An Exploration of the Causes of Tess’s Tragedy in Tess of the D’Urbervilles

Abstract

Tess of the D’Urbervilles, a novel written by the renowned British author Thomas Hardy, stands as a gem of the 19th-century English literature. The novel describes the bumpy life of Tess, a young woman born into a poor peddler’s family, mirroring the impact of the industrial rise on rural life in the 19th century. This paper, taking the female predicament in the Victorian era - limited education, passive marriage, and constrained employment, as its starting point and focusing on Tess’s image as a kind, independent, and rebellious character, delves into the multifaceted factors that contributed to her tragic fate, including impoverished familial background, hypocritical social morality, and spiritual oppression from religion. These factors intertwined, forming an invisible force that gradually pushed Tess into the abyss. Despite her resilient defiance, Tess ultimately succumbed to the dictates of fate, becoming a casualty of the progression of the times.