Thomas (Thomas Hardy in general)

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Product:	Thomas Hardy in general
Date:	05/10/00 (11 review reads)
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Tess of the d'Uerberville is in my opinion one of Thomas Hardy's best book. It's about a tragic heroin, who's life is 'blighted' like the stars. Her social class, society, her fate all 'doom' her. When she reluctantly goes to 'claim kin' she meets trouble. Alec Durberfield, who embodies money, the higher social class, who sues his superiority against her, exploiting her, and eventually raping away. Whether she was raped or not, it doesn't really matter, her innocence is taken away, and leads to her downfall. Her baby dies, and rumours in the village spread.

Again, she sets on a journey, this time to a natural environment, a dairy, where she finds happiness, and agrees to marry Angel Clare, but her conscience plays on her mind, and on her wedding night she tells Angel Clare about her past. He comes from a strict family, a religious family, and cannot forgive her, forcing Tess to go back home. Her drunken father dies, and she is forced to go back to Alec for the sake of her family, but when she realises that Angel wants her back, she kills Alec. But the reader get a sense that justice is done, when Tess and Angel are re-united at the end, and Tess is hanged.

The story-line is very good, but what is more pleasing abut this novel is that you get a a lot of Hardy's own views. He doesn't like society looking down on people, he dislikes strict morality, and he emphasises the importance of money, as it is money which Tess goes to claim, and he emphasises the dying breed of the peasant class.
There is some brilliant imagery, when Tess is at the natural environment, she finds happiness, the season is summer, and their is plenty of 'milk, in contrast to the end when she leaves the milk is 'running out'

Read the book a couple of times, and you will understand it more. Tess is a victim, but of what?

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