浅析《德伯家的苔丝》中苔丝的悲剧因素

摘要： 《德伯家的苔丝》，作为托马斯·哈代最为有影响力的一部巨著，描写了社会命运以及其他力量把一个纯洁、质朴、关丽、善良而又勤劳的农村姑娘苔丝逼得走投无路而成为杀人犯，最后付出生命代价的悲惨故事。苔丝的悲剧性结局有多方面的原因，家庭、社会、性格对苔丝的悲剧，本文主要对其社会原因进行分析。

关键词: 苔丝;悲剧;原因

An Analysis of the Social Reasons of Tess’s Tragedy

in Tess of the D’Urbervilles

Abstract

Tess of the D’Urbervilles, a significant work of Thomas Hardy, created a girl of purity, plain, beauty, kindness and diligence, suffering by social and other force, became a murderer and paid her life in the end of the tragic story. There are various reasons for Tess’s tragedy, family, Tess’s own, and social elements. This paper mainly analyzes reasons of social.

Key words: Tess; Tragedy; Reason

Acknowledgements

First and foremost, I would like to express my heartfelt gratitude to my supervisor, Mr. Ding , both for his intellectual guidance and for his warm and constant encouragement during the process of writing this thesis. With patience and prudence, he labored through drafts of this thesis and pointed out defects in my theorizing. Therefore, I owe all the merits in this thesis, if any, to him, though I am fully aware that the thesis might still contain some mistakes, for which I bear the whole responsibility.

My cordial and sincere thanks go to all the teachers in the Department of English。 They are interesting and informative courses have benefited me a lot during my college years. The profit that I gained from their profound knowledge, remarkable expertise and intellectual ingenuity will be of everlasting significance to my future life and career.

I am also very grateful to my classmates, who have given me a lot of help and courage during my stay in the University and throughout the process of writing this thesis.

Last but not least, big thanks go to my family, which have shared with me my worries, frustrations, and hopefully my ultimate happiness in eventually finishing this thesis.

Contents

中文摘要……...............................................................................…………

Abstract…………………………………………...……………………………….…..

Acknowledgements......................................................................................………….

Ⅰ. Introduction……………………………………………………………………….1

A. Introduction of the Writer…………………………………………………….1

B. Introduction of the Work..................................................................................2

Ⅱ. Reasons of Her Own for Tess’s Tragedy…………………………………………..3

A. Her Sacrifice for the Family…………………………………………………4

B. Her Sacrifice for love…………………………………………………..........4

Ⅲ. Reasons of Family for Tess’s Tragedy………………………................................6

A. Family Background ………………………………………………................6

B. Her Parents for Tess’s Tragedy………………………………………………6

1. Her Father to Tess’s Tragedy……………………………………….......6

2. Her Mother for Tess’s Tragedy……………………………………........6

Ⅳ. Reasons of Social Element for Tess’s Tragedy…………………………...............7

A. Analysis of Alec and Clare’s Character Reasons of Tess’s Tragedy………..8 1. Analysis of Alec’s Character…. ……………………………………......8

2. Analysis of Clare’s Character………………………………………......8

B. Analysis of the Social and Environmental Reasons in Tess’s Tragedy ….....9 1. Hypocritical Capitalism Moral’s View and Unequal Legal System……11

2. Impoverishment and Decay of Small Farmers…………………………11

3. The Male Factor in Tess’s Tragedy……………………………………...12

Conclusion……………………………………………………………………….…..14

Works cited……………………………………………………………………….…15

Ⅰ. Introduction

Tess of the D’Urbervilles was Thomas Hardy’s most famous work and published in 1891. As a novelist, Thomas Hardy had reached the great place in his achievements because of Tess of the D’Urbervilles. People were attracted not only by the tragic life of Tess, but also the inherent beauty. In a world filled with falseness and pretence, Tess was quite soft and kind. Tess was repeatedly cheated and abandoned, she tried to be good though. Tess showed the most beautiful side of her innocent character when she worked in the farming fields. (Hu, 176) Combined a beautiful appearance with many other wonderful qualities, Tess was diligent, honesty, tenderness. She never played with men’s emotions or never learned to flirt with men, but that became the weakness. (Feng, 62) From the beginning, Tess was destined for tragedy. Although she was beautiful, she was poor. She could not become the master of her own life because she was a woman. She was only an object to be tormented. Tess killed Alec in the end of the story. That society where power was controlled by the rich men, so what she did was against the society, the law. The law was rigid, and the Justice was done.

A. Introduction of the Writer

Tess of the D’Urbervilles, Thomas Hardy’s greatest novel of British described the misfortunate life of a poor peasant girl Tess. He was famous for novel and poem.

Thomas Hardy enriched the tragic art in his unique work of character and environment. He was an outstanding and cross-century realistic writer. Born in Egdon, which was a country in the Westland. The main environment in the Hardy’s writings was from the natural environment. (Jiang, 96) As a stonecutter, Hardy’s father, but liked music. There was much attention was paid to Hardy’s education. In his childhood, he turned to learn about the literature after he received theology in education. Leaving school became an apprentice of an architect in 1856. He became a building draftsman after he went to London in 1862, at the same time he enrolled as a student and took advanced courses for language and started to create literature in King’s College London. At the very beginning, Hardy wrote poems, but his poetry was not published. In 1868, he finished his first long novel, but was not published. Farm from Madding Crowd, the celebrated work was his fourth novel in 1874. He abandoned construction industry from then on, and devoted himself to the novel creation. From late nineteenth century, the works of Thomas Hardy and himself were the critics’ hot topics for a long time. (Lu, 72) With the development of modern literary criticism after the Second World War, diverse critics interpret Tess of the D’Urbervilles and Thomas Hardy’s other novels from different perspectives.

In the book named The Second Common Reader, Virginia Woolf once claimed:

When we say that without Thomas Hardy seems like English fiction lost a leader, we mean that there is no one like Thomas Hardy whose supremacy would be generally accepted, none to whom it seems so fitting and natural to pay homage.

Thomas Hardy and Paradoxes of Love, Woolf's comment is not just a compliment about hardy claimed:

Hardy's work is ...characterized by its strikingly modernist techniques that align him with the great modernists such as D. H Lawrence, James Joyce, and Joseph Conrad and reveal him to be their inventive forerunner.

B. Introduction of the work

The tragedy of Tess is the main point of Tess of the D’Urbervilles. Born in a poor countryside family, Tess was simple. One day, Tess’s father was informed that he had noble blood. Tess’s parents asked her to visit Mrs. D’ Urberville, who was a rich widow. (Dong, 10) Because her family’s horse was killed in an accident, they need some help from the Mrs. D’ Urberville. Tess got a job there after she went to the D’ Urbervilles. However, she was raped by Alec, and she got pregnant. She had no choice but give birth to her child after she went back her home. Unfortunately, the child died several days later. Then, she met Angel Clare when she worked at a dairy farm. They could not help falling in love with each other. Angel told Tess about his past, an evening of debauchery, and asked for Tess’s forgiveness on the wedding night. (Xiong, 137) Kind Tess of course forgave him. Then Tess told Angel about her past. Pure Tess thought that she had forgiven him, so it stands reason that Angel could forgive her. However, Angel left her for Brazil because he was really disappointed with her. After that, Tess had to work under bad conditions in order to support her poor family. And then her father died and the family was driven away from their house. Tess had no choice but go back to Alec for supporting her poor family. Angel returned from Brazil after one year and wanted to get together with Tess again. But she could not go with Angel because of her relationship with Alec. Tess could not feel more angrily with Alec, and after a big fight Tess killed him. Tess was arrested and executed after she had five day’s happy time with Angel. From the very beginning to the end, Tess was pure of heart and kind. However, a woman of honesty like Tess was driven to hell by society. Tess lost her virginity because of Alec when Tess was an innocent, simple, 17-year-old village girl. Tess was regarded as a fallen woman, and the society blame her. Even Angel could not accept Tess’s “impurity” and thought the same as other people, after that, Angel left her. Later on, Tess was forced to live with Alec for her family. (Feng, 61)In the end, Tess was punished by the law because she killed Alec who took away her virtue.

Ⅱ. Reasons of Her Own for Tess’s Tragedy

C. Her Sacrifice for the Family

For her kindness, Tess devoted herself to support the whole family. As a girl from a countryside family, she kept the peasant qualities: innocent and simple. The whole family lived on was an old and unhealthy horse. Besides, Tess’s parents were not diligent at all and would not work to support themselves. It was a big family that seven younger sisters and brothers. So the family had a hard life. Although Tess was just 17 years old, she had to take her parents’ duty because she was the eldest child and carried the financial burden of the whole family. But Tess was really young at that time, and she did not know the dark side of the world. (Lu, 72)

John D’urbeyfield, Tess’s father, was a plain haggler in the village of Marlott. He was very arrogant for his noble ancestor and flaunted in a tavern when he learned that he was knightly family of the D’Urbervilles, the lineal representatives of ancient from a priest. After that, he decided to claim kinship with the D’Urbervilles, so he sent Tess to the D’Urbervilles. He was selfish and thought Tess should marry a rich man, because in this way would make his family very rich and respectable. From this we can see he was hypocritical and ignorant. Besides, Tess’s mother, a rural woman, was also selfish and hypocritical, ignorant. She should and could realize the risk and danger if sending Tess there when she learned that the old lady Mrs. D’Urbervilles was blind. ( Qu, 69)What’s more, his son, who was called Alec was still unmarried. She was the one should take the responsibility for her chastity. When Tess came back, she really could not understand why Tess refused Alec’s proposal. In her world, it seemed like money was love or anything. Their family fell into a very poor condition, which her parents even could not meet their ends. In their family, brothers and sisters were so young that could not share responsibility. Thus, supporting the whole family, the heavy burden and difficult work fell on Tess. It proved Tess’s kind that she was willing to work hard and share the burden. It should not have been her responsibility for the family, but Tess sacrificed her own happiness. Tess never loved Alec, but she still submitted to him because there was just him could save her family. That was a great sacrificed for the family.

D. Her Sacrifice for love

Alec and Angel were in her life. She was cheated by Alec and lost in Angel. She never compromised anything in love. However, instead of succeeding in love, Tess was a slavery of love and was not brave enough. It was Alec made Tess’s physically injured, while Angel made her mentally hurt. Alec, who was an evil, spoiled person. From the first time she met Alec, Tess was destined her tragic story. Tess met Angel when she worked on the dairy farm, and then they fell in love with each other. Tess not only loved him, but also admired Angel Clare very much. Unfortunately, he abandoned her after Tess told Angel what happened about her past. The reason was that he had the thought of egoism, and the most important was that he was deeply affected by the so called conventions and the traditional society morals. Although he knew clearly that he also was not a pure man any more, he still could not accept the impure bride for his selfish. (Xiong, 138)Tess was so sad because she really loved Angle and desired a happy life, some time she was not confident about her love though. Because of the pressure of life after Angel’s leaving, Tess had no choice but to return to Alec for live.

Several years later, Angel

told Tess that he forgave her past for that really meant nothing, and missed her very much because her real love to him. What Angel did really made Tess very happy once, at the same time there was sad in her heart because it was late, and then Tess murdered Alec. “To her sublime trustfulness he was all that goodness could be…and she thought every line of his person the perfection of masculine beauty in the contour, his soul of a saint, the soul his intellect that of a seer.” (Feng, 61) Tess lost herself and her own dignity because her love was so worthless. Tess’s love was blind and not equal at all, love made Tess lost the right of pursuing her real love and Tess who could have seek her own happiness. This was the directly reason caused Tess’s tragic story.

Ⅲ. Reasons of Family for Tess’s Tragedy

A. Family Background

At the beginning of this novel, Tess was a daughter of poor family. She was a dairymaid, who lived in the country. As a dairymaid on the village roadside, Tess was beautiful but humble, and she did not complain about her family. Family background did not bring any good to Tess, but her tragic life began.

B. Her Parents for Tess’s Tragedy

1. Her Father to Tess’s Tragedy

Tess’s father was a carter in Marlott. He was a lazy alcoholic. He hated to work hard. He was more than happy when he knew his noble relatives. In order to get some profits, he decided to claim relation at the time priest said “D’Urbeyfield, I am very happy to tell you that you are the lineal representative of the ancient and knightly”. There was no doubt that he became excited and began to make his ridiculous dream: “tell them to send a carriage and a horse to me right now, and make me comfortable back home”. As if the pedigree could change his poverty, he became complacent and ridiculous unlimited dream. The unrealistic illusion changed Tess’s destiny which could be good.

2. Her Mother for Tess’s Tragedy

Tess’s mother’s thought was much simpler. She wanted Tess to make her family rich by making a successful marriage. Tess went back home after having been raped by Alec for she was pure. She told her mother sadly what had happened when she was with Alec in the forest. Her mother told her: “If you did not plan to get him to make you his wife, you ought to be more cautious”. Tess said in tears, “Oh, mother! How could I be expected to know that? My mother! I was a child, why did you not tell me that time there was some dangerous place in man folk when I left the house for several months ago.” Because she had lower education, Tess did not have the general knowledge about men. Although she received good education at her class, she was in the class which was very low. Tess’s mother was confused with the reason why Tess did not marry Alec. Tess’s mother thought that if Tess married Alec, the family’s situation would be changed tremendously. Tess’s tragic fate was destined by the attitudes of her parents. If Tess’s family was the noble one or Tess was not born in the poor family, or if she was a little selfish and she was not that responsible for her duty to support her family, or she was not that kind, her life could not end up in this way.

Ⅳ. Reasons of Social Element for Tess’s Tragedy

A. Analysis of Alec and Clare’s Character Reasons of Tess’s Tragedy

1. Analysis of Alec’s Reason

Tess was physically injured for Tess was seduced by Alec. Alec was a salacious man and revealed the upper class’s features, that is, violence, hypocrisy and selfishness.

Alec’s father was a merchant, who was really very rich. The rich wanted to make his name noble, so he got his family name by buying it. When Alec met Tess for the first time, we can see that he was very lecherous. (Hu, 177) Alec was designing and shrewd. He wanted to Tess, so he wrote a letter asking Tess if she was willing to have a job that coming to his farm to work, which looked like from his mother. It was a snare for Tess which seemed was good for her family. But no one reminded and protected her and told her the danger, including her mother. Although her mother should have understood what Alec wanted, she did not tell Tess because she just wanted money. Alec seduced Tess, in another words, he damaged her whole life and her confident. Later on, Alec seemed to change a lot, he even intended to sell his estate and became a priest. But the truth was he had never gotten rid of his bad manners and removed the bad idea in his mind. He showed his bone and his ugly face presented again when he met Tess once another time. Although he could have disguised very well, Tess recognized him immediately for she was the one knew how bad he was. She was more than angry and shouted at Alec at the top of her voice, “You, and those like you, make the people who like me is hard and bitter and with sorrow just for taking your fill of pleasure on earth; and when you have possessed and robbed enough of that then it is can be a good thing, to feel like making your pleasure secure in heaven!” It was the author’s doubt about the power of religion and wanted to save the soul by Alec’s behavior. Alec intimidated Tess cruelly, “I was your master once! Remember my lady, and I will be your master again and again! There is no doubt that you are mine no matter who you are any man’s wife!” But Tess, a brave and proud woman, was not afraid at all, what’s more, she was still worked under the terrible circumstance where some men could not bear on the farm. She was so proud and did not want to bend to Alec because she never loved him and knew his real look, but fate played another joke with the poor Tess again, her father died, which meant their family lost their backbone, and her family was in great danger. Furthermore, the whole family would be driven away from their house, Tess’s brothers and sisters became homeless and even worse. Tess had no choice but turned to the heinous Alec to help the whole family. (Qu, 68) Alec, the evil's power won the poor Tess again. As a result of under the protection of bourgeoisie and quite rich compared with Tess, Alec could be a local tyrant. Even if Alec did something wrong or bad, people always thought that he was not wrong because he was rich and the social system helped Alec and let he get those really bad manners. The point was no one criticized Alec. Alec’s death was also the social tragedy. It was the law and the whole society thought that Tess was guilty, and Alec was right and he did not need to pay for his fault. Tess had always been endurable and insistent in her life. But she was punished by law when she finally resisted. “Justice” was done. Tess’s tragedy implied that the bourgeois law was hypocritical and cruel.

Alec was the emerging bourgeoisie’s representative. And he revealed the bourgeois society’s power was the evil. The reason of Tess’s tragic life was him. His father was a rich merchant, crown by aristocrat D’Urbervilles surname. This young man relied on his father’s money and power dominated the native people. When he met Tess, the dissolutely lascivious face was completely exposed. He set the trap that demolished the young girl’s pure and chastity and the happy life. He hurt others to benefit himself and tried all means to satisfy his own fleshly desires.

If Alec really did something sincerely, then the real emotion was just from his own side and completely selfish. When Angel returned, asking for Tess's understanding, Alec not only divided the couple, but also ignored Tess's agony and laughed at her, which gave Tess a fatal blow.

2. Analysis of Angel’s Reason

If someone said that Alec caused Tess’s tragedy directly, representing the force of evil. Then, the traditional ethics morality, Angel Clare, was a kind of invisible power that destroyed Tess’s life which gave Tess more terrible spirit injures and it was exactly cruel. Angel was a really difficult artistic image for his personality. There was not only certain progressive thought in his mind, but also kept the traditional ethical prejudice. While there was something valuable in Angel, he was diligent and voluntary to work on the farm. He was born in a priest family though, instead of willing to be a priest serving God. He served for the metropolis warm-heartedly, in order to do the struggling physical labor, he wanted to go to the countryside as farmers, the agricultural technology was important for him so he tried hard to catch each kind of class. He felt the village life was really fun and simple fell in love with it. He was earnest, serious and mild-mannered to everything. Being serious and paying more attention on feeling, Angel was quite different from Alec. When facing Tess, the two people acted quite different. Furthermore, Angel had the free thought and was the bourgeois intellectual at that time, but he went to the lower social class after left home also was very infrequent. His goal was to be a large landed estate after a hard time and he would be engaged in the agricultural production. Angel not only started to know Tess could be a good manager in the future quickly, but also the most important was that he loved Tess. But Tess’s love was unselfish and sincere, which was not like that Angel loved her. In his eyes, “nature’s new born daughter” just was pure Tess. To Tess’s unexpectedly, once she confessed that about Alec to him, preserved the intrinsic morals in Angel’s mind had struggled with the real emotion in his heart. (Hu, 177) He get Tess’s forgiveness, he had had the dissolute behavior though, while he was not willing to forgive Tess, who was really originally innocent in heart. This suggested his traditional morals ethics thoughts rooted in his deep mind. He thought a woman was chaste or not should from the standard of the view of traditional chastity, which was a destructive attack for Tess. If we say that Alec made Tess physically injured, then, Angel abandoned her, which made her heart-broken and destroyed her spiritual support because Tess really loved him. She felt more humiliation after his return, and the pain and despair achieved the apex. Tess thought it was Alec stopped her happiness. In the end Tess killed Alec for she was helpless.

In love, Angel was not like Alec that nasty, he respected Tess, loved Tess. One of the reasons was Tess’s beauty and docile, another reason was Tess’s hardworking and Tess would be an ideal farmer's wife. Although he despised class bias with noble moral, there was no determination and perseverance to get rid of the fetters of the old moral values. (Jiang, 96) He could not understand and sympathy for Tess's misfortune and left Tess in Brazil cruelly. After having understood life, Angel regretted leaving Tess cruelly and without hesitation took risks with Tess. After Tess's death, Angel obeyed Tess’s intention, and married Tess's sister.

B. Analysis of the Social and Environmental Reasons in Tess’s Tragedy

In the novel, Thomas Hardy emphasized the realistic reason of Tess’s tragedy, including the hypocritical morality of bourgeois society and the disintegration of English peasantry class. From this novel, we have the impression that the tragedy of Tess was caused by the hypocritical morality of that time, rather than by chance. Tess cannot avoid her tragic fate unless she escaped from the society. In fact, Tess’s tragedy was inevitable in most of the poor peasants.

1. Hypocritical Capitalism Moral’s View and Unequal Legal System

When capitalism was approaching the rural Britain in the Victorian era, Tess was a beautiful, kind-hearted, pure and simple girl, but regarded as an agricultural worker and cheap laborer. She was under the social class, in the capitalist society, suffering oppression and humiliation. We can know that in Victoria time, Tess’s tragedy was due to the root of social morals by analyzing this novel. In the capitalist society, both moral outlook and legal regime kept exploiting and oppressing the rural people, they should be protected by the law after they did all kinds of evil things, while Tess, the poor girl was sentenced the death penalty for her position. This just indicated that bourgeois legal system made the poor persons, especially in the lower level social class, it was impossible to get the fair treatment or right attitudes in the society which was just for the rich.

2. Impoverishment and Decay of Small Farmers

Tess lived in the British countryside when invasion of capitalist in the 19th century. For the livelihood of the whole family, she had to work in the capitalist factory and farm that had gradually changed the workers. When the only old horse was killed, Tess’s family lost the only source of income. She had no choice but turn to the fake D’Urbervilles raised chicken and expected to solve the problem of poverty. However, Alec raped her in three months and she went to south and worked in the dairy where laborers were exploited cruelly by the rich landlords.

In bourgeois world, the economic crisis took place for the poor, which had led the social change. After that, many peasants lost their lands, and they had no choice but to change as peasant workers. It was the same with the D’Urbervilles because large quantities of peasant were broke up. They were puzzled because they were really stupid and short-sighted. There was no chance to live for the poor and made them discard their children in such cruel society. (Dong, 10) Born in the impoverished family which was a rural family, Tess was poor enough. Sinking in the drink deeply, her father did not work hard. There were too many children in their family, but her mother seemed like a child, just thought the money and benefits, and never thought about the future. Sending Tess to claim kin with the noble D’Urbervilles family, a distant relative, and hoped her family was fine. Seducing Tess, the young master Alec made her pregnant. Tess was quite angry and sad to return home in disgrace. But poor Tess did not recognized her tragic life began, there was a lot painful experience in the future

.

3. The Male Factor in Tess’s Tragedy

Britain was dominated by the male hegemony in the nineteenth century, the whole social ideology was standing on the ground of male centralism to maintain social order, power system and the interests of the male mainstream, but regardless of feeling and judgment of the female as marginal groups, women were on the verge of social public life. This section mainly indicates Alec and Angel.

Alec, an overnight millionaire, was the bourgeoisie and an emblematical playboy. He was an example of Western civilization, which hid the sex desire by the beautiful cover. (Xiong, 136) He also believed that women’s beauty was bad deed just like the bait to lure men’s desire, so the beauty of Tess was passive. How ridiculous he was. He thought that just because of the attraction which meant the beauty of Tess, making him possess Tess. Tess went to claim kindred unwillingly at first time. Tess started to know Alec in the D’Urbervilles with the feelings of shyness and shame. When Tess got along with Alec, she found he was not very good, while Alec showed his affection. Although Alec tried every possible way to threat Tess, she suggested she like bearing the really heavy work and enduring the cruel exploitation and oppression, and she would love to remain poverty. Tess was pure and not willing to accept his help or yield to Alec at all. However, her mother was ill after her father died. Her brothers and sisters could not go to school for little money. They even became homeless for the house lease was expired, but the family need somewhere to shelter. Tess had to submit to Alec for the so many reasons, accepted his help and became his mistress. (Jiang,96). Just like that, she ruined her own happy life entirely. Tess’s whole life was the victim of Alec’s violence and power.

When talking about Angel, he was the embodiment of traditional ethical principle. Angel was totally different from Alec, they were different style. Angel was very smart and tended to be a liberalist. He hated hierarchy and class prejudice. He liked countryside and disliked city life which was flourishing for him. He preferred a life which was close to natural, enjoying its simple, clean. And he was a diligent man and not afraid of hardships. Instead of willing to marry a rich Miss, he loved a poor farm girl. We can see Angel had progressive ideology. There was a big different about love between Angel and Alec. Angel was very serious about love and treated young women gently and would not act improperly. Due to the good qualities and insistent made Tess replied him. (Xiong, 138)

Tess really thought he was “noble virtue”, so she opened her mind to him. On their wedding night, she thought innocently that Angel would forgive her because she did kindly to him after she told him everything about her past story. To Tess’s surprise, Angel was disappointed and he stuck to leave. It was cruel for him because he thought he was cheated. Suddenly, his life changed. From the concept of rational, this kind of love was not only murdered his true love, but also ruined Tess’s happy. His personality of weakness was exposed completely. He considered her as a “fallen women”, so he could not accept Tess. The conventional value and moral standard still was his judgement about “purity”. From this point, we can see he was the slave to the conventionality and custom. It was obvious that Angel did not love Tess. “He left Tess when Tess needed love and made the choice that giving him completely. What really made Tess heart-broken was the relight hope. It was Alec made Tess physically hurt, but It was Angel made a fatal blow. Losing chastity did not put out her hope about love, while her despair love about Angel made her want to death”. She was seduced because of her innocence. But because of Clare’s moral pitiless completely came from the cruel social conventions and moral standards of that time, Tess went to her tragic grave.

Ⅴ. Conclusion

Pursuing individual happiness on own hands, Tess’s wish, which was from a poor peasant girl. But in the reality, the real society forced her to change a lot. She should have been confident and brave enough to get her happiness, but considering her family, Tess had sacrificed her own happiness to do what she did not want to. From then on, her tragic life began. There were two men in her life, Alec D’Urbervilles and Angel Clare, the men made Tess physically and mentally injured. She really loved Angel made her bear unfair treatment. The reason why she was a tragedy not only for her personality character, but also there was the social elements which was the most important reason.

It was the evil capitalism that killed Tess. The society was overwhelmed with capitalist law and religion, Tess was just the one in it. The poor girl, suffered a tragic life, and became the victim of society in the end.

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浅析《德伯家的苔丝》中苔丝的悲剧因素 - 毕业论文