How do our fate or destiny effect our lives? Some of the people do not believe in fate or destiny. In Thomas Hardy's "Tess of the D'Urbervilles which was written in 1891, we see a young girl who becomes a fallen woman at the end. Tess is the victim of her destiny and also she makes wrong decisions. Her destiny takes her to the way which she suffers a lot.She makes her own fate and both of them make her a fallen woman in the society. Through the conflict between fate and destiny,Hardy wants to reveal the inevitable misery of the human beings. By using the elements of New Criticism, it can be said that there is a unification between fate and destiny which effect Tess' life.
"The difference between destiny and fate is that is up to individual to make decisions on the path of the life,whereas with destiny a path has already been decided" .
Tess (film)
original cover of Tess of the D'Urbervilles
English: Thomas Hardy Locations, Tess of the d'Urb...In that part, we will have a look at the affects of her destiny to her life. For understanding the novel, we have to make a deep analysis of Tess' character. She is the protogonist of the novel.The young daughter of a rural working class family at the start of the novel, Tess Durbeyfield is sent to claim kinship with the wealthier side of her family, the d'Urbervilles, when her family faces imminent poverty. Tess Durbeyfield comes from a lower class background, but she can effect a higher position because of her education. This fluidity of her class background will prove significant throughout the novel, for she can move from the upper to the lower classes. introduced as an innocent, malleable and pure. As a member of the May Day procession, adorned in white, she symbolizes purity and virginity, while her physical characteristics equally suggest her innocence. Alec is the son of the Mrs.Stoke D'Urberville. Tess meets him when she goes to find their relatives and ask for a job. After being seduced by Alec d'Urberville, she bears his child, which dies in infancy, and must leave her home to start a new life elsewhere. She goes to work in a diary and there she meets Angel who is the son of a parson. Angel is the man whom Tess feels in love with and then they get married. Although Tess is dutiful and obedient as the novel begins, she gains great strength and fortitude through her suffering, but remains unwavering in her love for Angel Clare and is prepared to do anything that Angel might wish.
Her family is also important in her fall. Being the victim of her destiny begins with the death of their horse. They are not a rich family and they need the horse. Her family forces her to go and find the D'Urbervilles who are said to be their kins. Her family makes her believe that only Tess can help them and make her go and find their kins.So Tess goes and finds the D'Urbervilles .
"Tess seems not really to be her parents's child.Despite a perfunctory attempt to establish traits which she shares especially with her mother, Hardy does not convince us that the sensitive,introspective,flower-like maiden owes very much to her biological connection with Joan and Jack Durbeyfield".
Tess is very different from her parents. The mother Joan looks after the children.They have a monotonous life. Hunting her husband at the inn is the only enjoyment for her. Her mother's intelligence is that of a happy child. She is not like a mother. Sometimes Tess feels that she is the mother of the house. The mother's only aim is to find Tess a rich husband.
Alec D'Urberville is very important in Tess' fall.He is the sophisticated son of Mrs. Stoke-d'Urberville, Alec is rapacious and possessive, believing that his status in society and his financial situation gives him power to possess and control Tess after he gives her a job caring for his mother's chickens. After seducing Tess, Alec reforms his hedonistic ways to become a fundamentalist preacher, but soon deviates from his newfound spirituality once he sees Tess again. Tess is so innocent and unexperienced that she cannot understand Alec's sexual feelings to her. The destiny makes her meet with Alec again after Angel goes away.
Angel Clare is the son of a parson and the youngest of three brothers, Angel did not enter college as his brothers, despite his superior intellect, but rather diverged from the career path his father intended for him, the ministry, to study agriculture so that he might become a farmer.His family is conservative that is why he leaves Tess after learning her past. Angel could be a different man but he is the son of a parson and he cannot accept a wife like Tess. Tess meets Angel while working with Dairyman Crick but this is not their first meeting.The meeting of these two characters seems to be the work of destiny, for they had a chance meeting in the opening chapters of the novel. Angel is an equal symbol of purity and goodness, as shown by his name and his demeanor.In the May day dance they see each other for the first time. Angel does not dance with Tess Durbeyfield, but among the girls he notices her the most and wishes that he asks her to dance, for she is so modest and soft. He immediately realizes that Tess is special because of her innocence. After their first meet, the destiny brings them together again but they can never be together.
"'What is it, Angel?' she said, starting up. 'Have they come for me?' "'Yes, dearest,' he said. 'They have come.' "'It is as it should be,' she murmured. 'Angel, I am almost glad-yes, glad! This happiness could not have lasted. It was too much. I have had enough; and now I shall not live for you to despise me!'"She stood up, shook herself, and went forward, neither of the men having moved."'I am ready,' she said quietly.( chp.11) In this quotation from the end of the novel where Tess is captured by the police for killing Alec. Here there is a recognition of Tess. Tess is now aware of the bad destiny she has. She does not have a free will. Her destiny has made a path for her and she must follow this path. Her bad and unlucky destiny lead to her downfall.
We have seen that her destiny effects her life very much. Although her destiny leads her to the downfall , Tess makes wrong decisions. When Angel proposes her, she is in a dilemma of telling Angel her past or not. "When Tess,on the verge of telling Angel the secret of her prepnancy, loses her nerves at the last moment ,she pretends that she was going to confess her aristocratic background" . Although Tess claims that it is her lowly status and the objections that his parents would make to her as the rationale for her rejection of Angel, the mention of Alec d'Urberville serves as a reminder that it is rather fear of her past that drives Tess to reject Angel. She cannot tell Angel about her past because he will reject her while she cannot keep it as a secret for he will inevitably learn of her past. She tells Angel the truth and Angel goes away.He cannot bear the things he hears.Tess is not the same woman for her. The second bad choice that Tess does is to return to Alec. Although she is married and loves Angel, she believes Alec. Alec convinces her that he will never return. Tess could go and work.She doesn't need Alec.Although Alec causes unsufferable pains and memories in Tess, she behaves as a weak woman and starts to live together with Alec. By her own decision she accepts to be Alec's victim. When Angel returns, she loses her nerves and kills Alec whom she hates for many years. Tess is unable to escape her fate. Alec even by his death causes her fall and Tess is sent to prison where she is executed.
To sum up,Both Tess and Angel accept her fate stoically, for this is a final end to her suffering. She is unlucky and her destiny does not help her during her whole life. At the end of the novel, we learn that Angel and Tess' sister Liza-Lu marries. During the novel , she suffers a lot because of her destiny and fate and both of them make her a fallen woman. We have read Tess' inevitable misery. Hardy focuses very heavily on Tess's reactions to the events around her and shows us the world more or less through her eyes. He also shows us that her destiny and fate take her to prison and death. Hardy makes us feel how the situations were hard for Tess and he also shows us Tess' feelings. The concept of fate and destiny are invoked over and over throughout Tess of the d'Urbervilles, both in casual comments and in more developed points of the plot.Hardy is a fatalistic novelist. The novel is tragic and with the excellent descriptions of characters and the plot, Tess is wonderful novel which tells us the inevitable misery of the human beings.
BIBLIOGRAPHY 1) Arlene, M.Jackson Illustrations and the Novels of Thomas Hardy U.S.A: The Macmillian Press Ltd. 1981 2) Dave, Jagdish Chandra The Human Predicament in Hardy's Novels Oxford: Clarendon Press 1991 3) Handley, Graham ,Tess of The D'Urbervilles London: Penguin 1991 www.collageclub.com www.123student.com
English: Thomas Hardy Locations, Tess of the d'Urb...
English: Lower Lewell Farmhouse This is the farmho...
English: Thomas Hardy Locations, Tess of the d'Urb...