Angel and Liza-Lu

[CarolC]

I ran into a well-written fanfiction depicting a gloomy marriage between Angel and Liza-Lu and how Liza simply becomes an object to Angel's obligation to Tess.

Was that a happy ending Hardy intended? Would Angel eventually grow to love Liza on his own? I would think Liza would be miserable to exist as an obligation to Angel.

Also consider that Tvtropes says that it was illegal to marry your in-law during a time of religious conservatism. Though the issue seems HandWaved by Tess assuring Angel, "People marry sister-laws continually about Marlott" (chapter 58).

What do you think?

[kev67]

That bit of the book seemed very creepy to me. I doubt Angel would have married Liza-Lu because it was illegal for a man to marry the sister of his widow. Angel is not the same class as Tess and Liza-Lu so I doubt he could get away with it, even if people around Marlott did. I wouldn't have thought he would have wanted to.

[kev67]

The bit at the penultimate chapter where Tess urges Angel to take Liza-Lu is unbearable. Liza-Lu is a younger version of herself but unsullied, like Tess wished she could be. Tess says she is happy to die before Angel starts to despise her again because of her lack of sexual purity, and why does she think that? Because he despised her before for that reason. I'd be surprised if Angel would want to remind himself of that every time he looked across at Liza-Lu.

[CarolC]

The bit at the penultimate chapter where Tess urges Angel to take Liza-Lu is unbearable. Liza-Lu is a younger version of herself but unsullied, like Tess wished she could be. Tess says she is happy to die before Angel starts to despise her again because of her lack of sexual purity, and why does she think that? Because he despised her before for that reason. I'd be surprised if Angel would want to remind himself of that every time he looked across at Liza-Lu.

Exactly, Angel just essentially walks off with the girl in the image of his ideals.

Sadly, I believe Tess's belief that her "impurity" renders her an undesirable bride is quite in character for her. She does call out on Angel's treatment of her in a letter, yet, she doesn't believe she is worthy of him due to "impurity."

[Maple]

J T Laird's "The Shaping of Tess of the d'Urbervilles" presents a scholarly analysis of how the novel evolved over about twenty years to the final version in 1912. He shows that in the early versions it was Alec who chanced upon Tess as the May Day club dance. The following day Alec approached Joan, Tess's mother, and offered her employment at Trantridge. Joan saw more in Alec than a job for Tess and some additional money through wages. She saw Alec as a wealthy young man who in close contact with Tess would probably become sexual with her. Joan didn't care whether marriage preceded the sex or his commitment to her followed the sex. Joan saw Alec as a great opportunity for improved social stature and a source of badly needed money.

When at Stonehenge Tess mentions the desirability of Angel marrying Liza-Lu , she's likely thinking that Joan will again turn to her eldest child for help the same way Joan earlier turned to Tess. Just as that had led to Tess's ruin, Tess believes the same is likely for Liza-Lu. At Stonehenge Tess also has a better understanding of Angel. She knows the character of his love and his innate weakness. Liza-Lu, though at this point younger and less sophisticated than Tess, is like Tess in having the foundations of stronger character than Angel. Angel will provide social standing to Liza-Lu and the Derbyvilles while Liza-Lu will help Angel through life, in some sense like a service dog guides a disabled person.

[kev67]

I hadn't thought of Joan trying to push Liza-Lu onto a man like Alec as a way of making money, but I guess that is exactly what she would do. I suppose Angel is preferable to Alec. Well, at least Tess seems to think so.

[Maple]

If you look into Laird's book and read the earlier versions, Joan's character is clarified as the mastermind (or at least co-conspirator) behind Tess's ruin. Some literary analysts describe Joan as sluttish and slattern. We're led to believe in Joan's youth she was physically as attractive as Tess. We're also led to believe Joan accepted sex naturally, easily and certainly not above using her sexual attractiveness to find marriage. Tess adopted much of her mother's acceptance of nature, including sex, without losing her virtue, purity or admirable spirit. This difference between Joan and Tess is probably largely behind Joan's remark to Angel that "I never understood her [Tess].

[Maple]

Your point is critical. My recollection is that Tess was agonized on this question of whether she was worthy or not. Hardy described her feelings of both acknowledging her unsuitability as per Victorian standards and then being pulled into believing she was pure given her hope of happiness and fulfillment that rose in her like sap in the summer. Purity, he lectured the readers, not about consequences but intent. If we accept Hardy's point, and I don't fully, Tess was pure and worthy of Angel because her intentions were pure and worthy of Angel.

[kiki1982]

I have always thought that Tess's mother was behind her 'ruin', so to say. Remember Tess saying it is her fault when she returns pregnant, but more to the point, she was kind of pushy about sending Tess off to see Alec without chaperon. For a Victorian, that's bad. As a Victorian reader, you instantly see what Alec has on his mind. Only Tess can't see it, because she is too innocent. Her mother can, and she fails to protect her own daughter because she herself is depraved, drinking instead of looking after her children.

It's interesting how the novel has evolved. I had not read about that, but it makes sense. The theme, then, has become more pragmatic and critical of Victorian moral standards; stronger than the original was going to be. Before it was apparently a typical story of the time: the ruin of the main character is set up from the start and readers get tormented about the alarm bells Tess doesn't hear and her mother who doesn't seem to care, while in the final version of the novel, that 'ruin' is discussed as a topic in itself.

The marriage between Angel and Liza-Lu which is hinted at in the end (to me at least) is a kind of weak point in the novel, if that was illegal. It's quite unbelievable that he would have got that wrong. Although maybe if people like Joan didn't care about that, then that's your answer. They also did (limited) wife-selling, although that is obviously also illegal, in terms of divorce, so if they didn't see it as an issue, who are we to do so? Marrying your widowed sister-in-law is also a ancient Jewish custom. To be fair, they did not automatically marry their as yet unmarried sister-in-law, they only married widows as a means of caring for them.

However, I don't think a 'happy ending' was intended, really. This fashion in writing is all about emptiness and the apparent futility of man. In that, Tess's death and Angel and Liza-Lu's miserable life afterwards would be perfect. Even a continuous torment of him, because he is reminded of his late wife's death (partly through his fault), would be fitting for this style of gloom. I've read a fair bit of this stuff and it really really depresses you. The end is always inevitable and as a reader you know how it's going to end: badly, mostly in death. The thing is that the characters, as all humans, are naïve in that respect. They keep plodding through life, no matter how bad things are and no matter how obvious it is that things are going downhill. As a reader, you get a kind of feeling that it is better that they are. If they knew what was going to (inevitably) happen to them (because fate is predetermined), they would lose the courage to carry on.

[Maple]

kiki, I liked your analysis, and agree with you that the novel's ending certainly isn't happy. If my theory is correct that Tess substituting Liza-Lu for herself was a pretty clever maneuver to position those she felt responsible to with their best chance for happiness, how happy people's lives are remains always a contest between human wishes and fate. But the human hope for happiness germinates and grows like weeds and there is at least hope Angel, Liza-Lu and the Derbyville family will fare better after Tess's departure. I can't imagine how this novel could have ended with a better chance of happiness for these characters.

As to Angel married to Liza-Lu but unable to forget his love for Tess, one can wonder if Angel ever loved Tess. The reunion of Angel and Tess showed that Angel at last was overcome by his passion for Tess, but there's no reason to believe they were headed to marital happiness. In rereading the Talthobay's section of the novel there's reason to think nature's summer passions seduced them both into a passionate desire for each other but one that lacked, as Hardy sometimes put it, a basis of friendship. Hardy has an urge to show us that the motivation for marriage is usually sexual and this leads to unhappy marriages, such as his own first. My initial reaction to Angel's being paired with Liza-Lu was the same as yours, but now I think they have a better chance. The pairing with Liza-Lu will begin without passion and the two have a chance to build a foundation of friendship for a happy marriage. Moreover, Angel will appreciate Liza-Lu's malleability and we recall Tess wants Angel to "train" Liza-Lu's mind. Angel can form Liza-Lu to adequately conform to the illusion of the woman he needs and we can hope Liza-Lu will absorb gladly Angel as he is. Of course, this doesn't conform to the model of the happy twenty-first century marriage, but our time isn't theirs.

[kiki1982]

I see what you are referring to. Indeed, Hardy's marriage was based on initial attraction, deep attraction. It went pear-shaped afterwards, so much so that coldness has been imputed to him upon his wife's death. I don't know whether that is fair, as men were not supposed to be distraught, but Hardy and his wife seem to have switched off somewhere along the line, yes.
I suppose that was the danger of marriages back then. You couldn't really form a real and proper far-reaching friendship before you proposed. Then of course, you were free (up to a point) to be frank and alone with each other. Although you were also under the obligation to get married, so there were two sides to the coin...

But I'm not sure I follow your lead when it comes to happiness. It is true that it was generally known that a woman's love grew while a man's was instant. Women felt no passion. God knows where they got that from, but it was known.
You are right that both Angel and Tess (but I think primarily Tess) are kind of seduced by the summer at Talbothay's. She is tricked into thinking that her state, as it were, doesn't matter anymore; that she has wiped the slate clean; that she is reborn as a Celtic goddess, as it were. Little does she know. She does insist to Angel that she doesn't want to get married, but he keeps on going for it and the only chance she had in breaking the engagement from a man who doesn't take no for an answer is ruined by fate (the letter she writes is lying under the mat and not on it).
As far as I recall (it is about four years ago that I read the novel), Angel thought she was the ideal woman for him to go to Brazil with. Indeed, the 'sweeetheart' his father foresaw for him was not going to be any good in setting up a farm. Maybe at teaching or something, but she wasn't cut out for farm labour in a far away land where the only thing you could rely on to get through the winter was yourself. This was a serious issue, because I think about half those pioneers' farmsteads were wiped off the map the first year. People starved or froze if they didn't have enough food or fuel.
I think the marriage is a bit based on the same ideas as St John Rivers uses to propose to his cousin Jane Eyre, with that difference that Angel knew Tess better and was attracted to her. St John was not, but figured that Jane would make a good missionary's wife. They knew each other and could be caled 'friends', I suppose, becaue they didn't really have any major differences in opinion. Jane rejects this on the basis that it would still be a 'real' marriage :p, but loveless. Tess on the other hand, seems to be satisfied that Angel is committed to her although she is not sure whether he will still be once he knows about her secret. Her mother tells her she must keep the secret, he will never know, but she finds she must have no secrets. She finally cracks when Angel tells her he has had a woman before, with the same argument of being up front. She, in her naïvety, thinks it will be no matter, then, for her, to tell him the same...

I don't know, I think he does love her (indeed, he returns to her later, despite knowing that she is soiled), but as a Victorian and necessarily religiously influenced man, can't get over the fact that Tess has had a man before. Maybe to his own maor disappointment. As all characters who regret, he disappears for a while to be violently ill, then gets up from his bed and makes his way to say he's sorry.
This virtuousness and chasteness is one of the things Hardy discusses when he puts the subtitle of 'a pure woman' below Tess of the d'Urbervilles. For Victorians, the word 'pure' contrasts with Tess's real situation. Why is she still 'a pure woman' if she's had Alec? She is pure in her intentions and her mind, as it were. Virtue does not depend on whether you have had a man out of wedlock or not. It did in the Victorian mind.

When it comes to Liza-Lu and Angel, I beg to differ. Hardy may have considered a marriage based on friendship better than one based on attraction or passion, but Angel is weakened by his disease in Brazil, he has grown old prematurely. He is not an 'able' man, so to say. His spark has faded. Liza-Lu will look up to him as a father, not as a friend. She'll grow used to him. When she is about 16-18, both of them will feel forced to marry, because that's only the natural consequence of their friendship, isn't it. It's practically what everyone's waiting for. Maybe he will be able to provide for her, maybe not. Probably he will.
That's a miserable life to have. Yes, they are both very 'in tune' on a human level, but there will not be any affection. Hardy knew very well that was not what he wanted. OK, there would be no disappointment, because in the best case, Liza-Lu would not know what the difference is, but Hardy himself knew what it was to 'exist' simultaneously. He in his study, she disinterested in the parlour. I don't believe even her death was mentioned in his diary.
Maybe the only light at the end of that miserable tunnel is that neither of them would know what a miserable life they are leading.

Maybe Tess's urge to save Liza-Lu from her mother is a noble one. Indeed, she can only come to ruin if her other has anything to do with it as she will be allowed to walk into her own misfortune because her mother doesn't give a damn, so initially Liza-Lu will be better off with a soewhat respectable and stable man to look to for support. Her father is dead, after all. However, it depends what she does with that. As I said, in all likelihood, she'ss feel obliged to 'honour' him with herself, both because of her own conscience and because of the good her family will have from it (as you rightly put it), much as Tess felt she had to go with Alec, but I don't think Hardy aimed for a happy life. Not like the jocular happiness there is at the end of Far from the Ladding Crowd. That is a marriage based on (mild) attraction, respect and friendship. You can see Bathsheba and Gabriel are happy.

[kev67]

Thinking about it, Joan may have tried to push Liza-Lu on a rich, young man like Alec, but obviously not Alec himself because Tess had killed him. I wonder Joan pushing Liza-Lu on a man like Alec is any worse than Tess trying to push her on Angel.

Anyway, Angel cannot marry Liza-Lu because of the legal prohibition on marrying a dead wife's sister. I wonder why that prohibition came into being. Tess may not think it much of an obstruction, but I cannot see how an educated, middle-class son of a clergyman could get away with it.

[Maple]

Tiki, my guess is that Angel was no more than two years older than Tess (he went to Talthobay's instead of Oxford, the novel notes), which makes him, I think, not more than four years older than Liza-Lu. Adolescents might take that age difference as quite significant but in just a few years it wouldn't be noticed. It's reasonable, as you suggest, that at the outset Liza-Lu would take Angel as a father figure, but I doubt that would last long, Angel's intelligence was being overtaken by Tess's through the novel and the same is likely with Liza-Lu. Angel's mind was molded in his religiously dogmatic childhood family. He had certain knowledge Tess and Liza-Lu lacked but he's not a realist and never will be. He has a weak personality foundation for any pursuit in agriculture--an entirely naturalistic and realistic occupation. Tess and Liza-Lu are of nature and realism, in addition we accept both women as smart, if unsophisticated and ignorant. In time Liza-Lu with master the relevant knowledge of their changing circumstances, particularly in their agrarian world. Again, I don't think it'll take long before Liza-Lu is the soft-spoken leader of this pair and they have a chance for happiness.

All I'm theorizing is that by Tess replacing herself with Liza-Lu and putting Liza-Lu on a credible trajectory to marry Angel, is that Tess put those she felt responsible for on the best track she could to defend themselves against their personal weaknesses, vulnerabilities and a hostile fate. There's absolutely no certainty this plan would work and no way it'll work if fate conspires to wreck it. It's simply the best Tess could do in the short time remaining to her life. The plausibility of this theory benefits from Hardy's description of Tess as well-intended and self-sacrificing to the one's she loves.

Finally, it's somewhat remarkable that we can put so much thought into the meaning of why Tess wished to replace herself with Liza-Lu and what the consequences will be. Hardy, who constructed this whole matter out of his imagination, give us hardly any clues or prognostications. Did he want to torture us with our confusion and theories or did he simply not care? Some have said he obviously wanted to wrap the novel up and left it in some haste with untidy loose ends. I think there's something to that.

[kelby_lake]

This virtuousness and chasteness is one of the things Hardy discusses when he puts the subtitle of 'a pure woman' below Tess of the d'Urbervilles. For Victorians, the word 'pure' contrasts with Tess's real situation. Why is she still 'a pure woman' if she's had Alec? She is pure in her intentions and her mind, as it were. Virtue does not depend on whether you have had a man out of wedlock or not. It did in the Victorian mind.


I agree that she is pure in spirit, certainly in contrast to the rest of the people in her town.

[kelby_lake]

I think that pairing up Angel and Liza Lu was partly to round things off neatly and also to play on that theme of tragedy: the fall of a house/dynasty. Tess "belongs" to the d'Urbervilles- Liza Lu has the chance to escape that curse.