Tess of the D
Thomas Hardy, one of the greatest Victorian novelists and the author of Tess D'Urbervilles, was born June 2, 1840, in the village of Upper Bockhampton, located in Southwestern England. His father was a stone mason and a violinist while his mother had had a passion for music, enjoying reading and relating all the folk songs and legends of the region. Between his parents, Hardy gained all the interests that would appear in his novels and his own life: his love for architecture and music, his interest in the lifestyles of the country folk, and his passion for all sorts of literature. He lived close to rural life and Wessex was the fictionalized region of southwest England in which Hardy set all of his fiction. Although industrialization had made the north of England and the region around London prosperous and modernized in the late nineteenth century, southwest England was still rural, agricultural, and quite poor. Hardy, who grew up and lived in the region, was particularly interested in showing the ways in which Wessex was caught between its old, traditional culture and modernization. Considered a radical writer, Hardy included the lower social classes and the plight of women, and he wrote about them in a provoking and defiant mann
Above all, the novel criticizes the strict Victorian moral code, with its bias against women and the lower classes. In this novel, readers can not only enjoy the timeless tale of the maiden who goes to the wood and comes back a maiden no more; but also perceive a savage indictment of the hypocrisy of Victorian social values. While feeling deeply the author’s moral sympathy for the lower classes, especially women, readers also appreciate his skill as a writer of descriptive and imaginative prose, making his attack upon the prejudices of gender and class as compelling to read today as when it first appeared in 1891. In a word, Tess D'Urbervilles is a great success to Hardy as well as the entire British literature history and I suggest all of us read it and try to feel what the master led us to, with all our heart. What I want to say most about this novel is purity. Purity, both sexual and moral, is a significant concept in Tess of the d'Urbervilles. It is used throughout the story with reference to Tess, and the subtitle of the book regards her "A Pure Woman." (Even one of the inns where her father drinks is called "The Pure Drop"). When applied to women in Victorian England, the concept of purity had specific reference to sexual chastity. By this definition, Tess’ early losing her virginity has already deprived her of the right to be called "pure." Nevertheless the word is still applied to her. Hardy considers Tess "pure" because, despite her bodily state, she is morally pure and innocent, uncorrupted by her hard life. The second stage of the novel concerns Angel. At the Dairy, Tess meets the intellectual and free-thinking son of a clergyman Angel Clare, with whom she falls in love with her whole being. But she is in dilemma, being accused by her own conscience while feeling she should tell
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Approximate Word count = 1221
Approximate Pages = 5 (250 words per page double spaced)
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