Tess’s Rebellion

Aug.17^th,1994

    Tess of the d’Urbervilles is one of the Hardy’s most popular masterpieces. Although it was finished on the turn of the century, it still has its charming influence and special significance in the society. Especially when we re-read it, we find sth new needed to consider more. Traditionally it’s regarded as a novel about a fallen-woman who is treated wrongly. She is a passive victim of her family and the society, and ‘much is made b critics of the passive Tess who yields to circumstance and fate’ ⁽¹⁾. ‘The pure girl is betrayed by her family and circumstance’ ⁽²⁾. Yet with the development of feminism, we find that it’s full of feminist thought in the novel. Therefore we can’t say Hardy is a feminist, yet his work speaks out his vindication of women. Somebody suspected that it was from a woman. “What Hardy denounces in his creation of Tess, a sexy woman, is intellectually vapid or morally ‘loose’, or as many Victorians believed, deseeded in body and mind”⁽³⁾. He tries to show us that Tess is not only healthy in body, but in mind. She has no sin. She is A Pure Woman. ‘It is the combination of sexual vigour and moral vigour that makes Tess not just one of the greatest but also one of the strongest women in the annals of English literature’ ⁽⁴⁾.

    From the very beginning Hardy gives us a vivid Tess—‘physical, active Tess’⁽⁵⁾. Although she has her weaknesses, she is brave, independent girl as a whole. Tess first appears in the countryside dancing, young and attractive when Angel, a young man who passes here, leaves. She feels sorry because he doesn’t choose her as a partner ‘though she might have had plenty of partners’ ⁽⁶⁾. The first scene gives us an impression that Tess is full of physicality. In fact ‘she might have stayed even later, but the incident of her father’s odd appearance and manner’ ⁽⁷⁾ makes her return home to help her mother to look after her siblings. After making all the children in bed, she has to go out into the dark street to fetch her parents who are in inn now. Tess makes them home by ‘holding one arm of her father and Mrs. Durbeyfield the other’ ⁽⁸⁾. Until 11 o’clock Tess goes to bed only to undertake her family’s marketing requirements. From here we can say it seems that Tess is the real head of the family. She takes charge of the family life, although she herself is only 16. Her strong character is shown clearly. Then because of the accidental losing of their horse, she thinks only what she could do to help’ ⁽⁹⁾ her family out. When her mother wants her to ‘claim kin’ ⁽¹⁰⁾, the first reaction of Tess is rejection. ‘I shouldn’t care to do that’. ‘I’d rather try to get work’ ⁽¹¹⁾ and dress in ‘stuff frock’ ⁽¹²⁾. She is ready to work. She tries to do everything by herself. No wonder that Alec calls her ‘Miss Independent’. Now she begins to face life. As soon as she finds her pregnant, she decides to leave regardless of Alec’s persuasion. She responds that ‘I will not take anything more from you, and I will not—I cannot! I should be your creature to go on doing that, and I won’t!’⁽¹³⁾ ‘If I loved you still, I should not to loathe and hate myself for my weakness as I do now!’⁽¹⁴⁾. Then she openly insults him by resting her eyes ‘upon the remotest trees in the lane while the kiss was given’ ⁽¹⁵⁾, following that ‘I have never really loved you, and I think I never can’. ‘Perhaps, of all things a lie on this thing would do the most good to me now; but I have honour enough left, little as’ is, not to tell that lie. If I did love you I may have the best causes for letting you know it. But I don’t ⁽¹⁶⁾. Alec shrugged his shoulders and says,’ That’s what every woman says’. Tess’s retort is more violent. She cries, ‘How can you dare to use such words!’, turning impetuously upon him with her eyes flashing as the latent spirit awoke in her. ‘I could knock you out of the gig! Did it never strike your mind that what every woman says some women may feel?’⁽¹⁷⁾. Tess is not every woman. ‘Alec may have appropriated her body but her spirit remains self-governing and unyielding!’ ⁽¹⁸⁾. Tess can’t ‘get Alec in the mind to marry her!’ ⁽¹⁹⁾. Then she leaves, begins to experience her hard life. Soon she bore the child and raises him. Yet her little Sorrow is unlucky. She herself baptizes her baby and buries him. At the baptism we ‘perceive something of her powers of spiritual regeneration, her capacity to utter herself new and free from guilt’ ⁽²⁰⁾. Her ‘defiant act of baptizing her illegitimate child is the purest act of grace and loving-kindness’ ⁽²¹⁾. She bravely ‘utters the words of redemption over her child’ ⁽²²⁾. She says goodbye to the past, moves to a new place where she begins a new life. Now Tess is a matured woman. At the wedding-night Tess tells her story calmly, ‘without flinching’ ⁽²³⁾ no tears. Even Angel is ‘shocked at her self-possession, at her lack of remorse for her ruin, at her lack of self-pity or self-abasement’ ⁽²⁴⁾. It is him, instead, who withers and cowers. So Tess argues ‘ I thought, Angel, that you loved me—me, my very self!... Having begun to love ‘ee, I love ‘ee forever—in all changes, in all disgraces because you are yourself. I ask no more. Then how can you, O my own husband, stop loving me?’ ⁽²⁵⁾. Then she calms down and says ‘in her natural tones, the dry voice of terror having left her now’ ⁽²⁶⁾. They reach an agreement. Tess goes back home. They depart. Tess doesn’t want to live with Angel without his forgiveness. She herself wants to face life. ‘She, with her rebounding spirits, vibrant sexuality and self-determination, had created herself a new, had risen above her past where Angel is still victim of his’ ⁽²⁷⁾. Here ‘Hardy’s denunciation of a mythology which prescribed the fallen woman sick and sickening from the day of her ‘fall’ comes full circle in the wedding night scene, where, with a bitter, satiric twist, the legitimate marriage partner becomes the myth-maker’s agent’⁽²⁸⁾.

    Then another more violent confrontation comes. Alec comes again to trace Tess. What Tess says is ‘punish me! Whip me, crush me; you need not mind those people under the rick! I shall not cry out. Once victim always victim—that’s the law!’ ⁽²⁹⁾. What a brave Tess! Before saying that, Tess has ‘passionately swung the glove by the gauntlet directly in his face. It was heavy and think as a warrior’s’ ⁽³⁰⁾. There Hardy shows us Tess’s power which ‘surpasses the narrowly sexual’ ⁽³¹⁾ because we know ‘she was the only woman whose place was upon the machine’ ⁽³²⁾. Yet Tess has to return to Alec for her family. But in her last letter to Angel, she cries, ‘why have you treated me so monstrously, Angel! I do not deserve it. I have thought it all over carefully and I can never, never forgive you! You know that I did not intent to wrong you – why have you so wronged me? You are cruel, cruel indeed! I will try to forget you. It is all injustice I have received at you hand!’ ⁽³³⁾. Thus Tess keeps on rebelling, looking for herself, self-determination, till the killing comes.

    Tess’s whole life is a struggle, struggle for life, for love, for her own rights. Yet for a woman at that time, it’s quite difficult. Anyway Tess tries and she doesn’t regret. That’s why she can face the execution calmly. As a human being she gives her love and receives love. She takes action according to her will. Therefore her life’s still worthy though the end is a tragedy. Just as Hardy wrote, ‘Tess is a pure woman. She only fights for her rights. After reading the novel, what we can feel is furious. We all hope Tess should have a good result because she is a good woman. Even from modern point of view, Hardy gives us a unique, fierce, diverse, mystical and sexy figure.(6305字符)

Notes:

(1) (3) (4) (5) (18) (20) (21) (22) (24) (27) (28) (31) Sexuality of Hardy’s women

(2) George Watt, The Fallen Woman in the Nineteenth Century English Novel, Croom Helm. London, 1984

(6) (7) p29, Tess of the d’Urbervilles

(8) P38, Tess of the d’Urbervilles

（9）P45，Tess of the d’Urbervilles

(10) (11) () P46, Tess of the d’Urbervilles

(12) P47, Tess of the d’Urbervilles

(13) P87, Tess of the d’Urbervilles

(14) (17) P89, Tess of the d’Urbervilles

(15) (16) P90, Tess of the d’Urbervilles

(19) P94, Tess of the d’Urbervilles

(23) P240, Tess of the d’Urbervilles

(25) (26)  P243, Tess of the d’Urbervilles

(29) (30) P346, Tess of the d’Urbervilles

(32) P348, Tess of the d’Urbervilles

(33) P372, Tess of the d’Urbervilles