Book Review: Tess of the D’Urbervilles by Thomas Hardy

I wouldn’t say Thomas Hardy’s Tess of the D’Urbervilles is a fun or even enthralling read, either due to plot or ease of reading, but I can’t help but love it. I don’t remember when I first read this—it might have been a bit after high school—but Tess always stuck with me, and after recently watching the movie adaptation (1998 version with Justine Waddell), I wanted to reread the novel. My brother is always shocked when I mention watching the movie or rereading the book, because he’s read it and doesn’t understand why I would put myself through the sadness. There is very little happiness in Tess’ story. 

But at the same time, there’s so much here that pulls my heart toward it, even if it’s mainly of sympathy. From the small details like a baby named Sorrow and flowers in a marmalade jar over a grave to the overall themes like nature vs society and its opposing judgment, what true love consists of vs idolization, pride and conventionality vs feeling and tenderness, resilience and pride vs apathy and pain, morality in terms of intention vs action—there is so much discussed here. I loved reading Hardys’ insight into human nature and his social commentary.

Hardy’s writing was mostly gorgeous, but there was occasionally a sentence that was unnecessarily doing too much. His writing isn’t easy or incredibly flowy or simple at all, but it’s so well constructed and the complexity is so beautiful. He can pack so much insight into one sentence. His overdone sentences come with the territory, but I can forgive it. 

It feels profane to call this story a love triangle, since Tess happens to be picking between a rapist and a hypocrite, and the love between every party is either one-sided, perverted, or is instead idolization confused for love. So much about this story is cruel, but perhaps the cruelest is that the only person to truly know Tess (in both senses of the word) the majority of the book is the man who was the blight on her soul and life. Her parents didn’t understand her (something her own mother confessed to Angel), her siblings were too young to understand, she was too reserved to let her fellow milkmaids understand her, and Angel most certainly didn’t understand her since he only saw his idealized version of Tess. Perhaps Angel knew (in both senses of the word) Tess at the end of the novel, but by then it was too late. Alec understood her pride and that all her actions were a product of it, that her thoughts about religion were adopted from Angel rather than opinions of her own, that her weakness was her siblings (did Angel ever even consider them?), and he knew how to manipulate her emotions. Tess only knew violating love: out of rape and out of an understanding of her nature from someone she wanted nothing to do with. She called her relationship with Angel the only pure love she knew, but was it truly pure if all of Angel’s intentions were of a fabricated nature and not clearly idealized?

Perhaps Tess sticks with me because her story is unusual in the literary landscape, particularly of its time period. Thomas Hardy addresses this in his preface:

This novel being one wherein the great campaign of the heroine begins after an event in her experience which has usually been treated as fatal to her part of protagonist, or at least as the virtual ending of her enterprises and hopes, it was quite contrary to avowed conventions that the public should welcome the book and agree with me in holding that there was something more to be said in fiction than had been said about the shaded side of a well-known catastrophe.

I love when authors pinpoint gaps in literature and decide that there is “more to be said in fiction than had been said,” filling that gap and providing unpredictable stories. And I do think that the direction Hardy decided to take Tess’ story was less than predictable. Tess didn’t devolve into depravity, lose faith in humanity or become apathetic for very long, lash out, or become scared of the world. Her reaction wasn’t “main character” worthy, but it actually made her into the perfect main character. I disagree with the many reviews I’ve read that claim Tess is weak. I thought her quite strong, though her love for Angel was a bit blind, and her pride led her astray and turned out to be self-destructive. Maybe it’s because I have a sinful streak of pride myself, but I thought her pride in not turning to Angel’s parents very realistic. Throughout it all, she retained her dignity, she remained resolute, and most importantly, she proved herself to be as the subtitle suggests, “A Pure Woman,” despite living in a time period where her experiences would unjustifiably paint her as the opposite.

I don’t think I ever read this for a class, but I seem to remember this book being mentioned in a class, and I vaguely remember there seeming to be some question of whether Tess was raped or if she was seduced. I don’t think the novel ever offers it up as a question. Although the rape scene isn’t written in detail and we never read her explicitly saying “no,” you cannot consent to sex if you are asleep, and it is repeatedly said afterward that Tess didn’t have a choice in the matter and that Alec made her into a victim. The only sentences in the novel that made me question Hardy’s opinion on the matter even for a second was when he was discussing how incorrectly Tess saw her presence in nature as an imposition of guilt onto innocence, and he wrote, “But for the world’s opinion those experiences would have been simply a liberal education.” At first it seemed unjust to classify rape as an educational experience, but I actually think it is more of a question of whether only society would see it as rape and if rape existed in animalic nature. The second instance that made me question Hardy’s opinion was when Tess calls Alec “her seducer.” But this is said through her POV and it’s clear that she carries guilt from this experience, so does that mean that Hardy carries the same opinion or even distinguishes seduction from rape?

Thomas Hardy also addressed his opinion of Tess as a pure woman in his preface: 

Respecting the sub-title [“A Pure Woman”], I may add that it was appended at the last moment, after reading the final proofs, as being the estimate left in a candid mind of the heroine’s character—an estimate that nobody would be likely to dispute. It was disputed more than anything else in the book.

I don’t think a man of his time period would have such a high opinion of Tess’ character if she was seduced into sex rather than raped. 

All that being said, I do understand why some people think Thomas Hardy was misogynistic. There’s a touch of misogyny in his attributing some faults to a feminine nature, i.e., “feminine loss of courage” and “feminine proclivity [for curious snooping],” and one point of unbelievability was the extent of adoration all of the dairy girls (four in number) felt for Angel so that all but one ruined herself after he left their lives (turned to drink, attempted suicide, murder). I think this was to try to prove Angel’s attractiveness to women of their class and position, but it was a bit heavy handed and made the other dairy girls seem rather silly. But that’s honestly my only complaint. I think Hardy could have left that out, and I think that he might have held some of the opinions of his time, but ultimately, I respect him for pointing out the double standards, for deeming Tess’ story worthy of a novel, for his insights, and for creating a character that he and I both learned to admire.

This is definitely one of my longer reviews, but I just had so much to say about the novel. My copy is riddled with underlines and annotations. It’s definitely moving to my Favorites shelf.