Tess of the d’Urbervilles

"One of my favourite sections of any book in literature is the part where Tess goes to work on the dairy farm and meets Angel Claire. She’s just had such a hard, hard time, and then she has this experience of being provided for and taken care of by kind people. For once in her life, she’s safe and secure. Happiness suddenly happens to her, and it’s so unexpected. Then there’s Angel. She falls so in love with him, and he with her, and it’s so tender. I mean, when he saves her as the last person to carry across the little creek that’s overflowing on their way to church? It’s just beautiful. I know Angel has his issues, but Hardy is also using him to demonstrate society, cultural mores. He’s incapable for a long time to forego his religion and his society to be with her, and to accept her past. And I find it so moving and poignant—and a kind of lesson to us all, at any age. I think we all stumble into these situations when our heart, our emotion, our impulses, don’t match what people and society expect of us."

"I think that Tess is a book that everybody should read. For me, the novel is very much looking not just at Tess’s plight, the way she is treated by men—which is abominable—but also the hypocrisy of religion. Tess has a child called Sorrow, the result of a rape, and the vicar will not bury Sorrow on consecrated ground. And it’s all very complicated in terms of human relationships. Tess tries to confide in Angel on their wedding night, to tell him about Sorrow. But she can’t, can she? I mean, she does, but she shouldn’t have done because he cannot cope with it and calls off the marriage. Really, you know, Angel is so wet, isn’t he? He doesn’t stand up for her, she has nobody. Because Tess’s mother says: You’ve told him, you’re a fool! What a thing to say to your daughter. There’s a lot of tragedy in this narrative. But one thing I want to say about this novel, and indeed all the novels, is that they are staged. There’s a performativity to them. In Tess , we have the famous Stonehenge scene at the end. I think Hardy places these characters in this ancient circle, this henge of the past, to get across the idea that all people have a past. See what I mean? The staging is mirroring not only the setting, but the story of these characters. The same in The Mayor of Casterbridge . We have the Maumbury Rings, another ancient henge, also a Roman amphitheatre. It’s a place of spectacle, and a place of secrecy. There’s a wonderful irony there. But as for Tess, it’s a great read about a woman’s journey, from her teenage years upwards. I think that’s why it’s so readable—it’s a coming-of-age story, really, about the relationships she has and, sadly, a tragic demise. I do think that. And of course, there’s the quotation at the end: Justice was done, and the President of the immortals had ended his sport with Tess."

"It’s about an older teenage girl, Tess Durbeyfield, whose father overhears a conversation which makes him think that they are actually not peasants, but are related to the noble family of D’Urberville. So he sends Tess off to declare herself as a cousin to the D’Urbervilles, not knowing of course that they bought the title and the name. Tess ends up getting lost with Alec, the D’Urbervilles’ son, in a foggy glade. It’s clear what happens there, but it’s unclear whether it’s consensual or not. I think it’s interesting if you think of it as being marginally consensual. If it turns into rape then Tess is a completely innocent victim of a terrible decline of her fortunes based on a crime. To me it’s much more interesting if it’s a seduction and she’s tempted by him and collaborates a bit in her own downfall. Tess has a baby by Alec who dies after a couple of days. Later, she meets Angel Clare, who falls in love with her purity and perfection. When she finally tells Angel she had sex with Alec, he betrays her and then goes to Brazil, and because there’s really nothing left for her she becomes Alec’s mistress again. Then she murders Alec. It’s one of my favourite coming-of-age stories. It’s very much about trying to find a place of happiness for yourself in a world full of obstacles, in a terrible maze of social change and convention at the end of the industrial revolution. I quite like the fact that she murders Alec. I like her as a heroine. She isn’t entirely a victim. She murders him because he’s told her Angel’s never coming back, and she finds out he’s lied and ruined her life once again. Yes – once Angel turns her down, that’s a great disillusionment. But that’s her coming of age: it’s that combination between wisdom and a giving up of innocence and illusion. Unfortunately, her gaining of wisdom is all tragic. I love her as a character, though, and for her emotional ambition. I admire her passion, even though it’s her downfall: she not only has sex with Alec, she murders him. But she’s an incredibly passionate character for whom absolutely everything goes wrong. I’m just not wild about Hardy’s ending, really."