英语系毕业论文.doc

The Analysis of Tesss TragedyAbstract Abstract Thomas Hardy was a famous critical realistic writer at the turn of the 19th century in England; Tess of the DUrbervilles is the most influential one of all his works. This novel describes a tragic life about one beautiful and pure girl after disgrace. The article describes the society environment, then begins to analysis of characters personality and religion factors open out at that time. Tesss tragic life is caused by that society and its the result of that time. Except this, it cant be separated from her own weakness in character, because she obviously has the dual nature of the society character-resistance and compromise. As a common person, Tess fought with the society helplessly. In the end, she turned out to be the sacrificial victim of society like all other things which disobey the morality and ethic.Key Word：Tess;Tragic life; Victim of SocietyTable of Contents .Introduction1.1 Introduction of Thomas Hardy1.2 Introduction of Tess of the DUrbervilles.Cause of the Tragedy of Tess 2.1Social Causes 2.1.1 Hard Life for Peasants 2.1.2 Unequal Morality for Female 2.1.3 Unequal Legal System 2.2 Analysis of the Major Character 2.2.1 The Direct MurderAlec D Urberville2.2.2 The AccessoryAngle Clare2.2.3 Tess Herself Her Sense of Responsibility Her Resistance and Compromise.ConclusionBibliography.IntroductionThe introduction of Thomas HardyThomas Hardy（1840-1928），the writer of Tess of the DUrbervilles(1891) was an English novelist and poet and one of the greatest English writer in the 19th century. The son of a stonemason, Hardy was born near Dorchester, the area later became the famous“wessex”in many of his novels. He derived a love of music from his father and devotion to literature from his mother. However, Hardy can not afford to pursue a scholarly career as he wishes and was apprenticed to John Hicks, a local church architect in 1856.Six years later, he went to London to work for a famous architect, Arthur Blomfield. During his spare time, he studied widely：language, literature, history, philosophy and art. He even won two prizes for essays on architectural subjects, but architecture was never his desired profession. Soon he was writing poetry, but due to not have the good fortune to publish, he changed the matter for novel creation. In 1871,his first novel Deperate Remedies was published and and well received.his early novels as Under the Greenwood Tree (1872) and A Pair of Blue Eyes (1873) met with small success. After the publication of Far From the Madding Crowd (1874), critical acclaim enabled him to devote himself exclusively to writing. Hardy wrote many novels, including those he referred to as romances and fantasies, most of which are firis serialized in popular magazines. There are 17 long novels in Hardys life, major works are The return of the Native (1878), The Mayor of Casterbridge (1886), Tess of the DUrbervilles(1891), and Jude the Obscure(1896).Hardys novels are all Victorian in date. Most of them are set in Wessex, the fictional primitive and crude rural region which is really his home place. They are known for the vivid description of the vicissitudes of people who live in an agricultural setting menaced by the forces of invading capitalism. His works reflected the change of social economy, political, moral and tradition when the hypocritical bourgeoisie invaded he countries in England, especially exposed womens tragic life and hypocrisy of bourgeois morals, law and religion.1.2. Introduction of Tess of the DUrbervillesTess of the DUrbervilles is often considered as Hardys masterpiece. The story happens in 19th century in England. Tess is a beautiful, innocent peasant girl. Because of the poverty of the family, she is forced to claim kinship with the rich DUrbervilles. The young master of the DUrbervilles, Alec seduces her and impregnates her. Tess returns home in disgrace and later gives birth to a baby, who dies soon. She is then rejected by the society around her as a fallen woman. Peoples gossips force her to leave home to work on a dairy farm as a dairymaid. There she meets Angel Clare, son of a clergyman, and then they fall in love with each other. On their wedding night, Angel makes a confession about his past dissipation and is forgiven by Tess, but when Tess reveals her past, Angel can not forgive her. He leaves for brazil and that causes Tess to fall in the troubles again. With the great poverty of her family, Tess has to work under the hardest condition at Flintcomb-Ash farm. Then misfortunes heap upon her again: her father dies and her family is expelled from their cottage. To support her family, Tess is driven to go back to Alec, now a preacher. Before long, Angel returns from Brazil, being chastened and repented of his cruel treatment of Tess, but now Tesss relation with Alec stops her from living with Angel happily. In stong despair, Tess stabs Alec to death, the man who is the source of all her miseries. After a short happy life with Angel, Tess is arrested and Finally hanged.I. Causes for the Tragedy of TessSocial Causes2.1.1. Hard Life for PeasantsIn Tesss time, the society is full of tremendous changes in almost every respect. The industrial revolution continues to develop in spite of the social evils that accompanied. The emergence of locomotives throws Britain into a frenzy of railway building. Agriculture is further mechanized. Trade and commerce grow rapidly, driving more peasants, hand spinners and weavers to the crowded factories of the smoky cities. The great transformation makes England from an agricultural base to an industrial base, under the process of industrialism and the disintegration of peasantry. More and more peasants become impoverished and live a miserable life. Wessx is not immuned from destruction. Capitalism brings a great harm to this old, rural and agricultural region. The self-supporting peasants are displaced and impoverished and live a extremely poor life. The family of Tess is no exception. As a daughter of a poor villager, and a wage-laborer later, it is very difficult for Tess to live a better life. It is under the capitalist exploitation that Tess is seduced and ruined badly. The poor life pushes Tess into the trap of the wicked man, and it is the capitalist exploitation that brings about their poor life.2.1.2. Unequal Morality for FemaleThe highest virtue of the Victorian woman is sexual purity, and adultery is the worst f all possible sins. Her dress concealed her whole body except he hands and face, and to show an ankle or a shoulder is considered improper. Public notions on sexual morals are that woman must remain virgin before marriage, but men could have their fling. The sexual morals are rooted in peoples rational minds: when either man or woman engaged in sexual lapses, the former would be forgiven, but the later would be condemned. Tess is so innocent that she is just a girl when she first meets the terrible man, Alec, and knows nothing of men. But people do not condemn Alec, only reject Tss as a fallen woman. Then, with the same sexual experience, Angel is pardoned but Tess is abused. It is a classic statement of social double standard, which judges mens sexual behavior leniently and punishes women for the same behavior. It is unequal that and kinds of sexual encounter would earn a young woman moral rebuke and social condemnation, regardless of how the man involved conducted himself. Furthermore, the whole society turns against Tess , which aggravates her miserable life.2.1.3. Unequal Legal SystemTess lives in the Victorian era which capitalism invade the rural region. In the capitalist society, law is served for the capitalist class. Farmers are at the bottle of the society, they have never equal rights as the capitalist class. Alec ,the representative of capitalist power and violence dares to do what he desires, not only because he has money and power, but also because his evil behavior is protected by the capitalist law and rules. In the eyes of Victorian people, the young upstart is noble, while Tess is considered to lure Alec in order to acquire his money. Tess bears all that injustice silently all along, however, when she defends herself for the first time, she is hanged for paying for that. As Hardy says at the end of the novel :“Justice was done, and the President of the Immortals, in Aeschylean phrase, had ended his sport with Tess.”(Tess, 467) Obviously, she is the victim of the unjust, hypocritical law.Analysis of the Major Character2.2.1. The Direct Murder Alec DUrbervilleIn the novel, as a bourgeoisie gilded youth, Alec is the vicious incarnation, directly causing Tesss tragic life.The young Alec is a spoiled, almost evil person, a high class snob. He is the son of a rich merchant who adds the name of DUrbevilles to his own name, Stoke. Alec is a fraud as well as a morally corrupt person. His viciousness is revealed completely when he sees Tess of the first time. In Chapter 3,he calls Tess “beauty” and intends to show her around his mansion. When he picks strawberries up, he puts then into her mouth in person regardless Tesss refuse. While Tess has her meal, he is watching her all the time. As soon as Tess leaves, he plans how to get her. In Chapter 4, when Tess has to work for his family, he does ererything he can to seduce her. Tess is innocent and has no experience, and her living environment is so dark that no one comes to help her and no law protect her. So Alec takes advantages of Tesss helplessness, settinga trap to seduce her. Consequently, Tess becomes a “fallen woman”, the object of ridicule and rejection. This is the first blow Alec made to tess.The second blow happens four years later. When Alec comes across with Tess after four years, he seems to have undergone a remarkable transformation from a rake into a pious and religious man, a preacher. But his wickedness comes to life at once when he sees Tess again. He deceives Tess that her husband will not come back forever. He even pesters and threatens her, “Remember, my lady, I was your master once! I will be your master again. If you are any mans wife you are mine!”(Tess, 390 ) He further enhances the deceit by telling her that even if her husband returns ,she should never look upon him as a husband. After waiting a long time without Angles reply, Tess gives up all hope, becomes Alecs mistress for the sake of her starving family. But soon, Angel returns with his repentance for Tess. Tess can not bear Alecs insult any more and puts all her anger on him, stabbing him to death, as well as going to her own endfinally, Tess punished for the murder is hanged, destroied completyly by Alec.Besides,without conscience, morals and feeling no remorse for his vices, Alec even does not hide his bad qualities. In Chapter 12, he bluntly tells Tess,“I suppose I am a bad fellow a damn bad fellow. I was born bad, and I have lived bad, and I shall die bad in all probability.”(Tess, 90 ) There is frank acceptance in this admission and no shame.Alec is a symbol of evil, he can escape legal sanctions , unaffected. He, who represents a larger moral principle rather than a real individual man, symbolizes the base forces of life that drive a person away from moral perfection and greatness. Therefore, it is Alec who kills Tss directly without mercy.2.2.2. Accessory Angel ClareIt can be said Alec represented evil force is the direct reason to cause Tesss tragedy, whereas the traditional ethics morality survives on Angel devatates Tess is invisible, and much severer spiritual injures. On Angels body, not only has the enlightened thought, but also remains the traditional moral prejudice. It is Angel who kills Tess inderectly but more curely.Angel Clare, the youngest son of a provincial parson, is the direct opposite of Alec. He is educated, reserved, subtle, sad, differing. He looks down on the material distinction of rank and wealth. He determines to go to the countryside to study the agricultural skills intead of going to Cambridge like his conformist brothers. He is a secularist who yearns to work for the “honor and glory of man” rather than for the “honor and glory of God” in a more distant world.(Tess, 137) Because, as a typical young nineteenth-century progressive, Angel considers human society as a thing to be improved, and he firmly believes in the nobility of man. Angle, a freethinking youth, rejects the value handed to him, and set off in search of his own. It can be showed that he loves Tess who is a mere milkmaid and enjoys inferior social status, and does not suit him both socially and culturally. However, it must be pointed out is that he departs from this social class extremely limitedly, he does not really jump out of his area against the old moral values. On the wedding night, Tess tells him all her past with Alec, thinking that Angel would forgive her as she does, but she is disappointed. Angel can not accept the fact, for him, the lover who is beloved has been transformed in his mind from the embodiment of purity into the tarnished reality of an “fallen woman”. He judges “purity” with the coventional value and moral standard that are inculcated into him when he is a boy. Although he claims to be independent judgment opinion, once the thing is very crucial, he is still upholding the decadent bourgeois social customs and moral hypocrisy. His love for Tess may be abstract. Tess may be more an archetype or ideal to him than a flesh and blood woman with a complicated life. He says to Tess,“the woman I have been loving is not you, but another woman in your shape.” The next day, he leaves for Brazil, leaving Tess in hot water again. Enduring the abandoned life, Tess struggles against the hardship ,exhausted both physically and mentally. To make matters worse, after her farther died, her family are evicted. Tess has no other means to choose, only to turn back to the wicked man, Alec. Angels hesitatin on crucial moment is unbearable. Alec destroys Tess physically, while Angel makes a fatal blow to Tesss mental. The lose of chastity does not kill all Tesss desire for love and hope, but Angels desertion and her hopelessness of love for Angel make her lose courage to live. Because of her innocence and helplessness, she is seduced. But because of Angles moral callousness, which totally comes from the cruel social coventions and moral standards of that time, she is forced to come back to Alec for the second time. Eventually, out of love for him, Tess murders Alec at the cost of ending her own life. It is said that as an accessory, Angel preserveing the traditional ethics morality pushes Tess to the tragic abyss.2.2.3. Tess HerselfTesss tragedy not only results from the external causes, but also the internal ones. And only via the internal causes, can the external causes become operative. The tragedy that rusults from the conflict between man and himself is the tragedy of character. Tesss tragedy is the tragedy of character as well.. Her Sense of ResponsibilityTess is a fresh country girl who is full of the sense of the of respnsibility for her family because of her fathers laziness and mothers siple mindedness. The horses death makes her think she is responsible for this accident and she must earn money to suppor her poor family. This guilt leads her to visit the DUrbervilles and puts her into an uncertain and potentially dangerous situation. She is seduced by the young master of DUrbervilles ,Alec. From then on, “almost at a leap Tess thus changed from simple girl to complex woman.”(Tess, 116 ) The death of her father adds her familys eviction because her reputation makes it incumbent on her to provide for her young brother and sisters. With no choice, she bears sadness to live with Alec again.. Her Resistance and CompromiseThere is a prominent feature of charater on Tess is resistance. She is acknowledged as one of the three rebellious women in Victorian ear. She struggles bravely against her destiny and the conventional morality. She desirs for happiness and true love. She dares hat Alec, also dares love Angel. Tess is skeptical on moral and legal norms of the existing system. She asks herself,“Was once lost alaways lost really true of chastity?” The recuperative power which pervaded organic nature was surely not denied to maidenhood alone.(Tess, 117) To a certain extent, she has the courage to resist the hypocritical ethics. However, she can not completely get rid of social conventions and standard of that time, which makes her believe that she has to pay for what she has sinned. When Tess falls in love with Angel, she still can not do away with her sense of guilt. As their courtship continues, Tess feels nervous and contradictive. She knows that a womans virginity is regarded as supremely important by most of her society, and that Angel does not see her as anything but completely pure. She understands in her heart that she must tell Angel about her past. But, she fails to do so for fear of losing him. She feels that the moral sin that she experienced will most certainly drive Angel away from her. Later on, when she knows a similar error of Angel, she securely make her confession and hopes to get Angels forgiveness. However, Angel takes Tesss transgression as a personal attack on him. His idealized, pure vision of Tess is destroyed. Tess becomes depressed as she realized the distance between him and herself. What is worse is that she does not accept that as Angels disadvantages. Although she is wrecked by Angels prejudice that leaves her in total darkness in her life, she never complains about Angels feelings, and she only criticizes and blame herself. She loses her strength and wishes to submit her husband,“I will obey you like your wre