516 Hardy, Thomas
wealthy d’Urberville family to whom, her mother
and father believe, they are distantly related.
In an effort to aid her family, Tess accepts
employment caring for Mrs. d’Urberville’s pet fowl
and encounters Alec d’Urberville, who is attracted
to Tess and repeatedly tries to seduce her. Though
dependent upon Alec for her livelihood and socially
inferior to him, Tess stands her ground and repeat-
edly rejects his advances. One night, though, Tess
impulsively accepts his offer for a ride home from a
village dance in order to avoid a confrontation with
some members of the Tantridge community. During
the dark and foggy night, Alec loses his way, leaving
him and Tess alone in the woods together. Alec again
entreats her as a lover and informs her of the many
gifts he has given her family, including a new horse
for her father. In response to his request, perhaps
motivated by a sense of guilt, Tess is indecisive when
answering his request. Though she never explicitly
agrees, Tess helplessly succumbs to his advances.
Shortly after losing her virginity, Tess returns
to her family pregnant and riddled with guilt and
shame. On the way home, she encounters a man
painting religious messages about damnation and
sin throughout the countryside. When she asks
him about sin that one does not commit willingly,
he ignores her question and instead talks about the
ability of such messages to incite guilt. Though Tess
says that she does not believe the validity of such
messages, she leaves the company of the painter
profoundly affected. Tess returns home only long
enough to bear and bury her sickly child. Follow-
ing her sexual experience, Tess senses a chasm that
divides her from her former self as well as from her
former companions.
This social chasm reflects society’s linking of
chastity with virtue, and Tess accepts the fact that
her sin has made her an immoral woman and an
outcast. She becomes overwhelmed with guilt at
defying both social conventions and religious pro-
hibitions. Consequently, she resists Angel Clare’s
love at Talbothay’s dairy, despite her powerful feel-
ings. Later, her guilt prompts her to accept Angel’s
unreasonably harsh rejection of her as a lover and
a wife, despite his own past indiscretions. Later,
following the unexpected death of her father, Tess
returns home and again, out of a sense of guilt and
responsibility, defies her own judgment to help her
family. Having recently encountered Alec again,
Tess refuses his continuing advances until he offers
assistance to her homeless and desperate family. She
agrees to live as his mistress, taking on even greater
guilt, in order to have her mother and siblings pro-
vided for.
Once Angel returns, however, Tess regrets con-
ceding to Alec, kills her lover, and follows her hus-
band to an abandoned mansion where, apart from
society, they consummate their marriage and live as
husband and wife until they are discovered. Though
her action here is complex, one could argue that she
has rejected her sense of responsibility to her fam-
ily and her guilt over her past actions. About to be
captured, Tess heads for Stonehenge by herself and
sleeps on an altar, where victims were sacrificed to
the gods, before being taken by the authorities.
Erica ArtilesSocial claSS in Tess of the d ’Urbervilles
Thomas Hardy, in Tess of the d ’Urbervilles, presents a
cast of male characters that represent various social
classes of late-19th-century England. Tess’s involve-
ment with each of the men illustrates some of the
problems and inconsistencies inherent in each class.
The story opens with Tess’s father, John Durbey-
field, learning that he is the sole remaining member
of the ancient d’Urberville line. He is lazy and
poor, scraping together a living by doing odd jobs
and peddling various wares. Once he learns of his
lineage, Durbeyfield becomes proud and arrogant,
taking on some of the worst traits of the aristocracy
without the money or social standing that define
the class. The meager living he does make becomes
jeopardized when he is too intoxicated to take his
beehives to the market in Casterbridge. Tess offers
to go instead and inadvertently kills their horse, the
primary means of the family’s livelihood.
Hoping to establish a connection with and to
profit from what he assumes to be another, wealthier
branch of the d’Urberville family, John sends Tess to
Tantridge where she encounters Alec d’Urberville.
He is the son of a successful merchant, Simon
Stokes, who changed his name to d’Urberville after
he found records of what he believed to be an extinct
family line in the British Museum. Following his