Tess of the d'Urbervilles

Hardy writes Tess as a victim of fate. This disallows the reader to blame her for the things that happen to her. Much of the critical debate surrounding Tess centers on this very point: Is Tess a victim? Are the things that happen to Tess beyond her control or could she have fought her way out of her circumstances? Could Hardy have written her out of her troubles or did his fatalistic approach to the novel force him to ultimately sacrifice Tess? Further, is Hardy’s approach to the novel and its main character truly fatalistic? In this essay, I will explore these questions according to the doctrine of fatalism by showing that fate is present through chance and coincidence, and the manifestations of nature, time, and woman.

Fatalism is defined in Webster’s Dictionary as “the doctrine that all things take place by inevitable necessity.”(175) Fatalism is the idea that all actions are controlled by fate, a primitive force that exists independent of human wills and outside of the controls of power of a supreme being such as God because God ultimately has no power; he is a creation of man who granted him his power. Since He

Now we turn to the question of whether or not Hardy could have saved Tess or if he believed that fate had determined his choices. There were chances throughout the novel for Hardy to give Tess a break and throw her a bone. He chose not to do so. Critic Arnold Kettle see this decision as a necessity: “Tess’s death is artistically as inevitable as Juliet’s . . . She is up against a social situation that she can do nothing to resolve except tragically, with drastic human loss.”(23) It seems that if Hardy was to have been true to his art, he had no choice but to kill Tess. In an interview with Hardy, Raymond Blathwayt asked, “Why does Tess have such a sad ending?” Hardy replied by saying, “I hate the optimistic grin which ends a story happily, merely to suit conventional ideas . . . When I got to the middle of the story the characters took their fates into their own hands, and I literally had no power.”(388) His response supports my initial assertion, Hardy is a fatalist and !

. . . the misfortune of Tess, her seduction, was in conformity with

thers and had instead followed through on her plans to visit her parents, she probably would not have met Alec again and her entire life would have been changed.

Other characters seem to buy into the idea of fate as well. At the dairy, Angel chooses Tess over the other dairymaids who love Angel as much as she does, but the dairymaids can’t be mad at Tess because it is fate which has made the choice: “ ‘Are you sure you don’t dislike me for it?’ said Tess in a low voice. . . ‘I don’t know, I don’t know.’ murmured Retty Priddle. ‘I want to hate ‘ee; but I cannot!’ “That’s how I feel,” echoed Izz and Marian.”(12)

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