The early Victorian world witnessed widespread parliamentary reforms. These reform attempts were driven by an aggressively optimistic belief that the conditions of human life could be improved through rational effort. Hardy sympathized with the widespread desire to improve the human condition, but in a fundamental way he doubted that it was possible to do so. His underclass beginnings compounded with the poverty he witnessed during his years in London made him angrily sensitive to the deprivations of others, particularly those who were unlikely to benefit measurably from social or political reform, like Tess Durbeyfield. Hardy’s works act as a counterstatement to the prevaling optimism of the Victorian age, as well as to the surviving optimism of our own time.

Tess is a girl of the working class with a family that hates to work, so when they learn that her father is the descendant of the noble family, the d'Urbervilles, they send Tess to a rich 'relative' in nearby Tantridge to get money or marry well so that her parents will be taken care of. Tess goes because her parents make her feel she must although she thinks it's wrong of them to ask for money. This meeting with Alec d'Urberville, one of the 'relatives' seals her dreadful fate. He is attracted to Tess and takes advantage of her when she comes to Tantridge to work at d'Urberville manor and she returns home ruined.

Alec promises to take care of her if she ever needs anything, but she dislikes him so much that she'd rather suffer than have any contact with him. Soon Tess bears a child she names, Sorrow, and the child dies only days after it is born. Tess, without the support of her shiftless family, leaves home to try at independence again knowing now to be wary of men.

She goes to Talbothay's dairy and falls in love with Angel Clare, the son of a p astor who is learning about farming at the dairy. Although she thinks herself unworthy of such a sweet man because of what happened to her, Tess and Angel fall in love and decide to get married.

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She refused his proposals for quite a while trying to find a way to tell him about her past with Alec d'Urberville, but she couldn't do it. It is important to her that he knows everything about her so that she knows he loves her for herself and not f or who he thinks she is, so shortly before they are supposed to be married, she writes him a letter and slips it under the door of his room. He never gets the letter because it is stuck under the edge of the carpet. Tess realizes this mistake on the morning of their marriage, and she is not given an opportunity to tell him before they are married. That night he confesses that he's had one sexual encounter that he couldn't bring himself to tell her about and she forgives him, knowing that he'll forgive her what happened with Alec. But when she tells Angel about it, the way he feels about her changes completely.

He feels betrayed and tricked, so they agree to separate, although Tess loves him greatly. He goes to Brazil to try his hand at farming there, and Tess works at hard job after hard job rather than asking his f amily for money as he'd instructed her when he left. While she's working herself to the bone, she encounters Alec d'Urberville again and he begins visiting her, relentlessly trying to convince her to marry him. She finally gives in when her family is evicted from their home after her father's death and they have nowhere to go. Alec provides them a home, and Tess agrees to be his wife. Angel then returns from Brazil and comes to find her, knowing that he has treated her unfairly. When he finds her, she is distraught that the only man she ever loved has come back, and once again, Alec d'Urberville is standing in her way.

She stabs Alec with a carving knife, and she and Angel spend a week together hiding out and being as they were before they were married. Then Tess is captured and executed. After she met Alec d'Urberville, there was nothing Tess could do to change fate. All that happened to her was meant to be. : His writing reflects his tragic view of life, as well as his belief that to live is to suffer. As Hardy himself stated, the province of the artist is “to find the beauty in ugliness.” He channels this paradoxical belief, matching beauty to ugliness through cruelty, deceit, and betrayal.

Hardy manages this by speaking in two narrative vioces. One is objective and observing in which he speaks of the beauty of suffering. The second is empathic, evaluative, and speaks of the shame and injustice of that sufferring. The division of the narration creates a dual perspective that reconciles beauty with sufferring. 'Thus, the thing began.

Had she perceived this meeting's import she might have asked why she was doomed to be seen and coveted that day by the wrong man, and not by some other man, the right and desired one in all respects” (64). Annales Ecole Du Louvre Pdf File. '’That it would always be summer and autumn, and you always courting me, and always thinking as much of me as you have done through the past summertime!’ ' (209). “’Justice’ was done, and the President of the Immortals (in Aeschylean phrase) had ended his sport with Tess. And the d’Urberville knights and dames slept on in their tombs unknowing.

The two speechless gazers bent themselves down to the earth, as if in prayer, and remained there a long time, absolutely motionless: the flag continued to wave silently. As soon as they had strength they arose, joined hands again, and went on” (384). This quote represents a significant turning point in the play. It is the point where Tess sets off from home and embarks on the tragic journey ahead of her.

It shows that Tess has no idea what awaits her, and that she is inevitably doomed by this unfortunate meeting with Alec. Psp Gta Vice City Stories Iso Download Torrent more. This quote forshadows later incidents in the book. It is immediately after Tess says this that she impulsively agrees to marry Angel, although he does not know about her past with Alec.

The quote essentially is predicting the inevitable end of Tess and Angel’s relationship. Their summer love was not fated to last. This quote displays the final lines of the novel. From these last lines, the reader feels that Tess’s suffering seems simply to be a game or “sport.” She was fated to suffer and her life made a minimal impact on the world. She lived and died in pain, yet led a relatively unimporta nt role in society as a whole.

The reader also questions the meaning of justice. Tess was wholly undeserving of the pain that befell her and did not deserve that version of justice.

Tim Lambert, n. According to Lambert, more is known a bout poverty during the 1890¶s because detailed descriptions and accurate surveys were recorded.

The poverty-stricken population was undermined by the elite Victo rian population because the elites believed in the t heory of self- help, which meant that the poor were poor because they were unable to sustain themselves. Poor families were often separated in their search for work. This publicized knowledge may have been influential in Hardy¶s representation of the lower class in his novel.