In his novel Tess of the d'Ubervilles, as well as much of his poetry, Thomas Hardy expresses his dissatisfaction, weariness, and an overwhelming sense of injustice at the cruelty of our universal Fate disappointment and disillusionment. Hardy...

Thomas Hardy, in Tess of the D'Urbervilles, takes great pains to relate the characters to their surroundings, especially in the parallelism between Tess' emotional disposition and her physical environment. It is not surprising, therefore, that the...

"Although They Were Proud of Their Material Success, the Victorians were often Profoundly Uneasy about the loss of the Rural Community that Industrial Society Experienced." From Your Reading of Tess of the D'Urbervilles and other Victorian Novels...

Some of the most readable and critically acclaimed social commentaries in the English language, such as Charles Dickens' Tale of Two Cities and Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice, employ a fascinating protagonist and numerous sarcastic intrusions....

Thomas Hardy's Tess portrays a central character who is at the mercy of both circumstance and fate. Tess, by Victorian definition, is a fallen woman and, as such, not accountable for her own fate. Numerous critics -- Rosemary Morgan, Norman Page,...

In Thomas Hardy's novel, Tess of the D'Urbervilles, the reader is introduced to a character named Tess who comes to be known as a "Child of Nature" (Amazon.co.uk). The British author's novel flourishes with the use of natural imagery. Hardy uses...

Men have learned to harness nature, but they have yet to transcend it. The laws of nature powerfully affect human behavior, and these laws are often antithetical to those of society. Thus the conscientious human being is constantly in flux---at...

As the various facets of a diamond reflect light according to the viewing perspective, so humans also possess multi-faceted aspects of personality. Hardy's Victorian novel presents an interesting character study of Alec Stoke-d'Urberville, the...

Thomas Hardy once said, "A Plot, or Tragedy, should arise from the gradual closing in of a situation that comes of ordinary human passions, prejudices, and ambitions, by reason of the characters taking no trouble to ward off the disastrous events...

"There is, at this time, no general woman, no one typical woman . . ." Helen Cixous (876)

Thomas Hardy's Tess of the D'Urbervilles is, in its way, revolutionarily feminist. Unusual for its time in its address of premarital sexuality and unwed...

In Tess of the d'Urbervilles, Thomas Hardy primarily showcases man's inability to elude fate. Society's constraints highlight the futile nature of attempting to change the course of one's life, for the inability to transcend one's social classes...

In Tess of the d'Urbervilles, heredity governs life. Through the narrative voice and the character's responses, Thomas Hardy explains how Tess' "slight incautiousness of character inherited from her race" (71) defines her life. More specifically,...

Although his methods have largely been discredited, Sigmund Freud's theories about the unconscious, the subconscious, and repression are extremely useful when applied to literary texts. None of the three novels discussed here - Jane Austen's Emma,...

Thomas Hardy’s Tess of the d’Urbervilles provides social commentary on many issues prevalent in Victorian society. In particular, Hardy uses Tess’ submission to her parents, Alec d’Urberville, Angel Clare, and society as a whole to examine the...

Constituting one of the dominant symbols in Thomas Hardy’s classic work Tess of the D’Urbervilles are the continually reappearing birds. The birds symbolize varying degrees of freedom, foreshadowing the events of Tess’s life and frequently...

They say that we are harder on those we love—in this case, whom Tess loves: Angel Clare. Indeed, the reader holds Angel to higher standards, expects more of him, and indignantly reminds others of his greater obligations and ties to Tess. Thus, we...

Andrea Dworkin, claimed that, ‘Women have been taught that, for us, the earth is flat, and that if we venture out, we will fall off the edge’, this is shown within both novels as the female characters are presented as being controlled within...

In Far from the Madding Crowd, Thomas Hardy uses nature to influence the actions of his shepherd and shepherdess protagonists, Bathsheba Everdene and Gabriel Oak, in two separate episodes involving rain storms. The conflict of Hardy’s Far from the...

A key theme in both Charles Dickens’s Great Expectations[1] and Thomas Hardy’s Tess of the d’Urbervilles[2] is cruelty. Both authors treat this cruelty in such a way as to expose the flaws of a society in which the powerful, either in terms of...

Courtship is the behaviour in which, normally, the male attempts to persuade the female into a romantic relationship or marriage. In ‘Persuasion’ by Jane Austen, as well as ‘Tess of the D’Urbervilles’ by Thomas Hardy, courtship is displayed in a...

Both Thomas Hardy's tragic novel Tess of the D'Urbervilles, set in impecunious rural England, and Emily Bronte's gothic novel Wuthering Heights, established at two adjacent houses in the Yorkshire moors, question whether the imperfect male...

In Thomas Hardy’s tendentious Victorian novel, Tess of the D’Urbervilles, Hardy uses a format akin to that of a tragic hero to critique the double standards of Victorian society. His heroine, Tess, challenges Victorian standards by maintaining her...

Upon reading Thomas Hardy’s Tess of the D’Urbervilles, one may notice that references to pagan goddesses and ancient religions of the past are strewn throughout the book. These allusions range from the affectionate names of endearment by which...

Indubitably, Thomas Hardy's 'Tess of the D'Urbervilles' is largely reminiscent of the archetypal Grecian tragedy; evoking an overwhelming sense of pity/catharsis for the female protagonist. However, the constituents of said 'tragedy'; though in...