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
Copyright
c
2015 by SCITEPRESS – Science and Technology Publications, Lda. All rights reserved
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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Important Influences of Multiple Characters of Tess
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