Tess of the d'Urbervilles
by Thomas Hardy
Justice was done, and the President of the Immortals, in Aeschylean phrase, had ended his sport with Tess.
Why read it
A poor country girl is sent to claim kinship with a wealthy family, and a single act of violence on a moonlit night sets a chain of ruin she never earned.
Hardy follows Tess Durbeyfield as fate, class, and a hypocritical morality close in on a young woman who is more sinned against than sinning. Subtitled 'A Pure Woman,' the novel was a direct assault on Victorian double standards about female virtue.
Hardy had to cut and soften parts of the novel to get it serialized in 1891 before restoring them for the book edition the same year. Its sympathetic portrait of a 'fallen' woman scandalized readers, and the controversy helped push Hardy to abandon fiction for poetry after Jude the Obscure.
- 01
Purity redefined
Hardy insists Tess remains pure in spirit, challenging a morality that condemns the victim.
- 02
The weight of class
The fantasy of noble ancestry becomes the very trap that destroys a poor family.
- 03
Indifferent fate
Chance and coincidence, not divine justice, govern Tess's fortunes.
- 04
The double standard
Angel Clare forgives himself easily but cannot forgive Tess the same past, exposing male hypocrisy.
Tess confesses her past to Angel Clare on their wedding night, and he, who has just confessed a similar past, abandons her.
The novel ends at Stonehenge, where Tess lies down on an ancient altar stone as the authorities arrive to take her.
