Who is to blame for Tess' death?

[tessdurbeyfield]

Hi, I am doing an essay for school on who is really to blame for Tess' death, I really can't decide though. Is it Angel, Alec, Tess herself, or anyone else? I would be really grateful for opinions. Thank you

[littlelit]

The circumstances, is what i will go for. I don't know if it is just me but i feel many things in the novel happen for no 'sensible' reason at all. I am not a total fatalist but i do get a sense of pervading (and inexplicable) fatalism in the novel. I think pinning down the blame on just one person or family will be very wrong.

P.S. I have quite an old edition of this novel and the introduction quotes Hardy's philosophy in the following lines of Shakespeare: "As flies to wanton boys, are we to the gods/ They kill us for their sport." I have to admit I agree.

[Bitterfly]

I'd say the biggest villain in the book is Angel, with his rigid cast of mind (OK, I'm not very objective: I hated his guts when he turned on Tess!). And he gets a nice Tess-substitute when she dies in the person of her little sister.

It could be Tess's fault as well: she makes all the wrong choices, she's often mistaken - but she makes the wrong choices originally because of her parents and their difficulties, and because of circumstances. Remember she reproaches her mother for not having warned her about men, and it's her father's fault she ends up having to go to work at Alec's in the first place. On the contrary, she doesn't listen to her mother's pragmatic advice when she tells her not to confess to Angel about her affair with Alec.

In fact, it's difficult to share out fault in Tess, because all the events are linked, and are consequences of former events: everything starts because of the totally random encounter between the father and the antiquarian pastor (first page of the novel), who suddenly decides (when he had kept quiet about it earlier) to tell him about his origins. This leads to her father's drunken celebration, to his incapacity to get up, to his sending Tess and her brother to the market in his stead, to the horse's death, to Alec, to her seduction, to Angel's estrangement, to her solitude...etc.

You also have other random occurences: the letter that's never found by Angel, Angel who arrives to late (reminds me of the mishaps in Romeo and Juliet, in fact), which could be said to be at fault. Tess is rather unlucky, when you think about it.

On the other hand you could also argue that it's none of the human characters' fault, if you take the last sentence into account. If I remember well it's about the President of the Immortals and his sport, isn't it? Which gives the impression that some deity had its fun with her and finally threw her away.

I'm still not quite sure what importance to give to chance vs fate (or fatum)/necessity in Tess, actually.

[faye_varia_est]

I think that none of the human characters are really at fault, and that there certainly is a sense of fatalism. For me the novel seemed to lay bare the flaws of the characters in the face of unexplainable, unlucky circumstances. Alec gave way to sinful temptations, leading to Tess accusing her mother and running away. When she found Angel she acted quite ridiculously by continuously refusing him. But when she finally accepted him, she told him of Alec and Angel just ran away, only to attempt at patching things up after Tess murders Alec, which leads to them running away only to be found again. Angel I think was looking for someone to replace Tess in his life. The whole novel reflects the quote:
"As flies to wanton boys, are we to the gods
They kill us for their sport."

[Bitterfly]

I find it difficult to accept that there's no free will in Tess's world.

The quote makes it look like Tess is a tragedy, with a character who does everything she can to struggle against her fate, but who ultimately isn't free but determined from the very beginning to end badly, who's a puppet both of fate and of the author. You also have the Schopenhauer inspiration, and that sort of eradicates the idea of human freedom. And the idea of Calvinistic predestination.

But Hardy is not always very consistent (it's difficult to study his novels for that reason, I find - he often contradicts himself), and I find Tess is also presented as someone who chooses her own path in life, who has faults that lead her to make mistakes that she could have avoided. All the other characters are just as imperfect. So in a way they create their own fate.

I find it almost too comfortable to read Tess like a Greek tragedy: it would allow us to ignore the fact that it's also the workings of society and its limitations that kill Tess. After all, if her life is made so miserable, it's because she considers what she's done with Alec to be sinful. But doesn't the narrator at one moment acknowledge the fact that her affair is perfectly "natural" (even if this nature can be regarded as Schopenhauerian,and thus, also predeterminating...), he still considers her to be pure despite her deflowering? So there's a discrepancy between societal morality and natural law that's also one of the factors of her downfall.

[tessdurbeyfield]

Hi guys, thanks so much for your comments, they've really helped, and the people who have voted as well

[kiki1982]

Can I still make some comments?

It is devastating but no-one is to blame for Tess's death but herself and not even that...
The Durbeyfield family is a family in misery: father is lazy and proud, mother is simple, both parents drink, all the family wants money the easy way and their noble nature provides an excuse.
Alec d'Urberville: he rapes Tess because of his own lust, but Tess would't have been there if her mother hadn't sent her and if the horse wouldn't have died because of her father who was drunk the night before at Rolliver's.
Angel Clare: he deserts Tess and ignores his duty as a husband because he cannot bare the thought of being able to meat Alex, knowing that he was Tess's first. Angel leaves Tess, let's say, out of egocentrism brought on by his 'free' thinking which doesn't seem to be so free as he thinks at first.
Tess herself: she in the end kills Alec, in stead of just leaving him (he wasn't married to her and had no claim over her...), knowing that she would be hanged for it.
The Clare family: they did display their conformism but they didn't really cast her out knowing that it was her. There were no bad intentions from their side, although the talk at the hedge concerning the shoes was not very nice. That was just fate...

Tess performed the act that would get her hanged, but she wouldn't have if Angel hadn't left her who wouldn't have left her if Alec hadn't raped her and Tess wouldn't have been there if her mother hadn't pressed her to go and if the horse hadn't died, which wouldn't have happened if her father hadn't been drunk...

[tessdurbeyfield]

Yes, comments are more than welcome still. I’m still writing my essay, and even when I’m finished, I’m still interested. Thanks

[Brandy Danu]

In Chapter 35 or 36 Claire says something like as long as Alec is alive he will always come between them.

I can't help but think this comment remained at the back of Tess' mind and may have been one of the reasons she kills Alec.

For this reason and for all of Claire's "high mindedness" and in fact cruelty, for his weakness. self absorption and lack of Christian spirit, he, more than any other person or circumstance in the novel, is ultimately responsible for Tess' predicament and subsequent death.

[kiki1982]

However, Angel returns from Brazil and looks for her. Then finds her and what does she do? She casts him out with the words 'it is too late'...

I so much felt for him then...

But maybe there is something in what you say, although in Naturalism it is difficult to say...