Tess of the d'Urbervilles

“If an offence [sic] come out of the truth, better it is that the offence come than the truth be concealed.” Thomas Hardy added these words in the introduction to the fifth edition of Tess of the d'Urbervilles.  He provided this quote from St. Jerome somewhat defensively, in response to the criticism he received for Tess prior to this edition.

Originally printed in serial form in two magazines during 1891, this novel underwent bowdlerization in order to be published. As a requirement of the publisher, Hardy changed scenes such as Tess’s [plot detail redacted], the baby’s [plot detail redacted], and Alec’s [plot detail redacted]. The process of changing the novel angered Hardy, but his financial need to publish the novel outweighed his negative feelings about doing so. The novel was also published in its entirety at the end of 1891. This novel caused such a controversy that Donald Hall (a 20th c. British poet) called this novel “a cause.” Considered a radical writer, Hardy included the lower social classes and the plight of women, and he wrote about them in a provoking and defiant manner. Scientists, such as Charles Darwin, and social thinkers, such as John Stuart Mill, affected his thoughts and writings. Writers rarely wrote about these subjects in such a way during Victorian times.

The Victorian teachings and attitudes victimize Tess, despite the fact that she possesses high morals and standards. The aim of this paper is to show how Hardy illustrates this in many ways. Her familial, social, and economic backgrounds provide the reader with a perspective of living as a poor woman during the Victorian Era. Another means by which Hardy underscores the unfairness of life for a poor woman during these times is two men who victimize Tess: Alec d’Urberville and Angel Clare. According to Patricia Strubbs, “It is when [Hardy] shows men and women shaped or bound in their relationships by external events, by class, or by environment that Hardy is at his most compelling. He is then showing us what it means to live in a particular time in a particular kind of society.”

Tess feels an immense amount of responsibility for her poor family. Although an endearing quality, this feeling of hers presents a great handicap also. Hardy characterizes the head of the family, Tess’s father, as a “slack-twisted fellow, [having] the good strength to work at times; but the times could not be relied on to coincide with the hours of requirement . . . .” Living as peasants offers enough problems, but a man like John Durbeyfield can only hinder Tess’s family more. Not only lazy and poor, he drinks a lot, spending his few shillings at the local pub, Rolliver’s. An ignorant and superstitious woman, Joan Durbeyfield, Tess’s mother, offers no help to Tess either. She makes decisions about her household and family after she consults a magazine, the Compleat Fortune-Teller. She not only reads and believes this magazine, she thinks its presence in the house overnight will bring bad luck, so it is carried to the outhouse after consultation. Most poor, rural folks believed superstitious things such as this during these times.  Hardy illustrates the hopelessness that the children of the Durbeyfield household could ever dig their way out of their pitiful social and economic status. For the Durbeyfield children, these two particular adults provide little hope of ever climbing out of their socioeconomic class. According to Anne Mickelson, Tess is “trained from childhood to fit herself for an inferior role, [and] she becomes early in life a prisoner to her sense of responsibility and duty to family."

When John Durbeyfield learns that he is descended from an “ancient and knightly family,” having no one around with “grander and nobler skillentons in his family” than himself, Tess’s life changes dramatically. Tess’s family pushes her into approaching the rich d’Urberville family in Trantridge. Her ignorant parents think their families are related and, as a result, might possibly receive financial help from this hopeful kinship. Tess has received an education, referred to in the novel as “Sixth Standard in the National School under a London-trained mistress.” This education makes Tess painfully aware of her family’s status. She desires a teaching career, but family responsibilities prevent her from pursuing this. During the times represented in this novel, people from rural societies didn’t have much education. City dwellers had more education than country people, and men had more education than women.

Victorian readers would've seen the differences in the culture from the time of Joan Durbeyfield to Tess’s. The country women taught their daughters about men and life through ballads, superstitions, and folklore, and had even less education compared to the little schooling that Tess has received as the novel opens. This meant that the old, folkloric ways of the mother drastically differed from Tess’s education. Judith Weissman tells us, “To Hardy’s readers, . . . the word education is likely to have a holy sound, but it is by no means entirely beneficial in Hardy’s novel."

Through the use of Victorian social taboos, the bleak picture of a poor social and economic background, and two Victorian men, Hardy has enabled readers of many different societies and eras to feel compassion for this girl and to learn something about history. In the words of Peter Casagrande, “Hardy’s originality in Tess lies precisely in his refusal to adopt constraining norms, whether artistic or theological.” Over a hundred years after the publishing of this novel, readers have enjoyed, learned, and been intrigued because of a radical writer who fought against the pressure to conform to Victorian standards through his character—a poor, oppressed woman named Tess Durbeyfield.

Adapted and edited by Mr. Ireland from "Tess of the d’Urbervilles: Born At the Wrong Time," by Kathy Newkirk