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A review by sidharthvardhan
Tess of the D'Urbervilles by Thomas Hardy
4.0
At surface, it is a bit like another story of fallen woman like so many. And to be honest, Hardy is not best author when it comes to describing matters of heart. It is probably his drawing on rural life where his appeal lies.
This one is full of dualities that gather around titular character, Tess of the d' urbervellies. One side of dualities is represented by protagonist's first name, Tess (which appeentlt means 'harvest' - nature (she has a strong love for animals), innocence (Hardly repeatedly insists how innocent Tess is), pagan (Hardly eludes to pagan repeatedly including stonhenge, in fact you first see Tess in celebration of a pagan festival, she choses to bury her child in pagan fashion, if you must cry it aloud the great knight from which family descends is named Pagan), rural, poor, old and pure passion and intimacy (the love making or even pregnancy doesn't ruin a girl's innocence). on thehe other side are values represented by her last name, the exotic sounding 'd'urbervilles' - articficial/mechnical(Hardy doesn't like machines, Tess' rich Urbervilles aunt wants her to teach human music to birds thus wanting to force nature to bend to will of artificial), malicious, Christian (the questioning of Christian values got it censored), urban (At one point, a character argues that urban people can't digest pure milk anymore or something to effect), landed/rich, new (machines are evil) and the Christian marriage. The novel starts with Tess' father discovering that he has a last name of once influencial family - 'd'urbervilles'.
There is a reason why it is only Hardy novel named after protagonist. The arrival of this last name also marks the intrusion of later set of values and misery in Tess' life.
Uptill then her irriligious and even drunkard family is more or less well off - staying innocent (as Hardy explicitly insists) despite all that. The temptation to make a comfortable life out of this discovered last name becomes slow undoing of family- in beginng Tess' father still has pride and wants to live on his own hard work but slowly the family swallows this pride sending Tess to her rich aunt in expectation of first job/help or even marrige. By the end, he is just happy to beg to be maintained on charity like 'old ruins' that rich are so happy to maintain.
Another thing is Christian imagery that you see a lot in book. Tess is actually once compared directly to Eve by her cousin who is himself a Satan according to his own analogy. Despite his Christianity, Angel, who is Adam in this analogy decides not to 'fall' with his wife until very end and both are worse off for that. One annoying thing about this Adam and Eve thing is they are supposed to be ridiculously beautiful and their attraction to each other too seem to be based on nothing else but that.
The contrast between a marriage of pure love and a worldly Christian marriage is most clear - on one side is angel who is her husband only in name and still has her love and loyalty (if you ask me, Tess' loyalty to a husband who may never return seem to cause more sufferring to her than everytime else) and on the other hand is the cousin Alec who has had a child with her, with whom she shares her last name, who wants to financially keep her and live with her and later does too.
Tess, being inclined to first set of above mentioned dualities, is happy in just 'love making' (that is seriously a funny phrase) rather than actually marrying Angel and
later seess little authority as his Christian wife just because he put his name on a marriage certificate or took oaths in church once.
This one is full of dualities that gather around titular character, Tess of the d' urbervellies. One side of dualities is represented by protagonist's first name, Tess (which appeentlt means 'harvest' - nature (she has a strong love for animals), innocence (Hardly repeatedly insists how innocent Tess is), pagan (Hardly eludes to pagan repeatedly including stonhenge, in fact you first see Tess in celebration of a pagan festival, she choses to bury her child in pagan fashion, if you must cry it aloud the great knight from which family descends is named Pagan), rural, poor, old and pure passion and intimacy (the love making or even pregnancy doesn't ruin a girl's innocence). on thehe other side are values represented by her last name, the exotic sounding 'd'urbervilles' - articficial/mechnical(Hardy doesn't like machines, Tess' rich Urbervilles aunt wants her to teach human music to birds thus wanting to force nature to bend to will of artificial), malicious, Christian (the questioning of Christian values got it censored), urban (At one point, a character argues that urban people can't digest pure milk anymore or something to effect), landed/rich, new (machines are evil) and the Christian marriage. The novel starts with Tess' father discovering that he has a last name of once influencial family - 'd'urbervilles'.
There is a reason why it is only Hardy novel named after protagonist. The arrival of this last name also marks the intrusion of later set of values and misery in Tess' life.
Uptill then her irriligious and even drunkard family is more or less well off - staying innocent (as Hardy explicitly insists) despite all that. The temptation to make a comfortable life out of this discovered last name becomes slow undoing of family- in beginng Tess' father still has pride and wants to live on his own hard work but slowly the family swallows this pride sending Tess to her rich aunt in expectation of first job/help or even marrige. By the end, he is just happy to beg to be maintained on charity like 'old ruins' that rich are so happy to maintain.
Another thing is Christian imagery that you see a lot in book. Tess is actually once compared directly to Eve by her cousin who is himself a Satan according to his own analogy. Despite his Christianity, Angel, who is Adam in this analogy decides not to 'fall' with his wife until very end and both are worse off for that. One annoying thing about this Adam and Eve thing is they are supposed to be ridiculously beautiful and their attraction to each other too seem to be based on nothing else but that.
The contrast between a marriage of pure love and a worldly Christian marriage is most clear - on one side is angel who is her husband only in name and still has her love and loyalty (if you ask me, Tess' loyalty to a husband who may never return seem to cause more sufferring to her than everytime else) and on the other hand is the cousin Alec who has had a child with her, with whom she shares her last name, who wants to financially keep her and live with her
Tess, being inclined to first set of above mentioned dualities, is happy in just 'love making' (that is seriously a funny phrase) rather than actually marrying Angel and
later seess little authority as his Christian wife just because he put his name on a marriage certificate or took oaths in church once.