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Tess of the d'Urbervilles - Born At the Wrong Time
"If an offence come out of the truth, better it is that the offence come than the truth be concealed." Thomas Hardy added these words in the introduction to the fifth edition of this novel (Hardy v). He provided this quote from St. Jerome somewhat defensively, in response to the criticism he received for Tess prior to this edition.
Originally printed in serial form in two magazines, this novel underwent bowdlerization in order to be published. As a requirement of the publisher, Hardy changed scenes such as the baby's baptism, Tess's rape, and Alec's murder. The process of changing the novel angered Hardy, but his financial need of publishing the novel outweighed his negative feelings about doing so. This novel finally became published in its entirety in 1891. This novel caused such a controversy that Donald Hall called this novel "a cause" (417). Considered a radical writer, Hardy included the lower social classes and the plight of women, and he wrote about them in a provoking and defiant manner. Scientists, such as Charles Darwin, and social thinkers, such as John Stuart Mill, affected his thoughts and writings. Writers rarely wrote about these subjects in such a way during Victorian times.
The Victorian times and attitudes victimize Tess, despite the fact that she possesses high morals and standards. The aim of this paper is to show how Hardy illustrates this in many ways. Her family, social, and economic background provide the reader with a perspective of living as a poor woman during the Victorian Era. Another avenue Hardy uses to show the unfairness of life for a poor woman during these times is two men who victimize Tess, Angel Clare and Alec d'Urberville. According to Patricia Strubbs, "It is when he [Hardy] shows men and women shaped or bound in their relationships by external events, by class or environment that Hardy is at his most compelling. He is then showing us what it means to live in a particular time in a particular kind of society" (85).
Tess feels an immense amount of responsibility for her poor family. Although an endearing quality, this feeling of hers presents a great handicap also. Hardy characterizes the head of the family, Tess's father, as a "slack-twisted fellow, [having] the good strength to work at times; but the times could not be relied on to coincide with the hours of requirement . . ." (46). Living as peasants offers enough problems, but a man like John Durbeyfield can only hinder Tess's family more. Not only lazy and poor, he drinks a lot, spending his few shillings at the local pub, Rolliver's. An ignorant and superstitious woman, Joan Durbeyfield, Tess's mother, offers no help to Tess either. She makes decisions about her household and family after she consults a magazine, the Compleat Fortune-Teller (Hardy 33). She not only reads and believes this magazine, she thinks its presence in the house overnight will bring bad luck, so it is carried to the outhouse after consultation. Most poor, rural folks believed superstitious [next page]