摘要
托马斯哈代在文学史上有着杰出成就。他不但是英格兰最伟大的现实主义文学家,同时也是十九世纪现实主义与二十世纪现代批评文学的重要领导者。《德伯家的苔丝》作为短篇小说家哈代的文化杰作,它以英格兰维多利亚时代的为历史背景,描述了英格兰西部农村少女苔丝德伯菲尔德遭到资产阶级社会破坏后的凄惨命运。而悲惨故则贯穿了全文的每一个角度,从悲惨的命运结局给出了作者尝试从整个社会、个人和家庭等方面,作者从主观因素三个角度分析苔丝的悲剧命运,揭示了在甚至最,但也不能实现其自由作为一个女人,对当时社会环境的阴暗面进行深入的研究,在一定程度上丰富了这一领域的研究。
文中描述的苔丝是一位农民家庭出身的女子。而他也用丰富的语言描写了一个贫困家庭女子的一生。作者也通过书写女主角的遭遇揭示了在那个时代资本主义制度对人们的迫害。而自这部小说出版以来，国内外学者对它的研究层出不穷,而研究者们也站在不同的视角对它进行了深刻解读。苔丝的人生是悲惨的。处于当时的社会中，苔丝的生活是没有值得别人所羡慕的方面的。她的善良又自卑的性格以及来源于社会许多方面的压力导致了她最终走向悲剧。尽管获得了短暂的幸福却也只是昙花一现。关于女主人公苔丝的悲剧命运，一方面来自于社会，例如传统的社会伦理道德和资本主义的迫害，她的家庭背景和她的父母也是促使她悲剧形成的重要原因。而另一方面则来自于她的自身性格。既有主观因素也包含客观因素。本文会向我们提供关于造成苔丝悲剧命运原因分析的补充。
本文立足于《德伯家的苔丝》，共分为四个部分，第一部分对作者托马斯哈代与作品内容、国内外相关研究等内容简单叙述，第二部分从爱情悲剧、命运悲剧两大方面对苔丝的悲剧结局加以剖析，第三部分具体分析苔丝悲剧命运的具体原因，从社会角度、家庭角度、苔丝的个人角度深入分析，第四部分对全文进行总结。
关键词：苔丝；悲剧成因；资产阶级；贫困
Abstract
Thomas Hardy has made outstanding achievements in the history of literature. He is not only England’s greatest realist writer, but also an important leader in nineteenth-century realism and twentieth-century modern critical literature. Tess of the d’Urbervilles is a cultural masterpiece of Hardy, a short story writer. It is set in the Victorian era of England, and describes the tragic fate of Burfield in western England after the destruction of bourgeois society. And tragic story through the every Angle of the full text, from the tragic fate the author try from the whole Chinese social factors, personal and family factors, the author from the subjective factors three analysis Tess tragic fate, reveals in even the most, but also can’t realize its freedom as a woman, the dark side of the social environment, to a certain extent, enrich the research in this field.
Tess described in the text is a woman from a peasant family. And he also used rich language to describe the life of a woman from a poor family. The author also reveals the persecution of people by the capitalist system in that era by writing about the heroine’s encounter. Since the publication of this novel, scholars at home and abroad have studied it one after another, researchers have also made a profound interpretation of it from different perspectives. Tess’s life was miserable. In the society at that time, Tess’s life had no enviable aspect. Her kind and inferiority complex character and the pressure from many aspects of society led to her eventual tragedy. Despite the short-term happiness, it is only a flash in the pan. On the one hand, Tess’s tragic fate comes from society,such as traditional social ethics and capitalist persecution. Her family background and her parents are also important reasons for her tragedy. On the other hand, it comes from her own character. There are both subjective and objective factors. This article will provide us with a supplement to the analysis of the causes of Tess’s tragic fate.
This article is based on Tess of the D’Urbervilles, which is divided into four parts, the first part is a simple description of the author Thomas Hardy and the content of the work, related research at home and abroad, the second part is analyzed from the two aspects of love tragedy and fate tragedy, the third part analyzes the specific reasons for Tess’s tragic fate, from the perspective of society, family, and Tess, and the fourth part summarizes the whole text.
Keywords：Tess; causes of tragedy; bourgeoisie; poverty
1 Introduction
Hardy often wanted to state the inherent inevitability of this tragic story through the magical signs of death and curses of death. Among them, Tess of the D’Urbervilles is the most classic Victorian work in his heart. At the end of the 19th century, the Italian British company rapidly recovered and developed after the third industrial Revolution, and has gradually become the largest manufacturing power in the world. With the rapid development of the industrial revolution society, it also broke the new order of social life in the traditional rural communities in England, and further broke the traditional new methods and old practices of social survival formed between farmers and women in the rural and pastoral areas.
Thomas Hardy, puzzled to see the changes in the period, published the German family of Tess in 1891. The book describes the multiple effects of industrialization and urbanization on the ancient rural Wessex region, and the resulting social and human problems. On the other hand, due to the change of social structure, the change of traditional ethical values and the change of rural economic status, the material civilization and spiritual life of the original agricultural community are also destroyed, so that the traditional moral concepts and patriarchal beliefs increasingly tend to disintegrate in the original rural area.
However, the feudal patriarchal system itself can not be fully run and construction, the whole capitalist society surface seems to be thriving and developing, but it has tended to be broken, disorder, chaos.Therefore, the standard Divorce Act, officially passed by the British government in 1857, also included a double standard. The husband and wife can only be unilaterally prosecuted for her husband’s adultery, but the husband and wife can also be prosecuted for the husband under specific circumstances of betrayal, domestic violence, incest or other sexual abuse. Even if a husband and a wife cannot be condone by her husband, the wife can be condone for her adultery.These double standards also reflect the imperfect and imperfect social legal system and ethical beliefs at that time.
2 Literature Review
Tess of the d ‘Urbervilles, written by Hardy, has long been commented on and has become a classic recognized by the world. The author has devoted all her love to Tess, and the author really shaped her as an ideal model. Tess is not only beautiful but also kind-hearted, and she is a simple and lovely peasant girl. Her unfortunate experience has also made countless readers sigh. While people lament her tragic fate, they have also made many discussions on the causes of her tragedy. Foreign countries tend to think that Tess is a victim of fate, while domestic countries tend to think that Tess’s tragedy is a social tragedy. In recent years, many domestic researchers believe that her tragedy is a tragedy that combines fate and society. This chapter will give a brief introduction to the author and the novel, and simply sort out and summarize some studies on Tess of the D ‘Urbervilles at home and abroad.
2.1 The introduction of Thomas Hardy
Thomas Hardy (2 June, 1840 – 11 January, 1928) was an English poet and novelist. He is an English writer spanning two eras, who continued and developed the Victorian tradition of England, and started London in the twentieth century with his outstanding poetry. During his lifetime, he published nearly 20 novels and eight poems, totaling 918. His main works include Wessex Poems and Tess of Family, and won the highest cultural achievement award of the British Government.
Thomas Hardy came from the home of a declining rural aristocrat, and the natural environment of his native Dorset became the main source of his creation. He had published more than 20 works before his lifetime, but because of his own experience, his novels are always fatally tragic.
Thomas Hardy was an important critical realist novelist in the Victorian period at the end of the 19th century. He was also the last novelist in the Victorian period who had a profound influence on English literature. At that time, The British society was in the rising stage of capitalist economy. Out of Hardy’s love for the traditional agricultural society in his hometown and his sympathy for the poor masses, his novels were often filled with strong pessimism. His works reflect the profound changes in social economy, politics, morals, customs and the tragic fate of the people caused by capitalism’s invasion of rural towns in Britain.
2.2 The introduction of Tess of the D’Urbervilles
Tess of the D’Urbervilles is set in the late Victorian era, a small village in southern England. Tess, the heroine, came from a poor farmer. Her father was a lazy, conceited peddler, complete with only seven brothers and sisters, who had to live on an old horse. Tess’s tragedy was not so much from the accidental death of the old horse as because the mother of Pharaoh de Bville learned that his ancestors had been nobles. The early death of the old horse made it more difficult for the family, under the oppression of the huge debt of the Tess family had to go to the D’Urberville’s family, and the so-called the family only bought the noble title of D’Urbervilles with money. She leaves after being defiled by playboy Alex, and gives birth to a son who died shortly after. Later, because of her family livelihood, she went to a remote place in a milk cow farm and began to work as cow milk workers. With them, she fell in love with Angie, and at the same time, Angie also began to yearn for a quiet and happy family free life. On his wedding birthday night, they confessed to each other about the ridiculous things they had done in the past. Tess finally forgives Angie, who has had an affair with others, but ends up betrayed Tess, who was brutally raped to death. Although Tess still decided to be a stronger and more independent woman and go to work to support her family, her mother’s sudden illness left the family into a major predicament again, so she was forced to serve as Alex’s mistress again and accept his help. Angie after a lot of hardships he slowly realized that through his own secret heart, look back to find Tess is too late, Tess after knowing Angie back news feel heart into thoroughly despair, killed the ray decided to escape, after the end of his most free and happy life two years later, she finally was not arrested in prison, and in the end of the story, Tess also expect Angie can live with her sister after her death.
2.3 Relevant Studies on Tess of the D’Urbervilles at Home and Broad
The enthusiasm for Hardy at home and abroad has never diminished. In China, according to the research statistics of scholar Liu Maosheng, China’s research on Hardy’s novels has begun since the early days of the Republic of China. The research during this period was mainly divided into four aspects.
The first aspect is the study of the tragic thought embodied in the novel, and the research results in this aspect include Zhang Shijun’s The Tragic System of Hardy’s Character and Environmental Novels, Wu Ximin’s The Structure of the Subject and Multiple Meanings and Nie Zhenzhao’s Hardy’s Realism and Tragic Thought.
The second aspect is the attention to the modern theme of the novel, which includes Yan Xuejun’s On the Modern Theme of Hardy’s Tragic Novel and Zhou Xiumin’s On the Modern Spirit of Hardy’s Tragic Novel .
The third aspect is the study of The Creative Thought and Creative Art of Hardy’s Novels, and the research results in this regard include Wu Di’s On the Intention of birds in Hardy’s Creation, The Wonderful Combination of Literature and Music: On the Musicality of Hardy’s Literary Works, Ding Shizhong’s A Micro-Exploration of the Structure of Hardy’s Novels”, etc.
The fourth aspect is the study of feminism and religious views embodied in Hardy’s novels, and the research results in this regard include Ma Xian’s “On the New Female Image in Hardy’s Novels” and Wang Guiqin’s Hardy’s Perspective on Women’s View. In recent decades, the number of monographs on Hardy’s novels has been more numerous, such as Zhang Zhongzai’s Thomas Hardy-Thought and Creation, Nie Zhenzhao’s Thomas Hardy’s Novel Studies, Wu Di’s Hardy’s New Theory, etc.
In the past decade, China has published thousands of papers on Tess of the D’Urbervilles, of which the main research is divided into the following aspects. The first aspect is the study of the artistic techniques in Tess of the D’Urbervilles, such as Wu Jun’s A Brief Discussion on Tess’s Creative Techniques and Zhang Qi’s Obscurity and Incongruity-The Embodiment of Hardy’s Aesthetic Consciousness in Tess. The second aspect is research using the perspectives of neo-feminism, comparative culture, adaptation, etc. For example, Zheng Danyan’s The Lack of Film Tess-Comparison with the Original Debe’s Tess, Zheng Donglin’s Tess, victorian new female figure – Hardy’s Debord’s Tess and so on. The third aspect is the study of the causes of Tess’s tragedy, such as Zou Hong’s The Destruction of a Pure Woman-Analysis of Tess’s Tragedy, Yao Peizhi’s Tess of the D’Urbervilles- The Perfect Embodiment of Hardy’s Comprehensive Tragedy and so on. In recent years, the study of Tess of the D’Urbervilles has gradually shifted to the study of adaptation, comparative literature, translation, evolution, and so on. But throughout the study of Tess of the D’Urbervilles, the study of its tragic causes accounts for the majority. Many scholars believe that the cause of Tess’s tragedy is Tess’s self-respecting character, hypocritical religion, bourgeois hypocritical moral standards, and Hardy’s own sense of destiny.
In the Western literary world, from the 1970s, the results of Hardy’s research have been diversified, but in general, there are two main characteristics: One is to show interest in Hardy’s life and biography, and reorganize Hardy’s relevant materials, such as Michael. It took Milligert nearly 20 years to write his magnificent seven-volume Thomas Hardy’s Epistles (1988), Thomas Hardy’s Notes (1994) and Emma and Florence Epistles (1996), the second is to continuously apply new ideas,new methods, and new perspectives in the theoretical community to Hardy’s research. In recent years, the theoretical community has begun to study Hardy’s novels from new perspectives such as ecology,feminism, and cultural criticism.
From the above point of view, it can be seen that many scholars have analyzed from the aspects of society, character and tragic fate, and few have conducted in-depth discussions from the comprehensive causes.
3 The Tragic End of Tess
Tess is the embodiment of beauty in the novel, while the whole dark society is an invisible cage, and everyone around her acts as the executioner unconsciously. Only the passing of good things can touch the dull hearts of people at that time and stir up a little waves in the society, and the power of literary works is roughly the same. This chapter discusses the tragic content of Tess.
3.1 The Tragedy of Tess’s Love
The heroine Tess is a beautiful, strong, devout, hard-working and rich family sense of responsibility of the rural girl, she is not much education, social experience is not deep, has a simple and beautiful vision of life. Alex, the first male protagonist in the work, represents the villain, who is a new rich people who makes his fortune by selling chocolate. He is evil, sinister, eccentric, vain and lewd. However, he is able to preach as a priest later.
The second hero Angel represents a positive figure. He was born in a priest’s family and was influenced by Christian teachings since childhood, with orthodox and conservative thoughts. Angel also has an enlightened side in his mind. He gave up the career that could make him a priest and went to a dairy farm in the countryside. He started as a milker, learned how to manage the farm and got along well with farmers at the bottom.
From the description of the twisted and complex emotional relationship between Tess and the two male protagonists, the novel reveals the inevitable outcome of Tess’s tragic fate step by step. At the end of the novel, Tess realizes self-redemption by means of destruction, and writes a tragedy of humanity.
3.1.1 Tess’s Pure and True Love
Living in England at the end of the 19th century, when capitalism invaded and the small-scale peasant economy disintegrated, Tess was a well-looking, industrious and simple rural girl. In order to alleviate the family’s financial difficulties, she was forced to defect to the so-called D’ Urberville’s Family, so that she was deceived by the shameless capitalist Alex D’Urbervilles into a “impure” woman. She returned home to raise the child she was pregnant with her virginity alone, but the child died of a serious illness.
Then Tess goes out to work and meets Clay, who comes from a priest’s family, and the sincere Clay impresses Tess, so she agrees to Clay’s marriage proposal and confesses her past to her lover on the wedding night, but Clay cannot accept Tess’s loss of virginity and abandons Tess away.
3.1.2 Tess Died For Love
After her husband’s departure, Tess’s father died of illness, and in order to keep her mother and siblings alive, Tess was forced to become Aare Debo’s mistress. When the distraught Clay returns to her, the indignant Tess stabs Alex to death with a knife and escapes with Clay, but they do not escape the law, and Tess is hanged, ending her tragic life.
3.2 The Tragedy of Tess’s Fate
Tess was born into a poor rural family, and her parents were poor peasants at the bottom of society, without any social status. However, her father had no sense of family responsibility, and her mother obeyed the orders to cling to her husband.
Because he was born in such a family, his parents did not understand the world, and the seven brothers and sisters were still young, so the responsibility of assuming the family naturally fell on the kind and sensible Tess.
3.2.1 Tess Succumbed to the Patriarchal Society
Tess was born into a poor rural family, and her parents were poor peasants at the bottom of society, without any social status. However, her father had no sense of family responsibility, and her mother obeyed the orders to cling to her husband. Because he was born in such a family, his parents did not understand the world, and the seven brothers and sisters were still young, so the responsibility of assuming the family naturally fell on the kind and sensible Tess.
3.2.2 Tess Killed Alack to Resist the Patriarchal Society
By the time Tess appears in the novel, the family is on the brink of collapse. Her father was a peddler, lazy and vain. When he heard from the versatile pastor Ofling Ann about his aristocratic family history, he got drunk and appeared foreign. The mother was first a milkman, then a washer, vulgar and shallow, and did not understand the world. Tess has seven siblings, and the heaviness of the family casts a shadow over her fate from the beginning. After her father’s death, the lease on her family’s house also came, the family was swept out of the house, there was no place to live, and she had to sacrifice her personality to become Alex’s mistress in exchange for the family’s settlement.
4 Analysis Tragic Factors of Tess’s Fate
Tess of the D’Urbervilles is a representative work by Thomas Hardy. The protagonist of the novel, Tess, is a woman who constantly struggles with fate but ends in tragedy. Tess is a kind woman who is filial to her elders, concerned about her family, and loving her husband, but she does not escape her tragic fate in the end. In the West, the tragic approach is usually expressed by depicting the transformation of a person who would otherwise have a positive mindset and fall into a tragic and difficult situation. The emotions evoked by this technique are serious, sad, and even exciting. The next step of this article will analyze the causes of Tess’s tragedy from several aspects.
4.1 Personal Factors
The formation of Tess’s tragedy, in addition to social and other objective factors, is also indelible to her own character. Her personality contrasted sharply with the unequal attitudes towards women in society at that time. Thus also caused Tess to step by step to a tragic end. Specifically, the personal reasons for Tess’s tragic fate include:the Self-esteem of Tess and the Self-dedication of Tess.
4.1.1 The Self-esteem of Tess
Despite the influence of various external factors, Tess’s misery is also largely derived from her own personality, thinking, and consciousness.Innocence, kindness and responsibility are Tess, but also important factors in Tess’s tragic fate. Since innocent Tess does not know how to defend herself, Alex took advantage of her innocence. Despite the lure, Tess eventually fails to see through his trick and falls into the trap set by Alex. At the same time, Tess’s strong sense of responsibility also prompted her to take on the family responsibilities. Her miserable life began when her father went to Alex to seek a job opportunity to solve the family’s business problems. Moreover, Tess’s spirit of rebellion was also incompatible with the socialist values of the time. As a woman, she was usually seen as a man’s subordinate in the community, but Tess’s rebellious spirit did not consistent with the community values of the time.
Specifically, White Tess is a beautiful, kind, filial, honest, brave rural girl. She is virtuous and pure in her heart. She seemed to be the ideal woman for Hardy. Her father Ma’s death fell on his head, for a small family life can helplessly carry the burden, to find Alex. In her relationship with Jalay, although she kept the necessary psychological preparedness, she still trusted him so naive that she was raped and lost her virginity. And for the survival of the family, she also took a woman to the farm to do some heavy work. While being a milker on the farm, she loves Claire. Claire, who did not like cheating, finally chose to accept his confessed past, and she also pleaded with his understanding, although her mother urged her not to talk about being raped. The sad reality is that although she did not in the end really forgive the day, but it does not mean that the angel will completely believe in her, she is still abandoned. The second serious injury makes her whole body to the inside and outside both sides of the collapse, coupled with the whole human world to her spit, so that she can only fall in the deeper and deeper of this tragedy.
4.1.2 The Self-dedication of Tess
Tess had lived in such a social environment for several years, and it was difficult to get rid of its influence. In Hardy’s description, although her desire to get her due economic thought spiritual freedom, to happy way through her own efforts, she also tried to resist the hypocrisy and social injustice, but finally she always insist not to go from the western tradition of the moral ideas and religious culture, so there is a weakness and compromise.After she was raped by Alex, she did not choose to compromise, but quietly left there, relying on herself to seek her new life. Later, although she did not completely agree with the shackles and beliefs of religious traditions, she still secretly washed her dead son, which also shows that she did not completely abandon the traditional feudal ethics. But in fact, after Tess fell in love with Claire, she had always put herself in an inferiority position, feeling that she was never worthy of an excellent Claire, and always maintained a state of absolute obedience in love. This is all due to the influence of the patriarchal living environment on her, and has produced this unshakable inner consciousness.
Although the true love between the two sides was what she had hoped for. She also has no intention to cheat her lover, and Claire still can’t stand to lose her virginity, although she love him and loyalty, but she found that she will also be in the social real life continue to face the challenges, in order to save the family she finally choose to return to the traditional family morality of life trajectory-again back to her own. At this time, she felt almost exhausted, until an anji returned to her side, she suddenly thought that she would never be worthy of the handsome him, unable to stand with him, that all this is a tragedy caused by Alex. She could not resist this society, so she killed Alex which was the last resistance against her. At the end to the 19th century in France, because England and the constitution and religious legislation are explicitly “prohibit a man to marry his dead sister”, so Tess seems to be looking forward to his sister Lisa’s mother died, Claire will one day can remarry her sister as his wife. But in addition to her own certain inner happiness and will, Tess may also, in a certain sense, actually show her own resistance to some feudal religious traditions and other false secular moral standards.
4.2 Family Factors
Family factors are also one of the important causes of Tess’s tragedy. It could also be said that it was Tess’s family that determined her suffering and pushed her into tragedy. In the oppressive native family, Tess has formed a character that is easy to compromise.Specifically, the family reasons for Tess’s tragic fate include: Poverty of the Family and Corrupt and Incompetent Parents.
4.2.1 Poverty of the Family
Tess’s father was always intoxicated with the glory of the famous and prestigious family, and regarded the wine as his life. Tess’s mother earns a meager income by doing laundry for others. This kind of family foreshadows Tess’s tragic life. Tess and Alex’s contact was due to the poverty of the family. Tess was arranged by her parents to meet Alex during the first crisis in the family, but became pregnant after being insulted by her. This led Clay to abandon her later. Tess’s family is once again in financial crisis after the death of her father, and Claire is not heard from at this time, and Tess, who is living in poverty, is forced to return to Alex’s side and accept Alex’s help. Hardy said: “Home is a part of her body and life.” As long as Tess bears the burden of her family, she cannot escape the fate of tragedy.
The Tess family has always lived on the brink of poverty, but the parents have never considered the right way to get out of poverty, always hoping to develop once, completely ignoring the education of their children. Tess is completely free-range in such a family. Her parents also forced her to go to an aristocratic family to confess her relatives, completely ignoring Tess’s inner feelings, which laid the groundwork for Tess’s final unfortunate ending.
4.2.2 Corrupt and Incompetent Parents
The cause of Tess’s tragedy is not just in her personality, but also because of her original family education. In Tess’s original family life, her father never taught her how to protect her own awareness and true family life values. He uses his daughters as a good tool to change the miserable lives of his family. He often calls her family, but the plan is pregnant. Tess’s original family was full of vanity, but as the head of the family, her father himself has fundamentally begun to ignore the harsh discipline of her children. And Tess’s father turned out to be an old alcoholic, never pay attention to the family around him, like to go to the tavern box to drink tea and play every day. Finally because of an old horse he rode and died in another serious traffic accident, his family can no longer go out for business, Tess family had to move to the Alex’s family to live together. Tess’s mother is a very typical traditional housewife, but she never tries to interfere with her husband’s behavior, doing trivial family affairs to raise her children. The gradual absence of her father’s role made Tess began to bear an important task of family education when she was young. The content introduction is an improper way of self-protection of her children, which makes Tess often at a loss in the face of crisis, which also makes Tess often haunted by the Asian thunder, and thus causes Tess’s miserable life.
4.3 Social Factors
The tragedy of Tess in the novel is deeply stratified, and Tess’s tragedy is caused by family and society. The novel mainly tells the tragic fate of a beautiful innocent girl who loses her virginity. Through the description of the social environment in the novel, and then from the character and religious reasons at that time, this paper reveals that Tess’s tragic fate is caused by the society at that time, which is the result of the restriction of an era of thought, tradition and order.Specifically, the social reasons for Tess’s tragic fate include:the collapse of the smallholder economy and capitalist laws and religious persecution.
4.3.1 The Collapse of the Smallholder Economy
Tess is a Scottish British aristocracy and members of the family, with Scottish noble pure blood, according to the temple records, the immediate ancestor of her family Sir Patrick from Norman I and William, the conqueror of Scotland, in the period of king Stephen, her family ancestor William’s real name is also recorded in the Scottish public library archives.However, in the era of Cromwell AD, her aristocratic family economy began to decline, the ancient aristocratic hereditary family had begun to gradually go bankrupt, and the traditional feudal family of Chinese traditional culture also began to feel unable to be satisfied, and the capitalist productive forces developed endlessly. Later, with the development of technology in the first industrial Revolution gradually infiltrating into various villages, the small-scale peasant economy gradually tended to close down. Therefore, the rural people suffered a large number of unemployment in the rural economic positions, and gradually began to become the object of slavery, oppression and exploitation by the petty bourgeoisie.
In short, with the continuous progress and prosperity of the British industrial Revolution began to gradually erode and replace the traditional agricultural civilization, the natural economy also gradually collapsed. As industrial production replaced manual manufacturing, the natural economy was damaged, and many farmers lost their arable land and life resources. The people began to live in dire straits. This also had a great impact on the country where Tess lived, and on the way her family lived. It also predicted her later sad fate. At the grass-roots level of society, white Tess is getting poorer and poorer, the social status is getting lower and lower, and the life difficulties can not be due to safety. Because of this, Tess just falls into the trap that Alec carefully arranges step by step, lost virginity and become pregnant, from now on miserable life. Tess didn’t go to his home. Do not go to the evil door of the thunder home work, Tess also did not step into the trap, such a family tragedy will not appear. She can’t stop all this.
4.3.2 Capitalist Laws and Religious Persecution
In this chaotic historical background of feudal society at that time, all such judicial systems were basically intended to provide services to the bureaucratic bourgeoisie rulers and those feudal bourgeoisie dignitaries. After Tess was seseduced by Alec, this Tess was not immediately received judicial protection by the judicial authorities. Few people have sympathized with Tess’s pain, and no one could really punish the so-called Array. So, Alex has never received any judicial punishment, but he continued to get free. But when Tess finally connected the land with Claire’s new life, Tess herself felt unfairly treated. As a result, he began to feel that Tess’s own actions should continue to be under legal arrest. So Tess herself was finally hanged alive. So, the judiciary is not really fair and reasonable to protect every Chinese, because in fact they are only protecting the basic rights and interests of some bourgeoisie and small aristocrats.
At the same time, during the Victorian period, the hypocritical moral principles of the capitalist system slowly reduced the social status of women, which had a great influence on Tess’s fate. Capitalist societies equate religion with morality. But Victorian religions, with patriarchal and ascetic ideas at their core and women as the source of all evil, provided an excuse for capitalism to wantonly denigrate women. Under the arbitrary judgment of religious morality, Tess became a model of moral corruption. Everyone can judge Tess’s behavior, which places a great burden on Tess’s thoughts and ultimately her destruction.
5 The Significance and Influence of Tess of the D’Urbervilles
Hardy Thomas’s tragedy of women is not only a personal tragedy, but also has a broad and profound social significance and literary impact. Nowadays, women’s rights and interests are more and more protected by law, the relevant rules and regulations of society are constantly improved, and the equality mechanism between men and women is generally realized. The tragedy of Tess also gives more enlightenment to today’s society in terms of education.
5.1 Tess of the D’Urberville’s Social Influence
Thomas Hardy lived from the 1840s to the 1920s. There were many major events during this period, such as the February Revolution, the First World War, the emergence of monopoly capitalism, and the October Revolution. Later, important scientific theories such as relativity became popular. In the backward areas where Hardy lived, the social contradictions between the bourgeoisie and the villagers remained serious, and he knew very little about the decline of the bourgeoisie and the boom of the proletarian movement. His prose works throughout his life are generally based on the rural life of China as the social background, which reflects various major social and economic changes in the rural society at that time, such as the rural national economy, politics, moral concepts and customs. The tragic fate of the bankrupt villagers and the severe economic crisis are also frequent themes. A representative figure of serious realism, Hardy frankly and bravely reveals the miserable lives of the rural people in southeastern England, devastated by capitalism in the late 19th century.
The article analyzes the tragedy of Tess’s fate from a feminist perspective, revealing the helplessness and sadness of women pursuing happiness and ideals under the patriarchal social form.Tess has the characteristics of a woman defined by a patriarchal ideological society and a yearning for a good love. I hope that my identity as a woman can stand with men on an equal footing, which is intolerable to society at that time, and finally complete the rebellion against the patriarchal society at the cost of my life. Women struggle to survive in the shadow of men most of the time, and women need to pay too much in order to achieve their ideals. Tess also enlightened contemporary society, self-esteem, self-reliance, self-love, self-improvement are the eternal themes of women.
Tess’s life experience is worth my thinking and studying. In all walks of life today, women are giving full play to their own unique artistic talent and contributing their own unique ability to the whole society, which means that American women are also increasingly respected and paid attention to. Tess is the most ideal American woman in the world of fiction.She is kind, honest, brave, and tough. She never abandoned her, nor in extremely difficult situations, but fought bravely for her best future. Her free will, courage and sense of independence are also the best qualities that people require in modern society. She also warns women to protect themselves; whatever you face, you must remain calm and consider difficult problems in the appropriate way. Impulsivity only causes an irreparable loss.
5.2 Tess of the D’Urberville’s Literary Significance
There are many natural scenes in the novel, and Hardy’s delicate description of the scenery deepens the theme of the novel and reveals the fate of the characters, such as the green meadows of blackmore Valley and the bright sky described at the beginning of the novel, these beautiful things symbolize Tess’s simple and beautiful life, outlining the image of a simple country girl; Later, when Tess is defiled, a mist spreads around her, which also hints at the arrival of the tragedy of the novel. Cheerful birds at Tarbose Farm, fertile land hint at Tess and Claire’s beautiful love. The cold winter that Claire abandoned also hints at Tess’s bleak state of mind. At the end of the novel, after spending the best and happiest time with Claire, Tess is captured while asleep at the altar in the stone forest, and the author places Tess’s capture in this sacred place, which also shows that he believes that Tess is an innocent victim of that era.The author also uses the image of animals in the novel to hint at the fate of the characters in the novel, taking the birds and horses in the novel as examples. The image of the “bird” appears repeatedly in the novel, almost throughout the entire story, and is an important image that cannot be ignored. On the night Tess was defiled, the pure maiden was asleep, and there was silence all around, and the birds in the trees were peacefully dreaming their last dreams. Here Tess merges with the birds, and they are all unaware of the impending danger. After she had the misfortune to regain her spirits and leave home for the second time, she greeted the gentle south wind, as if she were in a ball of light, and in every breeze she heard a pleasant sound, and in every bird call, she realized happiness. The cheerful scene hints at Tess’s yearning for a better life. After being abandoned by her husband, Tess passes through the woods and finds several birds dying and struggling, indicating her situation at that time.
The United Kingdom is a country with a developed animal husbandry industry, and horse-drawn carriages are a necessary means of transportation for people. But in the novel, the “horse” is not just a simple means of transportation, but an image closely related to the fate of man. In the Victorian era, the old aristocracy began to decline, and the aging horse of the Tess family reflected this. Horses are the source and pillar of the Tess family’s income, after the death of the horse, the Tess family fell into economic difficulties, and it is because of the tragic death of the horse that Tess had to go to find financial support for the family. The tragic death of the horse is also the fuse and hint of Tess’s tragic fate in the future.
6 Conclusion
Tess’s fate is destined to be a tragedy, social changes, family poverty, the inability to feed her brothers and sisters, and Tess’s virginity deprived Claire, which destroys Tess’s spirit, which are the roots of her tragic fate.It is conceivable that if the family was not poor, she would not be able to disobey her own will, obey the advice of her ignorant father, and seek relatives for the sake of the family’s livelihood; If she hadn’t met Alex, Tess would never have had a chance to be seduced, wouldn’t have been chaste, wouldn’t have been ridiculed and spurned by everyone, and wouldn’t have been abandoned by Claire. But even if Tess is seduced, Tess’s tragedy can be rewritten as long as he can abandon the traditional moral code and accept Tess, who has lost her virginity physically but remains spiritually holy. Unfortunately, all of these were hypotheses, and if they were hypotheses, they would not have been possible in that society, so all of them contributed to Tess’s miserable life, from which she had no way to escape. If Tess didn’t have to pay the price of life and lived with Claire, would her life be full of love and sunshine from now on? Hardy said in an interview, “With such a contradictory husband, the heroine is doomed to be unhappy.” In this sense, her life is destined to be full of tragedies.
Tess’s life experience is more worthy of my thinking and study, today’s traditional society in the United States is actually not exactly the same as the traditional society in the United Kingdom, today’s women’s rights and interests are more and more legal protection, the relevant rules and regulations of society continue to improve, and the equality mechanism between men and women is also widely realized. The proportion of American women in the socialist modern industrial society group that is now developed in our country is also increasingly and gradually improving. Women in today’s life in all walks of life are fully exerting their own unique artistic talents, for the whole society to dedicate their own unique ability, which means that American women are increasingly respected and concerned. Tess is the most ideal American woman in the novel world. She is kind,honest, brave and tenacious. She never abandoned, nor did she abandon in extremely difficult circumstances, but fought heroically and worked for her best future. Her free will, bravery and sense of independence are also among the finest qualities that people demand in modern society. No matter what situation you are facing, you must remain calm, think rationally, and deal with difficult problems in an appropriate way. Impulse only causes irreparable damage.
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