LATE VICTORIANISM AS THE ECHO OF MODERNISM: A MARXIST FEMINIST

READING OF THOMAS HARDY'S TESS OF THE D'URBERVILLE A PURE

WOMAN FAITHFULLY PRESENTED
By Patrick Arthur MBA ABESSO (patrickmbaabesso@gmail.com )

University of Douala, Department of English and Foreign Languages (PO BOX: 3132
DOUALA; E-MAIL: univdlaflsh@gmail.com)

TABLE OF CONTENT

ABSTRACT……………………………………………………………………………………2

1. INTRODUCTION AND BACKGROUND……………………………………………3

2. ANALYSIS………………………………………………………………………….…4

2.1. Tess as a victim of objectification……………………………………………...3

2.2. Tess as a victim of failed marriage….…...…………………………………..…5

2.3. Tess and the Loss of family members… …………………………….……...…6

2.4. Tess as a victim of reification …..…………………………………...…………7

2.5. Tess Executed………………………...…………………………………...……7

CONCLUSION………………………………………………………………………………...8

WORK CITED…………………………………………………………………………………9

ABSTRACT

The modern trend of literature has its roots in the late Victorianism, especially with the
outcomes of social class stratification and the high influence of patriarchy. Thomas Hardy, as
one of the most famous Victorian writers, is reputed for echoing the modern bleakness, horror
and pessimism in his Victorian texts. Indeed, Thomas Hardy is a Victorian thinker who had
been foreshadowing modern ideologies in Victorian texts. His works therefore already have
some modern pessimistic ideologies shared by modern scholars. So, his novel entitled Tess of
the D’Urberville: A Pure Woman Faithfully Presented is one of these texts that foreshadow
the modern horror and bleakness. This paper will explore both the Victorian and modern
issues in the book understudy, concomitantly. This is to illustrate the Victorian age as the age
of hallmarks of the modern conditions.

Keywords: Victorianism, Modernism, Marxism, Feminism, Thomas Hardy, Tess of the

D’Urberville

1. INTRODUCTION AND BACKGROUND

Victorianism is that was characterized by the stratification of social classes, the industrial
revolution and a very big influence in the socio-political lives of humans. Pertaining
modernism, it is a twenty-first century general trend that was characterized by the bleakness
of life, disillusionment, secularization and a total break from the traditional ideas. The late
Victorian age is known as an age or era that foreshadows the horrors, misfortunes and
bleakness of the modern age. It is a transition between the Victorian age and the modern one.
It announces the ideas that will be well discussed in the modern era (fate, suffering as the
human existential condition, bleakness and sorrow as the essence of life): that is why it is
considered the echo of modernism. Thomas Hardy is a late Victorian writer who is of
mistaken to a modern writer because his Victorian writings reflect or echo modernism. Both
in his poetry and his prose, he denies the existence of God, echoing the general secularization
of the modern world, asks existential questions and considers human life, in The Mayor of
Casterbridge, as “a general drama of pain” in which happiness may rarely and accidentally
occur. All these make u an echo of modernism expressed in the late Victorian age. Just like
many others Hardy novels, Tess of the d’Urberville is a late Victorian novel that announces
the modern life condition: sorrow. This is the book that will be analyzed in the light of
Marxist feminism, which is a branch of feminism that investigates the exploitation of women
not only by patriarchy but also by capitalism. Officially published in 1891, in the late
Victorian period, Tess of the d’Urberville was written against the backdrop of the immoral life
encouraged by industrial revolution and the patriarchal status quo in England, wherein lower-
class member (especially women) had their fates and destines shaped by the capitalists and
the patriarchal status quo. The Victorian age was a period in which being from a lower-class
made one’s life essentially bleak; and then, being at the same time female and lower-class
member made one’s life doubly bleak and sorrowful. So, the hypothesis here is that: in the
light of a Marxist feminist, in this novel by Hardy, the systemic operation and cooperation
between the capitalists (in industrial revolution) and patriarchy (in everyday social life) make

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the life of women, bleak; fating them to be bound to suffer; and that bleakness (the difficulty
of being alive) echoing modernism.

2. ANALYSIS

Thomas Hardy’s Tess of the d’Urberville depicts Victorian issues that echo the
advent of modernism. Indeed, Hardy’s concern in this novel is the presentation of social
injustices, which represent the main plague of the Victorian period; followed by, and resulting
in a bleak life, general drama of pain, or the difficult of being alive, which is the very concern
of the age modernism. Tess, the protagonist, is bound to suffer; her life is quite bleak despite
her hard work, responsible attitudes and fairness. She is bound to be suffer from the errors and
immorality of both men and capitalists. Hardy presents her life as a general drama of pain,
announcing so, the modern era. Out of the cooperative action of both patriarchy and
capitalism, the life of Tess, the innocent girl has become a general drama of pain. She is
always the victim and the loser. Her life is full of misfortunes: she experiences objectification,
she underwent marriage failure because of being tagged as a fallen woman; she loses family
members, she loses her job and ends up being executed.

2.1 Tess as a victim of objectification

The concept of objectification (women sexual objectification) was theorized by Barbara

Fredrickson and Tomi-Ann Robert Thomas, to denounce the usage of women as sexual
object. Hardy’s novel is an echo of modernism because it depicts the life of the protagonist as
essentially bleak. The first suffering and misfortune faced by Tess is objectification. She is
viewed by male member of the upper class a sex object. Indeed, Alec D’Urberville is a young
man from a noble and wealthy family asks Tess out and believes that Tess must comply,
because he is from the upper class and she is from the lower class. When Tess refuses, Alec
rapes her to assert his power as a male upper-class member. So, she underwent that rape and
could not help herself to ask for justice, because it is totally unbelievable that, in a Victorian
society, woman, (especially from a lower class), asks for judicial prosecutions against a man,
especially an upper-class man (a male capitalist). This rape is the departure of Tess for her
adventure into the war of horrors and suffering. Although the book doesn’t clearly mention

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that Tess was raped, the circumstances in which the ordeal happens let understand that it was
a rape. The fact for Alec to take her to a secrete place while the girl was expecting her to be
taken home is an indication that the girl wasn’t part of the plan. She just underwent She
suffers from that traumatizing ordeal, while she is not responsible for that. Even before the
rape,

Tess experienced difficulties with the young upper-class man, Alec, who considered
her an object. As powerful as he feels he is Alec punishes Tess every time she refuses his
advances. Tess is left alone, abandoned by Alec on the way from Marlott to the d’Urbervilles,
because she refused to kiss the man when he said: “let me put on little kiss on those
holmberry lips, Tess, or even on that warmed cheek _ and l will stop” (41). She suffers from
that objectification, in which Alec saw her as a sexual pleasure tool. So, when she tries to
avoid him, she gets punished in one way or another. Hardy presents Tess’s life here as an
echo of modernism: a life without happiness but full of difficulties and misfortunes

2.2 Tess as a victim of failed marriage

Another misfortune in the life of Tess the failure in marriage. Tess finds herself being
a prey to misfortunes everything she decides to do finally turns out to be bad despite the good
intentions she always has. Marriage in the Victorian era was the only fact that made women
earn some little respect. So, losing a marriage was a sort of bad luck. As explained by Kamel
Tahri in his thesis entitled The Fallen Woman must die: “In this period, marriage was mostly
regarded one of the best important points in woman's life. Since marriage was considered the
first and the last chance for woman to figure out her social issues in daily life” (6). Yet the
impact of both patriarchy and capitalism removed that happiness of marriage from Tess. Tess
is tagged a fallen woman. This means a woman who has lost her virginity, who had sex out of
marriage. Although she was raped, the society doesn’t care about it. The only thing that is
regarded is that she is no more “pure” and therefore should not get married. This was a
patriarchal norm in the Victorian. As for men, having sex out of marriage is not a problem.
As a male middle-class person, Angel Clare cannot forgive Tess and decides to abandon her.
Yet, Tess had never chose to have sex with Alec. She was sexually assaulted by an upper-
class man. Now she is being rejected for that as if she was the actual person who caused it.
This is a very terrible fact in Tess’s life. She is very sorrowful and confused. A very big
misfortune. Tess spends her life struggling to have some respect and help her family, yet the
outside world, the society in which she lives has laid all the ideological boundaries that will
always bring her down and make her life a drama of pain. The absence of happiness in Tess’s
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life announces the bleakness of modernism. In other words, the monotonous and bleak life
described in Albert Camus’s The Myth of Sisyphus (one of the manifestoes of modernism) is
actually foreshadowed by Hardy through the presentation of helpless, unhappy and bleak life
of Tess Duberfield.

In terms of marriage, Tess is not a happy person. She even ends up getting back to her
rapist Alec after being rejected by Angel Clare. This shows how traumatized she had been
after the rejection by Angel. Tess is simply an innocent woman to whom the world is quite
unfair. Because of honesty, Tess is being rejected. After revealing her past, Angel says he
forgives her but forgiveness isn’t all. Then he abandons her. He is a man and from social class
that is higher than that of Tess. As a result, he makes decisions that destroy the life of Tess:
“If I can bring myself to bear [as Fallen woman] if it is desirable, possible, I will come to you.
But until I come to you it will be better that you should not try to come to me”. These words
are very painful for a person who thought she was doing the right thing (revealing secretes to
have a peaceful life). Owing to honesty, Tess is abandoned. And goes back to her parents
where she meets other more striking problems. She suffers from various pains caused social
injustices organized by both capitalism and patriarchy.

2.3 Tess and the Loss of family members

Sexual objectification suffering and the unhappy marriages are not the only problems
faced by the protagonist. Indeed, she has lost family members. Indeed, before her own death,
Tess witnesses the bitterness of seeing her family members passing away. It is important to
note that some of these deaths are caused by the poverty of the family, which in turn is the
caused by the capitalist mood of the society. The very first person who dies is Sorrow after
being sickly since his birth. What is noteworthy here is that sorrow is actually the image of
Tess’s life: a life of a curse, abomination, suffering and tragic death. Sorrow is a baby from
rape, outside marriage, so it is an abomination in that society. As a result, the parson refuses
to bury him. Tess herself ends up burying her baby, after baptizing him: “sorrow, I baptize
thee in the name of the father, and the son and the Holy Spirit” (78). The life of sorrow is
actually a metaphor to that of his mother: after being sickly since birth, sorrow dies earlier
without even experiencing life. In the same way, his mother’s life is but a general drama of
pain since the time she started communicating with the external world (with men and the
capitalists) the drama of pain will never end until she dies very young. In the Victorian,
Hardy, through his masterpiece, built a foreshadow what the modern horrors, sufferings and
deaths
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 Apart from Sorrow, Tess also loses her father. The extreme poverty in which Tess and
her entire family cannot prevent Mr. Duberfield to pass away. Tess goes from one misfortune
to another. After being abandoned by Alec, her husband, Tess is told by Liza-Lu that Mrs.
Joan is about to die. Tess comes home to understand the matter, but suddenly and
unexpectedly Mr. Duberfield dies. This death is a very impacting misfortune in Tess’s life. It
is important to note that the father would not have died, had the family got enough money for
the treatment. Just after his death, the Duberfields are evicted from the house. This causes
more trauma to Tess who, being the eldest child, should struggle to make her family have a
comfortable life. Unfortunately, the more she will struggle in life, the more she will be falling
into pits and abysses of problems and misfortunes. The capitalists, members of the upper-class
own money and power, using them to maim the members of the lower class and women. The
families of the lower in reverse have no means. The life of Tess, as described by Hardy is
becoming difficult. This suggests that life goes from good to bad, from bad to worse and then
from worse to the worst stage. The drama of pain increases overnight. This characteristic of
Tess’s life is a direct forecast of the advent of the modern horror. This thus echoes modernism
and the quality of living conditions in the modern era.

2.4 Tess as a victim of reification

Life has totally been wicked and unfair to Tess. Tess goes to work at Trantridge, in the
house of Mrs. D’Urberville an upper-class woman, Tess is not welcome at all. Mrs.
D’Urberville is not happy of receiving Tess. Instead, she directly starts assigning works to
Tess. This wonder’s Tess who was thinking that Mrs. D’Urberville will be happy to see her.
Here, Tess understands that she is not even considered a human being; rather she has been
reified to a labour force, an object meant to work. She has been reduced to an object whose
only performance and expression is work. Working in the D’Urbervilles’ estate was her fate,
not even a duty. This treatment, and the behavior of Alec frustrated the young girl, who ends
up leaving the estate, after being raped by the son of the tyrannical upper-class woman. Mrs.
D’Urberville more about her animals than she did for humans. She sees Tess as an
impoverished girl. She abruptly talks to Tess from the first contact: “Mrs. D’Urberville
abruptly asked Tess, wrinkling and twitching her face into undulations: ‘can you
whistle?”(45). this shows that Tess is not as important as the work she is to do. Tess was an
innocent lady who is just and righteous but every in chains. Tess leaves Trantridge and her job
at the d'Urberville home. In fact, the adventure of Tess in Trantridge was essentially bleak.
She had horrible moments there. That treatment is part of Tess’s bleak life experiences.

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2.5 Tess executed

After undergoing all these traumatic and facts, Tess is arrested for having murdered
her rapist. Indeed, the capitalist and patriarchal actions had set ideological restrictions that
spoiled, destroyed and killed lower-class women. These restrictions, after making the life of
Tess a general drama of pain, had finally turned her into a rebel who reacts and revolts against
her oppressors. Yet, after murdering Alec, she is caught by the police and executed the last
words she utters to Angel before being taken for the execution: “I have had enough, and I
cannot live for you to despise me” (330). Tess’s end is the biggest suffering that surpasses all
the sufferings she had been experiencing. Indeed, it is the tragedy that closes the drama of
pain in which she was living. This simply means that, for Hardy, is a series of troubles and
sufferings, which end with a tragedy. This happened to Sorrow, who had never been healthy
during his entire journey in the world, but very quickly returned, dying from the physical
sufferings and agonies. This is one of the phenomena that echo or foreshadow modernism in
the novel. In modernism

CONCLUSION

Although written, published in the Victorian age and being considered a Victorian
novel, Tess of the d’Urberville is a novel that echoes the advent of modernism. It represents
indeed a transition from Victorianism to modernism. With this end of view, Hardy uses his
expertise to merge both Victorian issues and a foreshadowing of modern life conditions.
Concretely, Hardy depicts the operation and cooperation of both patriarchy and capitalism
(which are the some of the main Victorian issues), to expose their impacts on the lives of
those who are neither patriarchs nor capitalists. The echoes of modernism is evident in this
text because the main the subject matter, the themes and even the characterization that
Thomas Hardy used in this play have to do with bleakness, suffering, death, poverty,
wickedness… which are the main issues depicted by modern writer as a cause of
disillusionment. This validate the assumption that in the light of a Marxist feminist, in this
novel by Hardy, the systemic operation and cooperation between the capitalists (in industrial
revolution) and patriarchy (in everyday social life) make the life of women, bleak; fating them
to be bound to suffer; and that bleakness (the difficulty of being alive) echoing modernism.

WORKS CITED

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Hardy Thomas. Tess of the d’Urberville. 1891

Hardy Thomas. The Mayor of Casterbridge. 1886

Tahri Kamel. The Fallen Woman must die. 2016

Camus Albert. The Myth of Sisyphus. 1942