Hardy may have crafted the Tess character to make a statement about unjust social standards in his time, but he made the character so appealing many readers might feel the novel was really about her. Upon the novel's ending, readers might well wonder who Tess really was, what was her reality, her meaning in her time and her meaning to contemporary readers.
On the one hand Tess wants to be known as just Tess, a young woman of the impoverished Wessex laboring class. On the other hand she can seem to be something closer to an earth goddess such as Artemis or Demeter. Following the heart wrenching final chapter in which she's executed, it might seem to some readers that her death left a spiritual emptiness in her society no one else could fill. Either she was a spiritual essence or she symbolized one.
I hope Tess readers will offer their thoughts here.