Tess of the d ’Urbervilles 515they are willing to accept Tess, she feels threatened
and remains distant from them. Consequently, she
leaves their company while on the way home from
a dance late one night and finds herself alone with
Alec d’Urberville, who seduces her against her will
and leaves her pregnant.
Tess briefly returns home following the loss of
her innocence, but no longer fits neatly into the com-
munity from which she came. Despite the fact that
her friends come to see her, Tess can no longer take
part in their chatter, laughter, and good-humored
teasing of her. She feels lonely, guilt-ridden, and
unable to relate either to her peers or to her family.
Although she leaves her house periodically to work
in the village, Tess spends most of her time hiding in
her family’s house and avoiding all company.
Eventually, Tess leaves her native Blackmoor
again, this time to seek employment at Talbothay’s
Dairy. There, no one knows anything of her past.
Farmer Crick and his wife, the milkmaids, and the
apprentice Angel Clare eagerly welcome her into
their warm and happy community. Tess revives dur-
ing her time there, thrives in the natural environ-
ment, and strikes up a romance with Angel Clare.
Tess initially resists engaging in a relationship with
Clare because of her past actions, but eventually she
succumbs to love and accepts his offer of marriage.
Following their wedding ceremony, the couple leaves
the dairy community behind. Though Tess tries
repeatedly to tell Angel of her past, she does not
succeed until their wedding night when they both
reveal indiscretions. Furious with Tess, Angel rejects
her, leaving the girl entirely alone and ashamed to
return to Talbothay’s dairy. She briefly returns home
once more, but finds her bedroom occupied by sib-
lings and her father questioning the validity of her
marriage. Feeling more isolated and alone than ever,
Tess again leaves.
Needing work, Tess accepts a series of tempo-
rary jobs that demand more and more from her
physically. She suffers extreme poverty and has no
real connections to anyone. While at Flintcomb-
Ash, she reconnects with Marion, whom she knew
at the dairy. Here, brutally hard field work and
dire conditions prevent the development of any
real community and Tess struggles alone, testing
the limits of her physical ability. During a chance
encounter, Tess meets Alec d’Urberville who has
reformed his ways and become a traveling preacher.
Tess rejects his advances initially, but familial hard-
ship again leads her to accept his assistance. In
exchange for helping her family, she agrees to live
as his mistress. They take up residence in a fine
house in a resort town on the English Channel.
Despite her elegant lodging and her fine dress, Tess
continues to feel isolated and disconnected from
any larger community. When Angel returns, she
abandons this life with Alec, whom she murders,
and retreats to an abandoned mansion with her
husband, forming a small but relatively happy com-
munity of just the two of them. Their happiness is
short-lived, however. Pursued by the law, Tess leaves
the mansion and heads for Stonehenge completely
alone to await her fate.
Erica ArtilesGuilt in Tess of the d ’Urbervilles
In Tess of the d ’Urbervilles, Thomas Hardy explores
both the origins and consequences of guilt through
the story of the title character’s fall from grace.
Throughout the novel, Tess finds herself in difficult
and complex situations that lead to her victimization
and her inability to act in her own best interest. Only
by overcoming the overwhelming sense of guilt that
plagues her can Tess finally take responsibility for
her own fate.
Tess’s guilt arises from two primary sources: her
overwhelming sense of responsibility to her fam-
ily and her acceptance of the traditional Christian
equation of virtue and purity with chastity. As the
daughter of an alcoholic father and an incompetent
mother, Tess takes responsibility for her younger
siblings and helping to run the household. When
she spends an afternoon dancing and reveling with
other girls her age, Tess feels guilty for getting grass
stains on the white dress that her mother washed
and ironed. Later, when her father drinks too much
and cannot take the family’s beehives to the market,
Tess offers to drive them despite the fact that she is
exhausted and inexperienced. During the journey,
Tess dozes off briefly, leading to the death of the
family’s horse. Guilt and responsibility lead Tess to
submit, against her better judgment, to her mother’s
plan for her to make connections with the very