by Maureen Cutajar

Created on: January 19, 2010   Last Updated: February 26, 2010

Thomas Hardy’s “Tess of the D'Urbervilles” is written in an imaginary landscape. Hardy had several dealings with the rural working classes and the poorest individuals during his lifetime. With the advent of the Industrial Revolution there were a lot of changes going on in the countryside partly industrial changes as well as farmers who had lost their land ended up working as seasonal farmers for a meagre pay.

“Tess of the D’Urbervilles” was a remarkable success partly because of its mastery of plot but also due to the scandal it caused. At the times of its publication it was badly received by the critics of the Victorian period because it went against the moral concerns of the times. Tess was described as a pure woman who fell in the category of a fallen woman. She needed to be helped and to be forgiven but she was certainly not a pure woman for the Victorian audience.

Tess however is represented as a passive figure and she remains honest throughout the novel. There is thus an idea put forth of fatalism, a fate determined by a force of nature outside the control of the characters.

Indeed, the novel is full of chance and coincidence and the characters believe in omens and fate. There are these flaws in the characters however they do not have enough control over their lives to amend their flaws. It is almost as if that the characters of “Tess of the D’Urbervilles” collide in a fatalistic landscape and encounter situations which are beyond their control. This is the landscape in which Tess is struggling from where she gets pushed from one occupation to the next one. It is as if all the events that occur in Tess’s life come to her through a series of fatalistic incidents.

The men in Tess’s live further emphasise the fatal nature of Tess’s predicament. While Alec represents the animalistic side of physical lust; his aim in life is to possess. Angel, on the other hand is a spiritual being who idealises Tess, and when he comes to realise that Tess’s history does not correlate with his idealisations he cannot deal with the situation because of his lack of maturity. Neither character develops much in Hardy’s narrative. They are a form of caricatures of different human nature which the landscape which they inhabit prohibits them to develop into a more rounded character.

The story centres on the events that change Tess’s life through some sort of fate. Tess’s passiveness, lack of action and her resignation to accept her fate and destiny underline Hardy’s theme of a landscape where the individual is thrust against the forces of nature.

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