The Woman Pays from Tess of the DUrbervilles

“The Woman Pays” from “Tess of the D’Urbervilles” by Thomas Hardy (1891)

SPEAKING 1. “The Woman Pays” is the title given by Hardy to this phase. How do you think Tess will pay for her “sin”. • She will be obliged to give up her dream of a life of joy and love with Angel Clare GUIDED ANALYSIS 1. Read up to line 29. • Angel’s state of mind is described through his actions and only secondly through his words. Highlight in the text all expressions showing Angel’s reaction: Angel’s actions • • • “Clare performed the irrelevant act of stirring the fire” (l. 4); “He rose to his feet” (ll. 5 -6); “He looked vacantly at her” (l. 17); “He turned away and bent over a chair” (ll. 21 -22); “he did not answer” (l. 27). Angel’s words • “When he spoke it was in the most inadequate, commonplace voice of the many varied tones she had heard from him” (9 -10); • “Am I to believe this? From your manner I am to take it as true. O you cannot be out of your mind! You ought to be ! Yet you are not …. My wife, my Tess – nothing in you warrants such a supposition as that? (ll. 13 -15); • “Why didn’t you tell me before? Ah, yes, you would have told me, in a way – but I hindered you, I remember!”. (l. 17 -19)

• “ These and other of his words were nothing but the perfunctory babble of the surface while the depths remained paralyzed”. (ll. 20 -21). 2. Read up to line 52. a. More than once Angel stresses, through words and actions, his conviction that the Tess he knew and the one in front of him are two different people: Angel’s words • “You were one person; now you are another” (ll. 31 -32); • “I repeat the woman I have been loving is not you” (l. 50); • “Another woman in your shape” (l. 52). Angel’s actions • “He paused…. then suddenly broke into a horrible laughter – as unnatural and ghastly as a laugh in hell” (l. 34 -35); • “He did not answer” (l. 38); • “He shook his head” (l. 41); b. Sum up the contents of the first part of the passage, then say whether you find Angel’s behaviour consistent with the way of thinking of 19 th century society. • At first, Angel’s state of mind is one of speechless apathy then he speaks with a neutral tone, which hides his inner turmoil. He seems astonished and struck by Tess’ words as if he thought the woman who has spoken them could not be the one he has just married. Then he breaks into a horrible

laughter at the absurdity of the situation. Angel appears to be egoistic and, at the same time, afraid of conventions. His words are certainly coherent with the Victorian moral code which stated that a woman must keep her “honesty” till her marriage, while a man was allowed to have previous love affairs. The breaking of social conventions by a woman could not be forgiven. 3. Read up to line 86. a. Tess appears to be a woman deeply in love who, in utter despair, pleads forgiveness, ready to do anything not to lose her husband. Highlight the expressions that show: Tess’ despair • • “Terror was upon her white face as she saw it; her cheek was flaccid, and her mouth had almost the aspect of a round little hole” (ll. 55 -57); The horrible sense of his view of her so deadened her that she staggered” (ll. 57 -58); “without knowing where she was” (l. 61); “the violence of the grief” (l. 70).

her feeling of unworthiness • • “Angel, am I too wicked for you and me to live together? ” (l. 73); “I shan’t ask you to let me live with you, Angel, because I have no right to” (l. 75); her total submission to Claire • • • “No, I shan’t do anything, unless you order me to” (l. 80); “and if you go away from me I shall not follow ’ee’” (ll. 80 -81); “and if you never speak to me anymore I shall not ask why, unless you tell me I may” (ll. 81 -82); “I will obey you like your wretched slave, even if it is to lie down and die” (l. 84) Tess submission testifies to her deep love for Angel. In her terror of losing him, she even proclaims her unworthiness (“I have no right to!” and renounces her right to be loved only for her very self, that she had asserted before (“I thought, Angel, that you loved me, - me, my very self” l. 46). By doing so, she accepts to submit to Victorian moral code and be punished for her “fault”. • • • b. What is the irony in Angel’s words in lines 85 -86? • He perceives a contrast between Tess’ present utter submission and her past unwillingness to tell him everything about her life, as if she wanted to be sure to get married before telling him the truth. As a matter of fact, on the eve of their wedding Tess had tried to tell him about her past by slipping a written note under his door, but he had failed to find it.

4. Read to the end. • The passage ends, as it started, with narration. Both characters are silent but another clue is given to the reader to understand the struggle in Angel’s heart. Quote from the text and explain in your own words. • “a tear descended slowly upon his cheek, a tear so large that it magnified the pores of the skin over which it rolled, like the object lens of a microscope” (ll 9193); The huge “tear” descending Angel’s cheek is a symbol both of his deep suffering and of his impotence to break social conventions and forgive the woman he still loves. •

• Writing NES 5. Why should Tess “pay”? Do you think that her “being punished” is consistent with the Victorian moral code? Explain. (maximum 200 words). • Hardy’s treatment of theme of the “fallen woman” in his novel “Tess of the D’Urbervilles” clearly shows his criticism of the accepted moral standards. The pressure of conventions and social environment was in fact very strong on women in Victorian England. They were confined to the family world and working for a living exposed them to risk of ruining their reputation, as happens to Tess when she is raped by Alec D’Urberville. The passage well exemplifies the hypocrisy of Victorian morality in the double code of behaviour designed for men and women. While Tess is ready to accept her husband’s love affair before marriage, the Victorian code of behaviour is so deeply rooted in Angel that he cannot even consider Tess as a victim, but puts all the blame on her: the “fallen woman” has to pay for her ‘sin’ and be ‘punished’ with rejection. In the novel all the stages of her degradation are described. As women were utterly dependent on men for a living, Angel’s cowardice, and consequent desertion, throws Tess back in the arms of her seducer, and her few moments of happiness, after Angel’s return, will have to be paid for with her death. (199 words). • • •

• Writing NES 6. Comment on theme of the “fallen woman” also considering how it is dealt with in Hardy’s “Tess of the D’Urbervilles” and Hawthorne’s “The Scarlet Letter”. (maximum 150 words). • In Victorian England women had to be pure and morally superior to men; marriage was for life; sex was unmentionable; women’s role in society was irrelevant. Whenever a novel depicted deviation from the accepted moral standards, the appropriate moral lesson had to be firmly underlined, so that in the end the “fallen woman” was seen to be punished. In fact, Victorian society women had to take their “responsibilities” and pay for their “evil” behaviour: Victorian society would not forgive them. The moral code which is easily recognisable in Victorian England through Thomas Hardy’s “Tess of the D’Urbervilles” is also to be found in Puritan New England through Nathaniel Hawthorne’s ”The Scarlett Letter”. Both novels exhibit in different ways and different historical periods the prejudice against women of a society that was by no means ready to recognise its own responsibilities. (140 words) •