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Halls of the Dark Muse

What is so Tragic About Tess?

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by
Dark Muse
, 04-01-2010 at 10:45 PM (2260 Views)
I have just recently finished reading Tess of the d'Urbervilles by Thomas Hardy, and first of all I just want to clarify that I did enjoy the book, and I found some of the prose to be quite lovely, though I know what I am about to say may sound like a mockery, and perhaps in a way it is, but it is done out of affection.

The problem is that I just could not take from the book what well everyone else does, and what a normal person would, and what Hardy intended, but I enjoyed it in my own unique way that perhaps only I could.

I found myself incapable of taking the book seriously as a tragedy, it did not throw me into a bit of despair of leave me feeling bleak and depresses, or move me. In my own personally reading experience it came off as a great Black Comedy.

There are a few reasons for this, of which I will explain.

~Warning~

Beyond this point there will be SPOILERS

First of all and perhaps one of the primary reasons why I did not read this book as a tragedy was because I found Tess to be an unsympathetic character.

*She gave in extremely easily to peer pressure, and pretty much would let anyone persuade her into doing anything.

*She spent a great deal of time feeling sorry for herself because she made terrible decision in her life.

*At the end she (as far as I am concerned) goes completely mad.

The book is subtitled "A Pure Woman" the fact that she in cold blood murders the man who has taken on the reasonability of taking care of her entire family when her douche bag deadbeat husband shows up feeling sorry for himself really puts a stain on the whole "purity" thing.

Granted Alec may have been a cad, and he would have deserved to have been killed at the beginning of the novel, but he repents his actions, makes an attempt to do the right thing towards Tess, takes on the duty that should have been Angel's from the beginning, and lifts her and her whole family out of the poverty that Angel cause her to be placed in, and she stabs him and blames him for the fact that she choose to marry him.

I really did not find her execution to be unjust, or even particularly tragic, since ultimately she did deserve it, by all rights she should have been executed.

The other main reason I could not take the book seriously as a tragedy is because the tragic elements were laid on so thick and it was so melodramatic and sensationalized, that there were moments that truly I just found to be completely laughable.

I personally do not see how others could truly find this book so "realistic" it was so over the top at times.

Also, am I the only one who found Tess trying to pimp her sister out to Angel a bit disconcerting to say the least?

For one thing Angel did not prove to be the greatest husband in the world and for another, I guess what Liza-Lu might want or how she might feel about this really doesn't matter at all.
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  1. dizzydoll's Avatar
    Thank God those days are gone. We did it as a setwork at school. I couldnt stand it either, but then anything school forced on us we rebelled against in those days. :D
  2. Dark Muse's Avatar
    I did not say I could not stand it, I just did not buy it as a serious tragedy.
  3. Virgil's Avatar
    I don't recall Tess trying to pimp her sister, but it has been a long time since I read it.

    I do think Tess is tragic. Hardy presents the forces that lead to Tess's situation to be beyond her ability to control. What personal choices does she make along the way? D'Uberville, her father, Alex, they make the choices which ultimately lead to her demise. I suppose she didn't have to kill D'Urberville, but he did deserve it.

    edit: When I said Alex above there, I meant Angel. My memopry of the book is a little foggy.
    Updated 04-03-2010 at 09:11 AM by Virgil
  4. Dark Muse's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by Virgil
    I don't recall Tess trying to pimp her sister, but it has been a long time since I read it.

    I do think Tess is tragic. Hardy presents the forces that lead to Tess's situation to be beyond her ability to control. What personal choices does she make along the way? D'Uberville, her father, Alex, they make the choices which ultimately lead to her demise. I suppose she didn't have to kill D'Urberville, but he did deserve it.
    Tess was never forced to actually do anything, her family pressured her to go and live with Alec, they did not force her, she had it within her power not to go. But she let herself be persuaded by the wants of others against her better judgement.

    Then once she was there, she was not being held against her will, at any time she could have chose to return home, but she always allowed herself to be talked into staying.

    She could have told Angel the truth about her past long before they were ever married. Instead of waiting until after they were married.

    And she did not have to agree to marry Alec at the end. She made that choice, and than she blamed Alec for the fact that she made that choice.

    If Tess had killed him at the beginning he would have deserved. But he did not deserve it when she of her own free will chose to marry him and he was providing for her entire family.

    What did Angel ever do for her and her family? He threw a tantrum and fled the country. He was in fact more selfish in the end than Alec was.

    As far as Tess "pimping" out her sister, that was my paraphrasing but at the end, she did command Angel to marry her sister and basically to mold her to his will.
  5. qimissung's Avatar
    I think it was a tragedy. The thing is, the title is ironic. It was because of her purity or lack of it or the perception that she was either pure or unpure that caused the many dark tragedies in Tess' life.

    Hardy is showing how a woman was bound by the sexual mores of his time. He does something similar in "Far From the Madding Crowd;" Bathsheba tries to live beyond the boundaries (maybe she is the female version of Angel Clare) but she is not much more successful, although her life lacks the excessive tragedy that marks Tess' life.
  6. Dark Muse's Avatar
    I just thought it read like a Black Comedy because some of the melodrama is so over the top that at points it is really just ridiculous and goes out of the bounds of believability. The characters were so sensationalized that I could not really become emotionally invested them.
  7. Virgil's Avatar
    She wasn't "forced" as in slavery but she didn't have options other than living in dire poverty. In that sense she was forced.
  8. Dark Muse's Avatar
    Quote Originally Posted by Virgil
    She wasn't "forced" as in slavery but she didn't have options other than living in dire poverty. In that sense she was forced.
    Well when talking to Angel once she said that she was acutally in a posistion become a teacher, but for some obscure reasons she doesn't clearly explain she decided not to.

    Now to me for someone in her economic posistion, making the choice to have become a teacher would have been a better option than going off to some alleged kin (who turned out not to be kin) and hoping to beg for thier charity.
  9. Paulclem's Avatar
    I have to agree with you DarkMuse. I found it a trial to read Tess - long ago - i might add. I remeber bits about the story, but the over-riding feeling was of me wishing she would stop being so wet.

    Hardy's prose does have that magic descriptive quality, but the melodrama, as you say, definately ruined the tale for me.