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A review by smileysunflower
Tess of the D'Urbervilles by Thomas Hardy
1.0
Eyyyy what the fuck I absolutely hated that.
What a deplorable piece of fiction. There were absolutely no real characters there, and I swear to God, Thomas Hardy has never met an actual human, especially a human woman. For a feminist book, this book spread a lot of sexist messages. The plot was forced, the characters were either plot devices that had no mind of their own or just really horrible people, and it had a lot of tropes of older writing that I hate (like long passages that are overly detailed but for no absolute reason; I don't mind long passages, but when they literally can be taken out without any change, then there's a problem.)
Anyone who thinks this book is empowering didn't properly read it or otherwise can't properly interpret the sexist tropes it implies, the worst of which having to do with that goddamned ending- the only real thing that Tess can do as a character other than work and cry, is killing Alec towards the end. Which would've been empowering, if she wasn't mostly doing it for Angel's sake. Sure, she said she owed it to Alec because of his raping of her, but like... she no way would've done it if it also wasn't for Angel. Everything in her life revolves around Angel. She isn't a person, she is just whatever the men in her life define her as. And then she ASKS ANGEL'S FORGIVENESS for what sins SHE COMMITTED.
To it's credit, it does blame Angel for the bad things he does, but he gets no consequences for it other than Tess dying, which really is more of her consequence, and he doesn't really have to beg for forgiveness from her because even though she said that she wouldn't forgive him, of course she did. Heck, she even KILLED for him. And of course, the ending is "tragic" but really I don't feel a thing for these characters.
Also are we not gonna talk about how every female character is in love with Angel to the point of killing themselves? What riveting feminist literature, all the women are either stupid/simple (like Tess's mother) or they're head over heels obsessed with boys.
What a deplorable piece of fiction. There were absolutely no real characters there, and I swear to God, Thomas Hardy has never met an actual human, especially a human woman. For a feminist book, this book spread a lot of sexist messages. The plot was forced, the characters were either plot devices that had no mind of their own or just really horrible people, and it had a lot of tropes of older writing that I hate (like long passages that are overly detailed but for no absolute reason; I don't mind long passages, but when they literally can be taken out without any change, then there's a problem.)
Anyone who thinks this book is empowering didn't properly read it or otherwise can't properly interpret the sexist tropes it implies, the worst of which having to do with that goddamned ending- the only real thing that Tess can do as a character other than work and cry, is killing Alec towards the end. Which would've been empowering, if she wasn't mostly doing it for Angel's sake. Sure, she said she owed it to Alec because of his raping of her, but like... she no way would've done it if it also wasn't for Angel. Everything in her life revolves around Angel. She isn't a person, she is just whatever the men in her life define her as. And then she ASKS ANGEL'S FORGIVENESS for what sins SHE COMMITTED.
To it's credit, it does blame Angel for the bad things he does, but he gets no consequences for it other than Tess dying, which really is more of her consequence, and he doesn't really have to beg for forgiveness from her because even though she said that she wouldn't forgive him, of course she did. Heck, she even KILLED for him. And of course, the ending is "tragic" but really I don't feel a thing for these characters.
Also are we not gonna talk about how every female character is in love with Angel to the point of killing themselves? What riveting feminist literature, all the women are either stupid/simple (like Tess's mother) or they're head over heels obsessed with boys.