Tess of the DUrbervilles 1891 STUDY QUESTIONS MILLENNIUM

Tess of the D’Urbervilles (1891) STUDY QUESTIONS MILLENNIUM 2 P. 87

1. Try o summarize the story. • This novel tells the story of a young woman, Tess, the eldest daughter of a poor Wessex pedlar*, who finds out he is the descendant of a famous ancient family, the D'Urbervilles. After the death of their horse, the only family asset, Tess goes for help to a rich supposed relative, Alec, who abuses her. A child is born, who dies after a few months. Some years later, while working as a milkmaid on a large farm, Tess falls in love with Angel Clare, a clergyman's son, who is training on the farm, and accepts his proposal of marriage. Wishing to inform him of her past, she sends him a letter, which, however, never reaches him. After their marriage, on the wedding night, she confesses her past experience to him, begging forgiveness. But Angel, shocked and disillusioned, abandons her and goes to Brazil. Alone and poor, she becomes a field worker, always hoping for her husband's return. But one day she meets Alec (who, in the meantime, has become an itinerant preacher) and, driven by the distressed conditions of her family, becomes his mistress, after Alec has renounced his preaching. When Angel returns regretful from Brazil, she murders Alec in desperation. After a brief happy period of concealment with Angel, she is finally arrested (while symbolically sleeping on the sacrificial stone at Stonehenge), tried and hanged. • * pedlar = A person who goes from place to place selling small items.

2. What themes of Hardy can you find in “Tess”? • The role of chance in starting a series of events in which the individual is trapped, as if in some implacable mechanism; • The pressure of social environment and conventions; • The responsibility of society in frustrating the individual’s striving for goodness and happiness. 3. Why is the novel subtitled “A Pure Woman”? • The subtitle stresses Hardy’s disagreement with current Victorian morality, according to which Tess was to be considered a “fallen woman”. In choosing this subtitle Hardy meant that a woman could keep her purity and innocence even if she had been raped. Tess is not guilty but just the poor victim of a hypocritical society. 4. What kind of narrator does Hardy make use of? • A third-person omniscient narrator, who occasionally puts in his opinion on life. The tone is that of a detached observer.