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Tess of the D’Urbervilles

Thomas Hardy

Start date: February 1, 2014

Finish date: February 28, 2014

Discussion: February 2014 - Tess

Why we're reading this: Tess of the d’Urbervilles and other novels, Hardy demonstrates his deep sense of moral sympathy for Engla…more
[close] Tess of the d’Urbervilles and other novels, Hardy demonstrates his deep sense of moral sympathy for England’s lower classes, particularly for rural women. He became famous for his compassionate, often controversial portrayal of young women victimized by the self-righteous rigidity of English social morality. Perhaps his most famous depiction of such a young woman is in Tess of the d’Urbervilles. This novel and the one that followed it, Jude the Obscure (1895), engendered widespread public scandal with their comparatively frank look at the sexual hypocrisy of English society. (Taken from http://www.sparknotes.com/lit/tess/co...)

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February 2014 - Tess

Angel vs. Alec
By Lindsey · 6 posts · 111 views

last updated Feb 26, 2016 02:27AM

Movie/TV Adaptations
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last updated Oct 21, 2015 10:49AM

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What Members Thought

Aug 15, 2009 Xrusanthi rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: books-i-love, read-in-2012

This is the story of Tess, a country girl that when she was 16 years old she was seduced by a man and she ended up loosing her husband and her life for that 'sin'.
This sounds a simple story, but Thomas Hardy is an amazingly gifted writer and he manages to turn this melodrama into a real classic.Tess is beautiful and innocente and she remains to the end of the book.
Tess' character is based on a contradiction. She is not stupid, on the contrary she is intelligent and she has great insticts, she d This is the story of Tess, a country girl that when she was 16 years old she was seduced by a man and she ended up loosing her husband and her life for that 'sin'.
This sounds a simple story, but Thomas Hardy is an amazingly gifted writer and he manages to turn this melodrama into a real classic.Tess is beautiful and innocente and she remains to the end of the book.
Tess' character is based on a contradiction. She is not stupid, on the contrary she is intelligent and she has great insticts, she dislikes Alec d'Urbevilles from the start, and she is quite educated for a poor country girl and as the writer says she could have been a teacher if her father hasn't been informed of his great lineage. However, she sometimes acts like a very silly girl and I do not mean that she let her self be seduced, on the contrary she tried really hard to avoid it, but of the blind affection and devotion to her unworthy husband.
I like Tess, although sometimes I wanted to bitch slap her really hard but I have the excact sentiments for my best friend too sometimes, she is innocent, sweet, so good-natured that everyone especially her family took advantage of her, intelligent, but she was born in a world where women had the fault for everything that was wrong. She was only guilty of loving passionately and blindly and being ful of guilt for mistakes that wasn't hers to begin with. I mean her parents send a little, innocent, uncostomued to the ways of the world girl to a stranger's home without the little bit warning of what may happen in a fruitless chase of riches and grandeur and she get's seduced by him and has his baby. How is that her fault?
What really annoyed in Tess was her choice of husband.Poor excuse of a man if you ask me. I can definately see she was so smitten by him, since he represented everything that Alec wasn't and at the beggining when he though her a perfect, pure child of the nature he cruely abandonded her. Not that I make excuses for Alec, but I do prefer him to Angel and I so wish that she could have come to love him and forget all about Angel. Yes, he was a bad apple and he admitted and he tried to make ammends and marry him and he seemed to love her. Angel was all big words, but when he realised that Tess was not the dreamlike fairy he was thinking of, she was only a human being who had suffered terribly and unjustly he cruely abandoned her. He pretended to be open-mind, a sceptic better than his father whom accused of dogmatism but he acted far worse than any dogmatist could ever act. At leats Alec was true to himself and to others he never said he was any good.
I have specificly avoid to speak of Tess' murder and I call it seduction, because in my opinion Hardy deliberatly avoided to give any details. In my opinion, the writer didn't mean this to be a rape but a seduction. Judging from all talk about morality and how it is a social construction in compbination with his apparent fascination of Nature and knowing that hormones, impulses and sex is a part of it I am inclined to believa that this was never meant to be a rape. Tess was a girl whose misfortune was to live in a world where being passionate was a deathly sin and that Alec was a scroundel who was giving into his impulses without any consideration of their consequenes since his position and wealth protect him from them.
It is a sad book, not depressing though because it is so well written, and Hardy was ahead of his time in his way of thinking and he describes the human sentiments and confusion so well that I could recognise some of my reactions in Tess. I totally recommend it.It is an absolute must read and the only reason that di not give it 5 stars is out of anger I so wanted Tess to be happy and Angel condemed in knowing what he lost, and bitch slapped too. ...more

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Dec 30, 2011 Lisa rated it it was amazing

I absolutely loved this book from beginning to end and am sorry it took me 46 years to get around to reading it. Reminds me a bit of Romeo and Juliet in that Tess and Angel seem to be somewhat star-crossed lovers. The larger problem was that Angel could not see the error of his ways until it was too late. My heart broke for Tess. Yes, I did just say that. I am sad for her in a very real way. Thomas Hardy made Tess and Angel both very real; it was easy to feel empathy, anger, hope, fear, etc. for ...more

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