To what extent are the outcomes of 'Tess of the d'Urbervilles' and Anouilh's 'Antigone' attributable in each case to the personality of the heroine?

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Joanna Lowe        Page         5/4/2007

A comparative essay of ‘Tess of the d’Urbervilles’ and ‘Antigone’

To what extent are the outcomes of ‘Tess of the d’Urbervilles’ and Anouilh’s ‘Antigone’

attributable in each case to the personality of the heroine?

Tess of the d’Urbervilles and Antigone are both about a female protagonist, an eponymous heroine, who commits a crime and is then led to her unjustly death. Tess was written in 1891 by Thomas Hardy, set in Hardy’s Wessex whereas although Anouilh’s “Antigone” was written in 1951 it has no set period, as an up-dated version of the original Greek play by Sophocles. The novel and play were written around sixty years apart and are of completely different genres yet are similar in the fact that both texts follow the fortunes and misfortunes of their heroines. Although there are many noticeable similarities between the two characters of Tess and Antigone, there are several distinct differences between them as Anouilh uses a chorus to narrate the story in Antigone, Hardy uses authorial intervention to discuss the inevitability and pre-destined events in Tess’s life.  This essay is to assess how much the personalities of the heroines of each story contribute to their outcome.  

“Tess” tells the story of the daughter of a poor and dissipated villager, who learns that he and his family may be descendants of the ancient family of d’Urberville. Tess is sent off in search of work at the d’Urberville mansion where she encounters Alec d’Urberville who later seduces her, and she bears his child who dies in infancy. Working as a dairymaid, she falls in love with and marries Angel Clare, a clergyman’s son. On their wedding night, she confesses her seduction to Angel who cruelly abandons her and after many hardships, she returns to Alec as his mistress. When the reluctant Clare returns to find Tess with Alec he prepares to leave once more, and in desperation, Tess stabs Alec and kills him. After an interlude in the countryside with Angel, Tess’s flood of anguish and despondency is ended when she is arrested and then hanged, “The President of the Mortals…has ended his sport with Tess”.

For Tess, there was nowhere really for her to go. She couldn’t have had a career to speak of, only to become a farmer’s wife, nor could she have moved away from her village and family without a husband, as that would have been seen as inappropriate. It would have been presumed that Tess’ life would have become very much like her mother’s: she would have married, become a mother, and lived as a housewife. Tess is an extremely complex character as she is both unapprehending peasant yet and an educated woman as she speaks two languages; that of her home dialect and of educated English. She acts according to nature and is still aware and sensitive to social practice. A victim, she is also a murderess. Just by looking at her, you would be unable to perceive all of these different aspects of her and the novel is written around the dangers of misunderstanding her as Angel and Alec so frequently do. The behaviour of the two main men in Tess’ life cause Hardy to refer to the thought of Tess being ill fated and that she was destined to live a life of misery.

The circumstances to which Tess is born into, that of a working class family complete with her hapless parents seems to pre-destine Tess’ future, but she marries above her station and this reflects the time at which the novel was written. The reader’s eye always seems to be drawn to Tess, as Hardy always points her out to be “the most flexuous and finely drawn figure of them all” when among and compared to her peers and her work is described intimately and in detail. It is made obvious that Angel is wrong to idealise over her although Hardy places Tess above other women in her class, and in moment of intensity its noticeable that she seems to live a life out of the bounds of everyday life.

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Phase the first openly displays the knock on effect of events of fatalism. It opens with Parson Tringham telling Tess’s father Jack Durbeyfield of his ancestors, the noble d’Urbervilles. That afternoon, Tess is out with her friends and begin dancing on the village green, when three brother approach and one of the joins in. This brother is Angel Clare and although he doesn’t dance with Tess he later regrets it. In celebration, Jack goes to the pub and gets drunk, leaving Tess to have to go to the market the next day, but unfortunately, she falls asleep and a ...

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