an innocent girl, but the two did not talk, returning few
years later. However the situation changed because in this time she met Alec who took advantage
on her inexperience. Angel abandoned Tess and she had no choice but to surrender to Alec who
persuaded her. His husband returns to her, to find his wife with his first lover and father of her
child.
“[T]he dissolute and amoral Alec and the ascetic and intellectual Angel stand in
essentially the same relationship to Tess. Angel, who plays the harp, and Alec, who wields a
pitchfork, are not the opposites that this would suggest, but rather complement one another.”
(Juliet and Simon xxiii) Alec saw Tess as his sexual object, seducing her and stealing one of her
most precious gifts, her virginity. He was aware that in his contemporary society, this quality
was very prized, being a prerequisite for getting married. However, he did what he wanted
without thinking at the consequences this irresponsible act would have upon her. Rosemarie
Morgan suggests that Thomas Hardy does not create archetypes, the characters he created were
complex, being difficult to decipher the true reasons behind their behaviour. (Morgan 98) Alec
helped Tess in many situations. From the first chapters he is presented as the wealthy relative
who offered her a job when she most needed, considering the miserable situation of her family
after their horse died. Tess planned to work the whole summer to repair the damage which was
done because of her fault, but she was exempted from this burden, because Alec did it before her.
The night when Tess and her cousin were in the Chase forest, he gave her coat, as she was
dressed too thinly for the cold weather, a little gesture which reflects his emotional implication.
He admitted loving her from their first encounters, although, unfortunate for Tess, is was a sick
love, which brought her only sorrow. Another episode in which Alec offered a hand to the
struggling Tess before being overwhelmed because of the heavy burdens she was wearing on her
shoulders, occurred towards the end of the novel. She was living a nightmare at Flintcomb Ash,
having to do a harsh labour at the field in an unfriendly environment, cold and humid. She was
exhausted both physically and spiritually. As an abandoned wife who wanted to overpass the
hardship without begging for help, in the hope of preserving the little dignity left. Tess had to
take care not only of herself, but also of her family, who after the death of John Durbeyfield,
remained on the streets.
 Michael Millgate discusses in Thomas Hardy His Career as a Novelist the theme of the
protagonist’s victimization. Several scenes throughout the novel reflect Tess’s suffering: the
massacre of the rats who remained isolated in a corner of the field at the end of the working day,
also the scene with the injured pheasants from the forest. (Milliegate 268) This last scene
illustrates her attitude of conformation in front of her tragic fate. Obidient as always, she never
complains and even in the most difficult periods of her life she tries to do it on her own, never
begging for help. As she was walking towards the centre of the country in search for a place to
work, a man who knew her past began teasing her. They had encountered before at a ...., when
Tess was with her husband. This man who recognized her from the beginning abstained from
revealing her controversial behavior. However, he ended up being punch in his face by Angel,
who thought he offended his wife. After all this events, he was clearly irritated. Tess, as a
helpless victim, foresees his bad intentions and realizes that the only solution is to run as fast as
she could. As the night was coming, she finds shelter in the forest, where she hears strange
noises. In the morning, she discovers she was surrounded by pheasants afflicted by a hunting
game, some of them dead and some less fortunate still agonizing. Tess, who before seeing the
struggling birds was revolting against her unfair and cruel fate, now was emphatizing with their
pain, realinzing that their existence is worse than hers. The only thing she could to to help them
was put an end to their suffering.
Poor darlings—to suppose myself the most miserable being on earth in the sight o’ such
misery as yours!’ she exclaimed, her tears running down as she killed the birds tenderly.
‘And not a twinge of bodily pain about me! I be not mangled, and I be not bleeding, and I
have two hands to feed and clothe me.’ She was ashamed of herself for her gloom of the
night, based on nothing more tangible than a sense of condemnation under an arbitrary
law of society which had no foundation in Nature. (Hardy 407)
The act of murder from the end of the novel is Tess’s ultimate scream of grief. Living
with the man she despised with all her heart just because of her helplessness, losing her self-
esteem and the hope of her beloved husband’s acceptance. “…[T]he gravity of female
criminality in particular was usually seen to involve what were called ‘crimes of morality’”.
(Patricia 26) Tess’s astonishing decission to murder Alec can be explained through the prism of
Sigmund Freud’s theories. The psychologist appreciated the theories of the German physician
Herman von Helmholtz, being highly influenced by him. Helmholtz found a connection between
physics and human nature in terms of energy. His theory focuses on the principle of the
conservation of energy, Helmholtz claiming that, similar to the objects from the realm of
physics, the individual is an isolated system whose energy is never wasted or created, but instead
takes different forms. The human being posses a psychological energy and according to the
principles of the conservation of energy the repression of an impulse perceived by the mind as
being prohibited, although redirected and under a different form, is trapped inside the boundaries
of conscience. All the individual’s desires are charged with psychological energy and repression
is not a solution for preventing their externalization. (qtd. in Smith/Fredrickson et al. : 663) After
the death of Prince Tess confronted with a deep sense of guilt, this event from her teenage hood
haunting her all her life and pushing her to take decisions she regrets. She constantly repressed
her feelings and lived with the impression that she needed to be punished.
Repression is a very common defence mechanism and is characterized by the exclusion
from conscience of the impulses and traumatic experiences, as well as memories of shame and
guilt. Repression is not the same with suppression, as the first term designates an unconscious
process and the second represents a state of conscious self-control. Freud believed that repression
is not an effective manner of easing the pain of negative emotions because there is a high
probability of them to return even after a long time. The individual might be puzzled by the
overwhelming thoughts which unrest his conscience, not knowing that they were kept inside him
all along. (Smith/Fredrickson et al. : 664)
It was a surprise to find that an increase in this Uncs. sense of guilt can turn people into
criminals. But it is undoubtedly a fact. In many criminals, especially youthful ones, it is
possible to detect a very powerful sense of guilt which existed before the crime, and is
therefore not its result but its motive… Criminal acts induced by the need for punishment
in turn beget a need for expiation, clearing the way for renewed expression of the need
for punishment, ad infinitum (qtd. in Martin).
The letter she addresses to Angel mirrors Tess’s emotional suffering: “Only come back to
me. I am desolate without you, my darling, O, so desolate!... Come to me—come to me, and save
me from what threatens me!— Your faithful heartbroken” (Hardy 492-4) When she met Angel
she felt the first time in her life love and protection. However, this dream vanished away soon,
throwing her into a dark abyss.
 The daylight has nothing to show me, since you are not here, and I don’t like to see the
rooks and starlings in the field, because I grieve and grieve to miss you who used to see
them with me. I long for only one thing in heaven or earth or under the earth, to meet
you, my own dear! (Hardy 493-4)
The ending scene from the novel presents Tess and Angel reunited, living on the run their
love story, knowing they would not be together for long, because Tess had to be punished for
murder. Michael Millgate comments that “Hardy goes as far as to introduce implicit comparisons
with Christ, especially in the anallogies between the scene at Stonehenge and the story of
Gethsemane.” (Milligate 268) Tess Durbeyfield, like Jesus, knew her end was coming, being
aware her persecutors were approaching, however, she did nothing to change the strictly
determinism. It is a highly dramatic scene in a symbolic location, Stonehenge, where sacrifices
were made in ancient times. “The eastward pillars and their architraves stood up blackly against
the light, and the great flame-shaped Sun-stone beyond them; and the Stone of Sacrifice
midway.” (Hardy 578) Tess, at the end of her rope, falls asleep on a stone, associated by Angel
with an altar. The scene shortly after the confession, in which Angel, while being sleep walking,
carried Tess in his arms and put her on an altar, wanting to bury her, is a preview for her last
scarification. Tess is put on the altar, just like Jesus, through the ministry of the priest offers
himself in the Mass, under the form of bread and wine, the Mass recalling the sacrifice on the
cross.
Conclusion

In her childhood, Tess was deprived from love and appreciation. In many cases she was
forced to take responsibility, because her parents fed themselves with illusions and relied solely
on providence. Consequently, she searched for support and guidance in Alec and Angel, but
what she received was nothing more than suffering. She never reached a state of peace,
wandering dejected like a pilgrim who never arrives at his destination. Until her last day of life
she wore her cross. Leaving the parental house uninitiated and vulnerable in front of the
numerous dangers society implied, Tess was caught between two men who destroyed her life.
Alec raped her, but Angel deserted her, both of them leaving her spiritually dead.
Thomas Hardy insisted upon Tess’s continuous sufferings, depicting her life as an
endless martyring. Although her reputation was stained with sins human laws regard as unmoral,
she distincted between flesh and soul and her purity can be defended on account of her
intentions. All her tears and gestures reflected an unblemished moral integrity.
After a life lived in more suffering than happiness, Tess receives her last punishment,
which she always saw as a relief. Society, with its multitude of facades and illusions of pretended
behaviors, has accomplished its purpose and persecuted her, who in their eyes was nothing more
than a fallen woman who committed murder. Undoubtedly, it was a harsh judgment for a poor
human being who never felt protection and love, who was martyred for her controversial actions,
which in fact were reflections of the other’s faults: her parents’ irresponsibility, Alec’s sexual
desires and Angel idealization. This last punishment was not as worse as one could think,
because in few seconds she escaped her miserable condition. The worst castigations she received
all her life were all the critiques, the distrust, culminating with the abandon. Death was not a
torture, but instead it symbolizes her libration.
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