Tess of the D'urbervilles

Tess of the D'urbervilles

Throughout the text, the author Thomas Hardy questions the moral code aimed at women during the victorian era. In Tess of the D'urbervilles the main character, Tess, is alienated simply because of her gender and class.

The reader first meets Tess at her home, where she lived with her mother, father, and younger siblings. Being in an impoverished home, Tess grew up to be loyal, responsible, and always wanted what was best for her family. Tess had these mature and compassionate qualities well before she began her journey. She was extremely beautiful as well. From a young age, Tess was able to recognize the misfortune in the world even when others did not. For example, this conversation with her little brother Abraham proves this point that Hardy is trying to make. “Did you say the stars were worlds, Tess?" "Yes." "All like ours?" "I don't know, but I think so. They sometimes seem to be like the apples on our stubbard-tree. Most of them splendid and sound - a few blighted." "Which do we live on - a splendid one or a blighted one?" "A blighted one.”

We first see complications in the life of Tess when her father discovers they are all descendants of a noble family called the D'urbervilles. The young girl is sent to work here for the family, and along her journey she is taken on a detour through the forest by a man named Alec D'urberville. During this time, the man rapes Tess and due to social injustice and degradation, she will never be seen as the same woman in society again.“Never in her life – she could swear it from the bottom of her soul – had she ever intended to do wrong; yet these hard judgments had come. Whatever her sins, they were not sins of intention, but of inadvertence, and why should she have been punished so persistently?” Her status lowered even though the incident was not her fault.