She is a moral woman.
In the country side education in those days wasn’t brilliant so for a country girl Tess was very smart, she was even going to be a teacher,
“Tess had passed the Sixth Standard in National School under a London- trained mistress.”
Not having a lot of money or much else Tess still has a lot of pride so much pride that even when she is at her lowest she still wont ask for help. She was too proud to ask Angels parents for money. Although when her father had died and her family was in so much poverty Tess had no other choice but to take money off Alec but her family was the only reason why she did this her goodness over- ruled her pride and stubbornness.
Although pride did stand in the way when Angel was going to leave her pride wouldn’t let her beg him to stay and maybe if she did beg he may have stayed,
“… If Tess had been artful, had she made a scene, fainted, wept hysterically… he would probably not have with stood her… Pride, too, entered into her submission…”
After a while desperation does over rule pride and stubbornness like when she writes to Angel begging him to come back or even just to hear from him,
“I long far only one thing in heaven or earth or under the earth, to meet you, my own dear! Come to me- come to me, and save me from what threatens me! Your faithful heartbroken Tess.”
During the course of Tess’s life she experiences a lot of bad luck and fate. There are many things in her life that happen that no one should experience. Her whole life is made up of bad experiences and she cant do any thing to prevent them happening because it is has fate and no one can mess with fate.
Her father was walking down the road and was told by a man that he’s actually a D’Urberville but they are all dead. As it happens there was one family of D’Urberville’s left but what they didn’t know that, that family (Alec and his mother) had bought the name.
When Angel Clare and Tess first saw each other at the may dance, he was choosing who he wanted to dance with he chose someone else,
“He wished that he had asked her; he wished that he had inquired her name. She was so modest, so expressive, she had looked so soft in her thin white gown that he felt he had acted stupidly.”
If only he had chose Tess and they had danced together maybe they would have fallen in love and then she wouldn’t have to experience any more bad luck.
If the light on her cart hadn’t have gone out and if she hadn’t of fallen asleep as the mail cart was travelling along Prince wouldn’t have died which meant that her father was out of a business. Tess blamed her self and felt she had to help her family by going to clam kin.
“The children cried, all except Tess. Her face was dry and pale, as though she regarded herself as a murderess.”
When Tess first met Alec he gave her some strawberries and insisted she ate them from his hand this was a for warning of him raping her by forcing the strawberry on her,
“No-no!”
she said quickly, putting her fingers between his hand and her lips.
“I would rather take it in my own hand.”
“Nonsense!”
he insisted; and in a slight distress she parted her lips and took it in.
There was a lack of help from her mother, Tess didn’t know the facts of life and wasn’t warned about how dangerous men are. Tess was very naive and men and sex.
“She had never wholly cared for him, she did not all care for him now. She had dreaded him, winced before him, succumbed to adroit advantages he took of her helplessness; then temporarily blinded by his ardent manners, had been stirred to confused surrender awhile: had suddenly despised and disliked him, and had run away.”
When Tess was working at the dairy it was probably the only time she was really happy, and her life only got worse,
“Tess had never in her recent life been so happy as she was now, possibly never would be so happy again.”
Tess really did loved Angel so much,
“Clare knew that she loved him- every curve of her form showed that- but he did not know at that time the full depth of her devotion, its single- mindedness, its meekness; what long suffering it guaranteed what honesty, what endurance, what good faith.”
As Angel was leaving Tess he saw Iz (a maid at the dairy) he asked her if she loved him more than Tess did and she said no,
“Because nobody could love ‘ee more than Tess did! … She would have laid down her life for ‘ee. I could do no more.”
Angel first fell in love with the pureness and virginal persona of Tess. When Tess told Angel the truth he could not forgive her.
“O Tess, forgiveness does not apply to the case! You wire one person; now you are another.”
Tess hadn’t done anything wrong because she was raped, but she thought she ought to be punished,
“I agree to the conditions, Angel; because you know best what my punishment ought to be; only- only- don’t make it more then I can bear!”
The last letter she sent to Angel was different to the others; instead of asking him to come back and how much she loved him it was totally the opposite. She did not deserve to be punished and wrong like Angel had done,
“… You know that I did not intend to wrong you- why have you wronged me? You are, cruel indeed! I will try to forget you. It is all injustice I have received at your hands!”
Alec owns Tess he is her master. She is his possession he desires her and properly doesn’t even love her,
“Remember, my lady, I was your master once! I will be your master again. If you are any man’s wife you are mine!”
Through desperation she felt the only way to escape Alec was to kill him, and that the only way he would leave her alone was if he was dead so she murdered Alec and Angel helped Tess run away.
Tess felt betrayed by men and especially Alec because he lied to her,
“I hate him now, because he told me a lie- that you would not come again; and you have come!”
Stone Henge is where they sacrificed animals to the Gods. It is fitting that they are found on Stone Henge because she is a sacrificial victim, sacrificing her self to be with Angel. With fate and her bad luck the police found them.
“But Tess, really tired by this time, flung herself upon an oblong slab that lay close at hand…”
Tess D’Urberfield was later hanged for the murder of Alec D’Urberville.
Thomas Hardy believed our destiny was mapped out and that the Gods toy with us.
“Justice was done, and the President of the Immortals
…had had ended his sport with Tess.”
There is nothing we can do to change our future. It is our fate and we must deal with it.
Fate- met Alec again
Bad luck- seen by housekeeper
Housekeeper finds them- bad luck
Bad luck- Baby sorrow dies not christened Rape- fell pregnant with Alic baby Loss of baby her baby was weak
Bad luck- angel comes back
Fate- too late she had already gone back to Alec
She writes angel many time but he ignores the letters until it is too late
Angel could have saved her fro
