Important Influences of Multiple Characters of Tess

Wang Hongxia

Zhoukou Vocational and Technical College, Zhoukou, Henan, 466001, China

Keywords: Hardy, Tess of the D’Urbervilles, Character, the UK, Tragedy.

Abstract: In Thomas Hardy’s novel Tess of the D’Urbervilles, the heroine Tess has multiple characters. The work

starts with the main characters of Tess. Meanwhile, it analyzes her personalities and their influences on the

fate. Due to the kindness and simplicity in Tess, life tragedy finally comes to her. In particular, the pursuit

for pureness brings heavy burdens to her spirits. However, influenced by the fighting, her tragedy has

hierarchy. The innovation point in the work is to apply the method of multiple character-by-layer analysis.

1 INTRODUCTION

In the classical novel Tess of the D'Urbervilles,

Thomas Hardy gives Tess characters of multiple

levels by shaping her tragic life. Therefore, Tess has

sharper contradictions in internal personalities.

Moreover, it highlights Thomas Hardy's thoughts on

the influences of human characters on tragic fates,

especially the dispositional attributions to tragic

destiny. Therefore, it is of literary values.

2 SIMPLICITY IN THE

CHARACTER OF TESS AND

ITS INFLUENCE: BECOMING A

CLEAR-EYED AND

INTELLIGENT WOMAN

In Tess of the D'Urbervilles, Tess is very simple. In

the novel, Angel Clare calls Tess daughter of the

nature, which is praise for her simplicity. Deep in

Tess's characters, it is the simplicity of English

countryside. Meanwhile, the simplicity is attached to

her life. Beautiful Tess always keeps the simplicity

brought from countryside. She has a real love for the

nature and enthusiasm for life. Generally speaking,

she is a rough and simple woman. In conclusion, the

excellent qualities of workers are shown in Tess.

Although Tess is from the d'Urbervilles noble

heritage pulse, she is not arrogant as d' Urbervilles

gradually decline due to the development of

capitalism. Actually, Tess's father is a fallen street

hawker in his generation of d' Urbervilles.

Therefore, Tess has been influenced by culture of

street and country estate very early and inspires

people around her with simplicity. Meanwhile,

Tess's simplicity gradually influences her work.

However, known from the priest the status that

d'Urbervilles ever had, some vanity and complacent

appear in Tess's parents. Meanwhile, Mrs

d'Urbervilles also changes her mediocrity and hard

working due to her family s origins. However, in

such plebeian environment, Tess still keeps her

simplicity and works hard. She always regards

herself as child of working people, and does not

show too much excitement for her family's glorious

past. Meanwhile, she regards her mother as an

ordinary milk lady and inherits beauty from her

parents. Therefore, there is nothing worth blind

admiration. In life, she regards herself as working

people instead of nobility whenever she raises

poultry in clan of d' Urbervilles or works in the milk

factory. Thus, the simplicity highlights her tragedy.

3 KINDNESS IN CHARACTER OF

TESS AND ITS INFLUENCE:

ROOT CAUSE OF SLIDING TO

TRAGEDY

Besides, Tess is also kind, which is shown in her

love for life and hard working. She can bravely face

355

Hongxia W.

Important Inﬂuences of Multiple Characters of Tess.

DOI: 10.5220/0006026103550357

In Proceedings of the Information Science and Management Engineering III (ISME 2015), pages 355-357

ISBN: 978-989-758-163-2

355

difficulties in life and work. Moreover, she sacrifices

herself for others’ achievements. She lives in the

Victorian era of the UK, when the British have great

development as social productivity is promoted by

the industrial revolution. However, rural areas that

Tess lives in are hit by industrial civilization and

gradually decline. Therefore, she has to face many

hardships from an early age. As the eldest girl in the

d'Urbervilles family, Tess helps her parents care for

her younger brothers and sisters from very young.

Meanwhile, she will have deep remorse for playing

outside without taking care of family. The kindness

in Tess lies in her working hard. Meanwhile, it

brings her very heavy shackles. Due to her

unwillingness to abandon the family, she loses her

virginity at the lure of Yayle from d'Urbervilles. As

Tess worries she might harm her family and Clay,

she puts money Clay offers at home. After that, she

walks into the vicissitudes of the society and

wanders. Although it seems that Tess’s sad fate

results from the unfairness she suffers. In fact, it is

due to the goodness in her heart. Finally she leaves

her home to have street life because she dares not to

fight with the shameless people as Yayle.

After Tess’s father dies, the whole families are

exiled by the countryside. Therefore, she has to be

with Yayle to let family survive. Meanwhile, Tess’s

kindness gradually evolves into the endurance. It is

so huge sacrifice that presses and tortures Tess

spiritually, surpassing those of life and society.

Meanwhile, Tess’s brave sacrifice of herself also

comes from her kindness.

However, Tess’s kindness not only influences

the responsibilities in raising family, but also

inspires her friends and work. When Tess works in

the milk factory, three of her colleagues fall love

with Clay. Although she and Clay love each other,

she does not show it in front of them. Considering

that she has lost virginity, she decides to match one

of the three girls with Clay to make him happy. It is

shown in the plot that Tess praises their beauty and

hard working. Meanwhile, she belittles her

appearance and says it is brief. Due to her endurance

and tough hiding from Clay, she is thrown into the

tragedy of life. Therefore, despite touching, it is the

kindness that leads her to tragedy.

4 PURITY AND ITS INFLUENCE

IN TESS: MORAL

CLEANLINESS, AVOIDING

SELF AND REALITY

There is great purity in Tess’s character, which is

mainly shown in her attitudes towards love. She

regards love as a loyal activity. Therefore, it needs

more constancy and dedication. While going through

twists and turns in life, pure love is unswerving. It is

also the impact and projection of Tess’s pure

characters.

Therefore, the purity and pursuit for it have deep

impacts on the relationship between Tess and Clay.

In the novel, Clay, the hero of the novel, gets Tess’s

admiration. Unfluenced by the valve system, Clay

does not have the cunning and laziness of the rich.

Actually, he is polite, studious and diligent.

However, Yayle is the typical rich who is crafty,

rude, arrogant and luxury. Both the two men are

influenced by Tess’s purity.

Firstly, influenced by her pure love and pursuit

for purity, Tess dares not to be close to such a giant

and great man easily when she firstly faces Clay.

She regards Clay as gods in Roman mythology.

Therefore, she dares not to come too close to him as

she regards it as blasphemy. Meanwhile, Tess thinks

she is not innocent for being tarnished by the rich

playboy Yaely. Therefore, the moral cleanliness

makes Tess think she is filthy and there is no way to

accept Clay’s selfless love. Although influenced by

her true feelings, Tess accepts Clay’s wedding

proposal. However, there are contradictions and

conflicts in Tess as she never forgets the past. Thus,

she lives in the shackles of spirits and morals, unable

to get out of the barriers of inner heart. Finally, she

decides to write to show her misfortunes. The

contradictions of endurance and misfortunes make

Tess very painful spiritually.

Secondly, when Clay is informed that Tess has

lost virginity in the past, he is so angry that he goes

to the South America. Tess still stands on her

husband’s decisions purely, including that she agrees

to not use the first name Clay and does not write

often. Actually, she keeps Clay’s honor and dignity.

The behavior that is almost blindly honest shows her

pursuit for absolute purity and significant impacts of

moral cleanliness. Thus, to avoid losing virginity

again, she chooses to hide from life and covers her

beauty as she lives in moral cleanliness. Finally, she

comes to spiritual desperation. However, it is the

absolute obedience of chastity and purity when

judged from sense of roots.

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5 THE FIGHTING CHARACTER

AND ITS INFLUENCE IN

CHARACTER OF TESS: STAND

FIRM AND UNYIELDING AND

DARE TO QUESTION

There are also very strong resistant colors in Tess.

Although she is kind and pure, she does not lose

fighting spirits against the reality. The fighting is

mainly shown in the courage facing life' s

oppression, especially the double oppression of

feudal morals and bourgeoisie. Meanwhile, she

challenges the pedantic morals and social laws.

Firstly, Tess's fighting is shown in her

unwillingness to fully become Yayle’s toy. Although

tarnished by Yayle, she does not fear his financial

and social standing. On the contrary, she shows her

faithfulness and fighting spirits. As she is influenced

by her fighting spirit, Tess clearly knows Yayle's

deception and lies. Therefore, she behaves decently

facing him and shows her anger and refusal. When

Yayle becomes entangled in her, Tess's hard

slapping with gloves shows her courage. After

facing numerous lies and deceptions of Yayle, Tess

kills him following her fighting spirit. Finally, she

goes to the execution ground easily and fights

against the irrational social and moral orders with

death. Meanwhile, the fighting spirit also has great

impacts on her views on the religion. Fighting

against the hypocritical religion, she is reluctant to

ask gods for help. Besides, she gives baptism to her

illegitimate son regardless of the so-called religious

requirements. Showing contempt for the religion,

she struggles against the hypocrisy in religion many

times. In all, it also shows her scorn on hypocritical

religious ethics. Thus, humanism sheds light on her

life tragedy.

However, influenced by her fighting characters,

Tess shows strength in her life. In particular, she is

unwilling to compromise and pursues her life

unswervingly. After losing virginity, Tess faces cold

eyes and censure of neighbors. However, she is not

bound by the so-called social morals and refuses to

club to death. It is the incredible fighting spirit in her

heart that supports her. Moreover, she questions the

lagged chastity concepts. As she believes, as long as

women chaste and self-respect, they have rights to

live despite they lost virginity due to irresistible

factors.

6 CONCLUSIONS

As an important author in Victorian era, Thomas

Hardy's idea of critical realism has great

contributions in the literary world. Inheriting from

the traditions of ancient Greek and Roman drama, as

well as the traditional British drama of Elizabeth I,

Hardy studies the tragic arts of the classics.

Therefore, he gradually develops his unique art of

tragic literature. Besides, from the ideological

perspective, deeply influenced by the emerging

philosopher Schopenhauer of Germany, he gradually

follows the philosophy of pessimism. Finally, the

pessimistic philosophy evolves into a kind of

fatalism. Thus, Hardy creates many images of

tragedy in his works. In particular, Tess represents

fatalism in his representative works Tess of the

D'Urbervilles, However, Tess's destiny is influenced

by her personality. Although her characters lay

groundwork for her tragic fate, they also show

Hardy's reconsideration about female morals and

values.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

The work was financed by 36th project of 5th

China's foreign language education fund, Current

Teaching and Countermeasures of Professional Oral

English of Business English in Higher Vocational

Colleges; as well as the sponsorship of project of

social sciences in Henan Provinces (SKL-2012-

2287), Studies of Support of Henan Higher

Vocational English Education on Constructions of

Zhongyuan Economic Zone

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Xiong Huafeng. Tragedy of Patriarchy Society – Studying

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Cheng Chunlan. The challenge of Moral Purity –

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Yang Jianmei. Study on Thomas Hardy's Male Thoughts

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