Tess - Raped - Yes or No?

[Emma Carraro]

Before we can discuss the rape vs. seduction of Tess, I think that we need to discuss the personalities of the leading characters and without any firm conformation by Hardy I have made some assumptions about each.
Alec – I have assumed that he has engaged in premarital sex and has an eye for the ladies, today he would not be considered to be a bad person who needs to be saved, but this would not be the case in Victorian society. Personally I like Alec, I think that his feelings towards Tess are more genuine than those of Angel. I think that unlike Angel, he does not deny his sexual feelings and is comfortable with those desires. Tess is often described as beautiful and it’s no wonder that he is attracted to her and sees her in a sexual way.
Tess – is described in the sub-heading as pure. It has been assumed that by pure Hardy meant had no lustful feelings, but I don’t agree with this. I think Tess is a sensual woman, but in Hardy’s opinion “pure” as she didn’t use her attractiveness to take advantage of men like other women in her position would have. I think that she believes that she should love a man before being romantically involved with him and not to become the mistress of a man for financial gain.
Angel – Hardy often describes his love for Tess as ethereal. I think that in contrast to Alec, rather than being in love with Tess the sensual women, he is in love with the women he believes Tess to be. I think if Tess had been a virgin when they married, he would have put her on a pedestal and I don’t believe that Tess would have been fulfilled as a woman and would not have been truly happy.
Rape or Seduction? - Although the narrative states that, once he gained his bearings, Alec came upon Tess while she was asleep, the narrative stops here and does not take up again until a few weeks later as she leaves Tantridge, by which time we know she is a maiden no more. We do not know exactly what happened that night in the Chase and although other posters have assumed that Alec starts to have sex with Tess while she is still asleep, I have not made that assumption.
Up to the point in the Chase, Alec has clearly been making advances toward Tess which she has rejected but he has not mistreated her, in fact I feel that he very much likes her. Tess’s own mother felt sure that given time Alec would ask Tess to marry him, Alec replaced the Durbyfield’s dead horse, goes to visit Tess at her home before she starts working for his mother, personally meets her along the road to give her a lift to Tantridge and on the night in question, saved her from being bullied by two other women from Tantridge. I will agree that he has taken some liberties with Tess up to that point, such as scaring her during their initial drive to Tantridge and then getting her to kiss him, but I do not think that Alec had deliberately taken Tess off with a mind to rape her that night. I think that he enjoyed her company, the feeling of her close to him and wanted to prolong the time they spent together only to genuinely get lost. I think that upon his return, Alec has renewed his advances toward Tess who finally gives in and sleeps with him and so beings a brief romance between the two. However, as Tess does not love Alec, within a few weeks she comes to regret the arrangement and returns home. When talking to Alec on her way home, she states that she “loathe[s] and hate[s]” herself for her “weakness,” and laments that her “eyes were dazed by [Alec] for a little.” Once back home, she reflects how she was “stirred to confused surrender” because of “his ardent manners” despite not loving him. The narrative also states that she accepts some gifts of “finery” from him too, although she is not fully comfortable with this arrangement. Some readers have assumed that when Hardy talks about Tess’s knightly ancestors, who centuries before likely imposed themselves on peasant girls “even more ruthlessly,” meant she was raped by Alec, I’ve assumed that it meant that the peasant girls were raped by her ancestors, although Tess was not raped but had her repeated rejections of Alec worn down by his persistence against her better judgement.

[kelby_lake]

I agree with you in that Tess shows a degree of interest but only to the extent that any teenage girl would. She is dazzled by his apparant chivalry but does not realise what the chivalry must culminate in. As he is the first real man she's known, it's perfectly natural that she might fall for his tricks but if she knew what men were really like, she would have thought it through. Arguably her mother is the worst figure for Tess; she sends Tess off to Alec in the hope that she might marry him and does not think to give her any sort of advice on men. Tess simply has to give the man what he wants, even if it's not what she wants.

I believe that Alec does genuinely like Tess but he only knows one way of dealing with women. He is a slave to his lust. I think also some of it stems from his mother, who notably is blind and only cares about her birds. This develops in Alec a hate and intolerance of women.

[kev67]

I have just read an introduction to Tess by Margaret Higonnet. Interestingly, in the form of the story that was serialized in a magazine, Tess in tricked into a sham marriage. I think Alec gets one of his friends to dress up as a priest, so the marriage was not valid. Could that be considered rape? I read a book recently that suggested the Victorians may have thought so. Tess gives consent, but it is conditional consent. In the first edition of the book, Alec pours drugs down Tess's throat, something similar to rohypnol, I suppose. That would definitely be rape. In the second edition, the bit about the drugs was removed.

[kiki1982]

Ooooo, that's interesting. So Alec is actually more of a villain than he seems to most readers of the novel? Pouring drugs into a girl and then deflowering her is pretty bad. Although I seem to remember that she could have been slightly dazed by alcohol (wasn't there a cat fight between two women of the group she was going home with?).
The bit about the sham marriage is a bit reminiscent of |I]Jane Eyre[/I], although Rochester was at least honest about the priest himself. Still, it would have been a sham and he knew it. At least he had some extenuating circumstances on a human level, but getting a false priest when you're single and not in a pitiful situation is quite a despicable thing to do.

[kev67]

I am reading a history of the text. It is quite confusing. There were so many variations of the book, and the bit that seems to vary the most is the rape/seduction scene. Hardy tinkered with the book from the late 1880s to 1919. I think (but I am not sure) that the edition we usually read is the 1891 version.

[kev67]

Ah, this is interesting. I bought a new copy to replace the 2nd hand paperback I had before. My new copy is the 1891 version in which Alec drugs Tess. The paperback that I read previously was the Clarendon edition. I can't find out exactly when it was written but OUP website says it is: "A unique critical text, taken from the authoritative Clarendon edition, based on the manuscript collated with Hardy's later revisions."
In the Clarendon edition it is not clear whether it was a rape or seduction.

I am a bit annoyed now. I know Hardy had to submit a toned down version of the story for serialization in the magazines, but why couldn't he stop tinkering? Having said that, I think I prefer the version of events in the Clarendon edition, in which it is left for the reader to wonder what really happened.

Edit: The Clarendon edition was published in 1983, and was edited by Juliet Grindle and Simon Gatrell.

[kiki1982]

So what does it exactly say? I'm intrigued.

I can see what you mean, though. Maybe Hardy tinkered a lot because he was a perfectionist and perfectionists never stop tinkering. I'm one. It's a nightmare, seeing back old translations from myself. No, as Hardy genuinely loved Tess, he may have tinkered with the plot because he felt sorry for her or maybe he started feeling sorry for Alec. Some authors (and I suppose readers too) do start to think of their characters as real people.

Then you see, though, how easily you can manipulate a character's image. Just leave out one sentence and the whole thing changes.

[kev67]

XI

The twain cantered along without speech, Tess as she clung to him still panting in her triumph, yet in other respects dubious. She had perceived that the horse was not the spirited one he sometimes rode, and felt no alarm on that score, though her seat was precarious enough. She asked him to slow the animal to a walk, which Alec accordingly did.
“Neatly done, was it not, dear Tess,” he said by and by.
“Yes!” said she. “I am sure I should be much obliged to you.”
“And are You?”
She did not reply.
“Tess, why do you always dislike my kissing you?”
“I suppose - because I don’t love you.”
“You are quite sure?”
“I am angry with you sometimes!”
“Ah, I feared as much.” Nevertheless, Alec did not object to that confession. He knew that anything was better than frigidity. “Why haven’t you told me when I have made you angry?”
“You know very well why. Because I cannot help myself here.”
“I haven’t offended you often by love-making?”
“You have sometimes.”
“How many times?”
“You know as well as I - too many times.”
“Every time I have tried?”
She went silent, and the horse ambled along for a considerable distance, till a faint luminous fog, which had hung in the hollows all the evening, became general and enveloped them. It seemed to hold the moonlight in suspension, rendering it more pervasive than in clear air. Whether on this account, or from absent-mindedness, or from sleepiness, she did not perceive that they had long ago passed the point at which Trantridge branched from the highway and that her conductor had not taken the Trantridge track.
She was inexpressibly weary. She had risen at five o’clock every morning of that week, had been on foot the whole of each day, and on this evening had in addition walked three miles to Chaseborough, waited three hours for her neighbours without eating or drinking, her impatience to start them preventing either; she had then walked a mile of the way home, and had undergone the excitement of the quarrel, till it was now nearly one o’clock. Only once, however, was she overcome by actual drowsiness. In that moment of oblivion she sank gently against him.
D’Urberville withdrew his feet from the stirrups, turned sidewards on the saddle, and enclosed her waist with his arm to support her.
This immediately put her on the defensive, and with one of those sudden impulses of reprisal to which she was liable she gave him a little push from her. In his ticklish position he nearly lost his balance and only just avoided rolling onto the road, the horse, though a powerful one, being fortunately the quietest he rode.
“That is devilish unkind!” he said. “I mean no harm - only to keep you from falling.”
She pondered suspiciously; till, thinking that after all this might be true, she relented, and said quite humbly, “I beg your pardon, sir.”
“I won’t pardon you unless you show some confidence in me. Good God!” he burst out, “what am I to be repulsed so by a mere chit like you? For near three mortal months you have trifled with my feelings, eluded me and snubbed me; and I won’t stand it!”
“I’ll leave to-morrow, sir.”
“No, you will not leave me to-morrow! Will you, I ask once more, show your belief in me by letting me encircle you with my arm? Come, between us two and nobody else, now. We know each other well; and you know that I love you, and think you are the prettiest girl in the world, which you are. May I treat you as a lover?”
She drew a quick pettish breath of objection, writhing uneasily on her seat, looked far ahead, and murmured, “I don’t know - I wish - how can I say yes or no when -”
He settled the matter by clasping his arm round her as he desired, and Tess expressed no further negative. Thus they sidled onward till it struck her they had been advancing for an unconscionable time - far longer than was usually occupied by the short journey from Chaseborough, even at this walking pace, and that they were no longer on hard road, but in a mere trackway.
“Why, where be we?” she exclaimed.
“Passing a wood.”
“A wood - what wood? Surely we are quite out of the road?”
“A bit of The Chase - the oldest wood in England. It is a lovely night, and why should we not prolong our ride a little?”
“How could you be so treacherous!” said Tess, between archness and real dismay, and getting rid of his arm by pulling open his fingers one by one, though at the risk of slipping off herself. “Just when I have been putting such trust in you, and obliging you to please you, because I thought I had wronged you by that push! Please set me down and let me walk home.”
“You cannot walk home, even if the air were clear. We are miles away from Trantridge, if I must tell you, and in this growing fog you might wander for hours among the trees.”
“Never mind that,” she coaxed. “Put me down, I beg you. I don’t mind where it is; only let me get down, sir, please!”
“Very well, then, I will - on one condition. Having brought you here to this out-of-the-way place, I feel myself responsible for your safe-conduct home, whatever you may feel yourself about it. As to your getting to Trantridge without assistance, it is quite impossible; for, to tell the truth, owing to this fog, which so disguises everything, I don’t quite know where we are myself. Now, if you promise to wait beside the horse while I walk through the bushes till I come to some road or house, and ascertain exactly our whereabouts, I’ll deposit you here willingly. When I come back I’ll give you full directions, and if you insist upon walking you may; or you may ride - at your pleasure.”
She accepted these terms, and slid off on the near side, though not till he had stolen a hearty kiss. He sprang down on the other side.
“I suppose I must hold the horse?” said she.
“Oh no, it is not necessary,” replied Alec, patting the panting creature. “He’s had enough of it for to-night.”
He turned the horse’s head into the bushes, hitched him onto a bough, and pulling off a light dust coat that he wore, spread it upon the thick leaves.
“Now, you sit there,” he said. “That will keep away the damp. Just give an eye to the horse - it will be quite sufficient.”
He took a few steps away from her, but, returning, said “By the bye, Tess, your father has a new cob to-day. Somebody gave it to him.”
“Somebody? You!”
D’Urberville nodded.
“Oh how very good of you that is!” with a painful sense of the awkwardness of having to thank him just then.
“And the children have some toys.”
“I didn’t know - you ever sent them anything!” she murmured, much moved. “I almost wish you had not - yes, I almost wish it!”
“Why, dear?”
“It - hampers me so.”
“Tessy - don’t you love me ever so little now?”
“I’m grateful,” she reluctantly admitted. “But I fear I do not - “ The sudden vision of his passion for herself as a factor in this result so distressed her that, beginning with one slow tear, and then following with another, she wept outright.
“Don’t cry, dear, dear one! Now sit down here, and wait till I come.” She passively sat down on the coat that he had spread, and shivered slightly. “Are you cold?” he asked.
“Not very - a little.”
He touched her with his fingers, which sank into her as into a billow. “You have only that puffy muslin dress on - how’s that?”
“It’s my best summer one. ‘Twas very warm when I started, and I didn’t know I was going to ride, and that it would be night.”
“Nights grow chilly in September. Let me see.” He went to the horse, took a druggist’s bottle from a parcel on the saddle, and after some trouble in opening it held it to her mouth unawares. Tess sputtered and coughed, and gasping, “It will go on my pretty frock!” swallowed as he poured, to prevent the catastrophe she feared.
“That’s it - now you’ll feel warmer,” said d’Urberville, as he restored the bottle to its place. “It is only a well-known cordial that my mother ordered me to bring for household purposes, and she won’t mind me using some of it medicinally. Now, my pretty, rest there; I shall soon be back again.”
He pulled the overcoat around her shoulders and plunged into the webs of vapour which by this time formed veils between the trees. She could hear the rustling of the branches as he ascended the adjoining slope, till his movements were no louder than the hopping of a bird, and finally died away. With the setting of the moon the pale light lessened, and Tess became invisible as she fell into reverie upon the leaves where he had left her.
In the meantime Alec d’Urberville had pushed on up the slope to clear his genuine doubt as to the quarter of The Chase they were in. He had, in fact, ridden quite at random for over an hour, taking any turning that came to hand in order to prolong companionship with her, and giving far more attention to Tess’s moonlit person than to any wayside object. A little rest for the jaded animal being desirable, he did not hasten his search for landmarks. A clamber over the hill into the adjoining vale brought him to the fence of a highway whose aspect he recognised, which settled the question of their whereabouts. D’Urberville thereupon turned back; but by this time the moon had quite gone down, and partly on account of the fog the Chase was wrapped in thick darkness, although morning was not far off. He was obliged to stretch with outstretched hands to avoid contact with the boughs, and discovered that to hit upon the exact spot from which he had started was at first entirely beyond him. Roaming up and down, round and round, he at length heard a slight movement of the horse close at hand; and the sleeve of his overcoat unexpectedly caught his foot.
“Tess!” said d’Urberville.
There was no answer. The obscurity was now so great that he could see absolutely nothing but a pale nebulousness at his feet, which represented the white muslin figure he had left upon the dead leaves. Everything else was blackness alike. D’Urberville stooped; and heard a gentle regular breathing. She was sleeping soundly.
Darkness and silence ruled everywhere around. Above them rose the primeval yews and oaks of the Chase, in which were poised gentle roosting birds in their last nap; and around them the hopping rabbits and hares. But where was Tess’s guardian angel? where was Providence? Perhaps, like that other god of whom the ironical Tishbite spoke, he was walking, or he was pursuing, or he was in a journey, or peradventure he was sleeping and was not to be awaked.
Already at that hour some sons of the forest were stirring and striking lights in not very distant cottages; good and sincere hearts among them, patterns of honesty and devotion and chivalry. And powerful horses were stamping in their stalls, ready to be let out into the morning air. But no dart of intelligence inspired these men to harness and mount, or gave them any means the least inkling that their sister was in the hands of the spoiler; and they did not come that way.
Why was it that upon this beautiful feminine tissue, sensitive as gossamer, and practically as blank as snow as yet, there should have been traced such a coarse pattern as it was doomed to receive; why so often the coarse appropriates the finer thus, many thousand years of analytical philosophy have failed to explain to our sense of order. One may, indeed, admit the possibility of a retribution lurking in the catastrophe. Doubtless some of Tess d’Urberville’s mailed ancestors rollicking home from a fray had dealt the same wrong even more ruthlessly upon peasant girls of their time. But though to visit the sins of the fathers upon the children may be a morality good enough for the divinities, it is scorned by average human nature; and it therefore does not mend the matter.
As Tess’s own people down in those retreats are never tired of saying among each other in their fatalistic way: “It was meant to be.” There lay the pity of it. An immeasurable chasm was to divide our heroine’s personality thereafter from that previous self of hers who stepped from her mother’s door to try her fortune at Trantridge poultry farm.

[kelby_lake]

Sounds like rape- not necessarily violently fought but still sounds like rape. There's so many references to whiteness and purity, which I think is the sign to the reader that Tess is innocenct in the seduction, though obviously Hardy can't go into too much detail.

I tend to align Hardy with Lawrence (although Lawrence was Hardy's predecessor). I don't think Hardy would be prudish enough to write the passage in this way if she'd consented; he's hard enough on Sue Bridehead for abstaining so I don't think he would go on about how coarse it was unless the ordeal was unpleasant. Tess is meant to be so beautiful that men can't control themselves.

[Maple]

In Chapter XII Tess returns to her parents' cottage in Marlott and tells her mother about this pivotal event. She says, "She dreaded him, winced before him, succumbed to adroit advantages he took of her helplessness, then, temporarily blinded by his ardent manners, had been stirred to confused surrender awhile..."

While the above doesn't supply us enough detail to determine whether Tess, deeply fatigued and physically helpless, was forcibly raped while resisting him as forcibly as she might, or whether she merely surrendered against her wishes, doesn't this description provide us enough? She lost her virginity against her will to a wealthy rake who had all of society's advantages while she had none. She even lacked a mother's warning about such situations because, as Joan admits, she feared such information would make Tess "hontish wi' him and lose your chance." Joan, Tess' mother, Alec, Tess' employer, and Tess are the three involved in this event. Joan effectively put her in the scene, Alec overwhelmed her being determined to satisfy himself, and only Tess didn't want it to happen. She didn't stand a chance.

And, by the way, on learning what happened at Trantridge and Joan discovering that her plan to secure the Derbyville future had failed, Joan's immediate reaction is to blame Tess, saying "Why didn't ye think of doing some good for your family instead o' thinking only of yourself." What chance could Tess have had in life with such a mother?

[kelby_lake]

The problem is, Tess can't fully consent. Her surrender is 'confused'. She certainly doesn't understand the consequences. There's nothing in the passage to suggest that Tess actively consented

[Maple]

[QUOTE=kelby_lake;1253112]The problem is, Tess can't fully consent. /QUOTE]

There's a crime called statutory rape in some places. If a female has sex prior to an age, say 18, at which age she is presumed to have the mental capacity to consent to sex, sex even if the girl requests it is deemed rape. In Tess' case, she was sixteen, unsophisticated and confused by sex. Whether in Wessex the crime of statutory rape was in place hardly matters to modern readers. We understand the concept and appreciate that Tess was simply too young and unsophisticated to consent. Statutory rape in my country can send the offender to jail for years and is considered a crime in par with rape of a woman past the age of majority.

Kelby's post is on the money.

[SilverMask]

At the risk of repeating previous opinions, have we considered that it may not be an either/or question, not legally speaking of course, the law is based on absolutes after all?

Hardy continuously and persistently describes Tess as seemingly more mature physically, than emotionally and psychologically, which is usually the case for most people of 16.

As having the unique experience of being in contact with an almost identical real life version of Alec, I can attest to the fact that things were not and are not as simple as this or that. It is possible for attraction and desire to understand to coexist with disgust and disapproval, so while one may only have a physical representation, I believe both had a psychological one as well in Hardy's novel. While, indeed, Tess would not have had many choices either way, I do believe it is alluded to a certain connection between Tess and Alec at that point in the narrative, so it is possible the act conveniently not described could be both seduction and rape from a different standpoint in Tess' mind, since we are discussing the character, not the legal definition of the term. (I don't know how clear I'm being, I always have difficulty explaining whatever it is that sounds logical in my mind).

Overall, my point is that while Hardy left the act to the imagination and judgement of the reader, in my opinion he did so intentionally to stress on the duality of it and the conflict within Tess.

[Misty_View]

It is very clear that although Alex loves Tess he is also trying to seduce her. In my opinion as a woman who has been in a similar situation (where my rapist tried to seduce me at the age of 15), I feel that Tess was raped. Her rights were limited due to the time frame as well as being a woman in those times. She showed uncertainty toward him and yet he pressed his suit. Also, please take into account that when Alex arrives back from his persuit of directions, Tess is asleep... no one seems to have taken this into account. In a groggy and foggy minded state she might not have registered the situation as clearly as she might have.


"She had been made to break an accepted social law, but no law known to the environment in which she fancied herself such an anomaly." - part 2 end of chapter 3

No slings or arrows, just a different POV.

[Misty_View]

I would also like to say that Tess could not have been 16 at the time of her rape. In part two when Tess leaves home for the second time she has been home for 2 years. when she is walking along by the river it is stated that she is 21. By those statements alone and adding on that she only stayed by Alex for no more than a few months. she was no younger than 17 or 18 at the time.