Tess of the D'Urbervilles

Angel eventually experiences a change of heart, revealing that his character has the capacity for growth and development. With some time away to reflect, as well as continued advocacy from individuals who know Tess, Angel decides that Tess truly loves him and will be more faithful than any other woman could be. When he returns to England, Angel feels repentant, believing that “he deserved no more. His had been a love ‘which alters when it alteration finds’” (392). This quotation alludes to Shakespeare’s “Sonnet 116,” in which the poet argues that love that loses faith or changes in response to obstacles is not true love: Angel has developed a new perspective on relationships and what fidelity and loyalty mean. That this change comes after time spent abroad suggests that exposure to a new culture has helped him see that social mores can be arbitrary. Likewise, the hard work of trying to establish a farm might have softened his perspective on what Tess’s life has actually been like.

However, Angel returns too late, developing the plot structure of fatalistic events and suggesting that Tess was doomed all along. When Angel finally locates Tess, he is struck by a setting that is surprisingly luxurious and also notices the change in her appearance: “[H]er great natural beauty was, if not heightened, rendered more obvious by her attire” (400). She later explains, “[T]hese clothes are what [Alec’s] put upon me; I didn’t care what he did wi’ me” (401). This quotation shows that Tess’s passivity has extended to the point where she allows Alec to dress and adorn her like a doll; it also implies that she disassociates from her body so as to tolerate the renewal of their sexual relationship. In contrast with her previous meekness and submission to Angel, Tess points out, “[Alec] ha[s] been as a husband to me; you never had!” (401). With this quotation, Tess implies both that Alec claimed his sexual rights to her body and also provided financial support and protection to her.

The climactic scene in which Tess confronts and then murders Alec unfolds through the viewpoint of Mrs. Brooks, a reader surrogate who has limited access to the scene unfolding above her and is held in suspense just as the reader is. The imagery of the bloodstain appearing on the ceiling and the sound of it slowly dripping down heightens the grotesque drama of the scene, while also connecting to previous blood imagery, such as the death of Prince and the time Tess slapped Alec with a leather glove, drawing blood from his mouth. The stabbing of Alec with a carving knife also mirrors the forceful penetration that Tess might have endured at his hands and echoes Prince’s impalement on a sharp object.

When Tess catches up to Angel, she gives a garbled explanation of her motivation for the crime: “[W]ill you forgive my sin against you, now I have killed him? I thought as I ran along that you would be sure to forgive me now I have done that. It came to me as shining light that I should get you back that way” (407). By comparing her crime to a shining light, Tess shows that she does not feel guilty about what she has done; in fact, in this quotation, she speaks about her “sin” as being her betrayal of Angel rather than the murder she has just committed. Tess’s strangely calm behavior leaves Angel confused as to whether she has actually killed Alec, but he is preoccupied with “amazement at the strength of her affection for himself” (407). This quotation hints that some of Angel’s revulsion towards Tess stemmed from insecurity that she might prefer Alec; now that she has decisively proved how much she loves him, he is able to unquestioningly accept her, even though she might have just killed someone.

Tess and Angel’s attempt at escape is “temporary and unforefending, like the plans of two children” (409), showing that they don’t truly have the skill to evade the law. Tess is not truly interested in avoiding her fate and in fact welcomes it; Angel is too confused to know what is going on. Their innocence and sweetness inform the episode where the housekeeper sees them sleeping in the mansion and delays waking them up, moved by details such as “Tess’s lips being parted like a half-opened flower near his cheek” (413). This simile shows that Tess retains innocence, beauty, and femininity even after the crime is committed; just as Angel used to look at her and imagine he saw only virginal innocence, the housekeeper imagines that she sees a lovely young woman in a tryst with the man she loves.

When Tess and Angel flee from the mansion, they finalize their symbolic movement outside of laws and social norms. Stonehenge is a Neolithic structure, constructed sometime between 3000 and 2000 BCE; its origins and purpose remain extremely mysterious. While modern archaeology has largely discounted the notion of human sacrifice being carried out at this site, in Hardy’s Victorian period, the belief was fairly common. Angel alludes to this when he comments to Tess, “I think you are lying on an altar” (416); she subsequently asks, “Did they sacrifice to God here?” (417). It is likely that Hardy intended to depict Tess stretching out on a flat stone known as the Slaughter Stone, which has a reddish tint. This coloration led to the Victorian assumption that it was a site where sacrifices occurred (it is now known that the reddish tint results from iron deposits in the stone reacting to rainwater).

This imagery highlights Tess’s impending death and her peaceful acceptance of it, as she literally lays herself out on an altar. The last words Tess speaks in the novel are “I am ready” (418), showing her calm resignation to her fate. The setting also points towards Tess as a kind of social sacrifice whose life and happiness are lost out of deference to arbitrary and unnecessary social customs governing sexuality and reproduction. Significantly, in many cultures and faiths, sacrifices (human, animal, or otherwise) are of the highest quality, unblemished, and selected to meet high standards. Thus, by depicting Tess as a sacrifice, Hardy presents her as praiseworthy and untainted by her experiences.

The novel ends with Angel and Liza-Lu bearing witness to Tess’s execution. Readers do not have any access to Tess’s experience or emotions as she faces death, heightening her portrayal as an archetypal figure rather than a well-rounded individual. Liza-Lu steps in as a surrogate companion to Angel, suggesting that he might abide by Tess’s request that he marry her sister upon her death. Tess’s bizarre request implies that she truly does love Angel in a selfless and self-abnegating way and that she has internalized his rejection of her to the extent that she wants to provide him with a purer and more virtuous substitute. As Tess explains to Angel, “[I]f she were to become yours it would almost seem as if death had not divided us” (416).

Hardy concludes his novel with a grim comment that “‘Justice’ was done, and the President of the Immortals (in Aeschylean phrase) had ended his sport with Tess” (420). By putting “justice” in quotation marks, Hardy makes it explicit that he does not think there is anything just about Tess’s fate and challenges his readers to evaluate their understanding of what justice means. The “President of the Immortals” refers to a figure in the ancient Greek drama Prometheus, written by the Athenian playwright Aeschylus; in the play, this figure is a malicious deity who toys with the lives of mortals as a form of sport. With this comment, Hardy underscores his novel’s relationship to Classical tragedy and echoes the notion that individuals can be the victims of arbitrary fates. This viewpoint contrasts with the more traditionally Christian Victorian worldview emphasizing moral responsibility, salvation, and agency. Instead, Hardy’s novel closes with a nod to a much bleaker and harsher worldview.