Tess of the d’Urbervilles By: Thomas Hardy

Tess of the d’Urbervilles By: Thomas Hardy

Tess of the d’Urbervilles By: Thomas Hardy

Four main characters (and one-sentence description of each)

Tess Durbeyfield - 

She is the main character who is raped, then married, but shunned by her husband because of the rape while before they were married, he had an affair.

Alec d’Urberville -

 He is a man believed by the Durbeyfield’s to be a relative, but Tess finds out that he is no relative.  He falls in love with Tess and rapes her.

Angel Clare - 

Tess met him at Talbothay’s farm and they fell in love to later get married but separated immediately after the marriage.

Joan Durbeyfield -

 She is Tess’ mother who pushed Tess to find help in the d’Urbervilles only to get Tess raped, and tells Tess to never mention the rape or the child to anyone.

Two minor characters (and one-sentence description of each)

Marian -

 She was a worker at Talbothay’s with Tess and fell in love with Angel like Tess, but after Tess married Angel, she remained strong and helped Tess find work after Angel left.

The Clare’s -

 These are the members of Angel’s family who did not know of Tess’ problems, but would have helped her if they did.

Three main settings (and one-sentence description of each)

Marlott - 

This is Tess’ home town where she grew up and returned to after the incident at the d’Urbervilles.

Alec d’Urberville’s house -

 Tess went to stay at this house after their family fell in need and sought help from the supposed relatives.

Talbothays - 

Trying to find a new life, Tess came here and met Angel whom she fell in love with and married despite competition from three other girls.

One paragraph plot outline

 The father of the Durbeyfield household is wandering home when he is told that he is of the ancient line of the d’Urbervilles, a once powerful family.  Knowing this, he returns home happy and relays the news to his family.  Although being from a once great family, his current family is in need and decides to seek help from relatives by the name of d’Urberville.  The family sent Tess to ask them for help.  Tess went and began working for them.  However, she finds out that they are not truly of the d’Urberville line and simply changed their names to d’Urberville.  Also, she finds out that the son of the house, Alec, is not of good character.  He rapes her and she gets pregnant.  She leaves for home in a bad mood.  Gives birth, and works with the other girls in the fields.  The baby dies and Tess decides to look for a new life elsewhere where no one knows of her and the incident after promising herself that she would never get married.  She ends up at Talbothays working as a milk maid.  There, she meets three girls and a man, Angel Clare, working there.  She and the other three girls like Angel, but Angel picks Tess out of the three.  They fall in love, and get married.  However, Tess never told Angel about the rape and the child until the night after the wedding.  Although he had an affair before the wedding, he grows furious and leaves her to go to America where he grows ill.  In the meantime, Tess returns home distraught and seeks to flee from her troubles.  She meets Alec who still loves her and keeps pressing her to marry him saying that Angel is never going to come back.  Marian, one of the girls who liked Angel, finds Tess work at the farm she works at.  There she works for a year before deciding to live with Alec.  She lives with Alec for a while before Angel comes back expressing his continuing love for her.  However, to leave Alec, she murders him and leaves with Angel.  They stay in a house on the way home for a week.  However, when they leave, Tess is arrested for murder and executed.  Angel marries Tess’ younger sister as Tess’ last wish.

Two symbols and references

The pillar with the hand print - 

This pillar symbolizes Tess’ guilt of adultery and murder.  Alec says that it was erected by the druid’s for some punishment, while others say it was a cross.  Tess was arrested after sleeping by it.

Tess’ baby - 

This baby symbolized Tess’ bad circumstances which was out of Tess’ control.  It symbolizes innocence in a sense since this baby was innocent having done nothing wrong, but it was punished by society for coming from such an evil act.  Having been raped, Tess was also innocent of the crime, but she was still punished and pushed aside by society.

Two or three sentences on style

 Hardy’s writing style is simple but wordy.  His sentence structures are not long or very complicated, but the complexity in his work comes from the way he uses several sentences.  For example, he uses a lot of imagery and describes the scenery in great detail.  While each individual sentence may not be difficult to understand, it is the way the various sentences fit together to form a whole picture which separates him from other authors.

One or two sentences on dominant philosophy

 This book deals with the oppression of an innocent girl.  Most of the consequences she faced were not consequences of her own actions which makes this story somewhat of a tragedy in that sense giving the book a mood that you can try to make for yourself a good life, but you do not determine your own outcome.

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