毕设论文--hte-causes-of-the-tragedy-tess-of-d’urberville.doc

The Causes of the Tragedy
Tess of D’Urberville
by
JI Lu

Under the Supervision of

YU Qun

Submitted in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Bachelor of Arts

English Program,
Nanjing University Jinling College
June 2010

Acknowledgements
This paper is finished under the guide of my mentor—Ms.YU, she has given me some useful advisements and told me some ways of getting the information of the background knowledge. This is a great opportunity to express my respect to Ms YU. Moreover, thanks to my family, they support me a lot when I was feeling confusing. In addition, I am so grateful and I would like to thank my dear classmates for inspiring me to join into their sharing of experience of writing paper. Lastly, I have to declare that my elder fellow classmates also have given me some useful suggestion of how to write a good and valuable piece of paper. Thank you very much.
———— JI Lu

ABSTRACT
My argument:
Among those famous works of Hardy, Tess of the d’Urberville is the most and last excellent full-length novel. It describes the raped country girl who is called Tess experienced a short period of tragic life. Though my study of the causes, I should get the reason why Hardy wants to create this poor woman and this kind of fatalistic story. Though my study, I want to get the knowledge of Hardy’s point of view of that period of time and what is his own weltanschauung.

Methods and procedures:
Method1: literature study
Most of the literature material comes from the library of our university and some on-line magazine. They all help me to get the knowledge of the novel from every respect of related information. And then I can have a comprehensive analysis of the heroine by means of understanding others’ comment and this really can help me fix my question for discussion. This way of study also can give me a well and overall perspective of this novel
Method2: qualitative analysis
I should apply the methods of inducement, deduction, analysis, synthesis, abstract and epitome to process the all the material that I have collected. Then I can understand the essence and innate character of the novel by discarding the dross and selecting the essential, discarding the false and retaining the true, proceeding from one point to another, proceeding from the exterior to the interior.
Method3: illustration
I will give several examples selected from the original text to make comparison and analysis.

Procedures:
Ⅰ.Make wide-ranging reading to fix the range of my study.
Ⅱ.Collect and gather the material.
Ⅲ.Fix the theme I want to make study.
Ⅳ.Fix the title and the outline.
Ⅴ.Finish the abstract.
Ⅵ.Paper

Main Text:
The Causes of the Tragedy Tess of D’Urberville
Section I Introduction：
i) background information：
Thomas Hardy, the cross-century great man, stops his heartbeat in Jan.11th. He is a great poet and famous novel-writer born in Victorian period of times. As one of the renowned English representative of critical realism, he is also reputated the novelist and poet placing between history and future. Owning a modest and quiet character, the mighty litterateur lives in Dorsetshire, a far-away country, enjoying his writing career. He is not only loved and esteemed by the English, but also well-known in our country. Almost a century ago, we have read the translation of his works, and the film of Tess, TV series of Mayor of the Casterbridge won the fame, too. He is a cross-century writer with his 60 years in 19c and 28 years in 20c. While as an English writer, his years have passed. However, a new wave of Hardy fad existed in the western countries in the middle of the 20th century: His works come off the press once and once again; the new edition of Biography of Thomas Hardy (1976) come out after. The new films and TV series which are made in according to his novels lead the audience to see the picture of the past Wessex country.
Among those famous works of Hardy, Tess of the d’Urberville is the most and last excellent full-length novel. It describes the raped country girl who is called Tess experienced a short period of tragic life. Tess is the eldest daughter of the countryside. In order to help the family to cross the difficult barriers, she has to go in quest of help from the pseudo relative Alec d’Urberville, and then trampled by the dandy. She bore a child at home. Misfortunately, the child came to an untimely end. With the doleful mood, she went to get a job in a cattle farm and fell in love at first sight with Angel Clare. On the night of their wedding, she told Angel all about her past. Unexpectedly, the confession leads contempt from Angel. In spite of his disrepute earlier days, he still evaded to Brazil running out on Tess like he was in bold and straightforward terms. Being isolated and helpless, the tragic girl sought a job here and there. When she got the news that her father have gone off already, she became Alec’s mistress in virtue of the poverty-stricken of whole family. At this time, having realized his merciless, Angel went back to ask for forgiveness from Tess. When Tess woke up to the fact that it was Alec on earth who destroy her life, all the old and recent grudges pushed her to senseless, killing the devil with her own hands thus in change of short happiness with her life. “Tess, a pure woman” Actually, she deserved the words. She had a kind heart which glittered like gold. And she was an honest girl who wanted to make her life by her own hands and always ran after the basic-level happiness. Sadly, the pure girl was gradually ruined by those men who once declared that they loved her instead her enemies. Why were such a smart, beautiful, hardworking and kind girl eventually pushed to the gallows and what in earth leads to her tragedy?
To my own knowledge, I wish to classify the reasons into four points: The environmental factors, Alec and Angel---- the two cruel heroes who influence the tragedy, the vices in her own characteristics and some mysterious and accidental reasons.
Firstly, it is some environmental and social factors. It is well known that when you are a member of the society, you will be influenced by the society and the environment beyond all doubt. We could see it from the background of the Victorian times which is filled with capitalism everywhere, that the described cattle farm and the farm of the rich peasant show that not only the urban places get well development, but also the countries do, where capitalism ways of management come out. On account of the replacement of handwork with machines, the writer describes that so many peasants became impoverished, insolvent and then they went to the urban places. It is rightly the mirror of the rush change in the English countries in the end of the 19th century and that would inevitably cause the changes on people’s mind and spirit. Tess happened to live in this period of time. Under the exploiting of the middle class, peasants like the Durbeyfield become poorer and poorer. And as the eldest daughter, Tess had to fill her life with innumerable and crushing fieldwork. However, during the time of disintegrating of small-scale economy and economic crisis, it is not enough to be hardworking and industrious if one wants to feed the whole family. Moreover, during the times of Victorian, being lack of any guide of scientific knowledge, people, especially women were deeply rooted traditional conception. In the same reason, we could summarize that the tragedy is led by the traditional conception which is imposed to Tess by the cruel society: the apparently unfairness between men and women and the unfairness between upper class and lower class. According to the unwritten law and morality of the capitalism, it is not a guilt if a man did something wrong sexually. On the contrary, if a woman lost her chastity and virginity, she would be disgraced forever. That is why Tess is regarded as a bad woman from the beginning to the end, and why Angel could not accept her past. Another example is that although Tess loves Angel so much, she can not accept his proposal once and once again because she takes herself as a dirty woman. Another kind of unfairness lies in the hierarchy system. Alec comes from upper class so that he could do whatever he likes. But Tess is only a daughter of peasant, thus even when she has so much wrongful treatment, she can only grins and bears it. The last environmental factor I want to add in is particular family situation: Her father is indolent and incapable——“Durbeyfield was what was locally called a slack-twisted fellow; he had good strength to work at times, but the times could not be relied on the coincide with the hours of requirement; and, having seen unaccustomed to the regular toil of the day laborer, he was not particular persistent when they did not coincide.” Her mother is superficial, vulgar and ignorant of worldly affairs. ——“ No doubt a mampus of volk of our own rank will be down here in their carriages as soon as ‘tis known.” “She is rich, and she’d be sure to take notice o’ the maid, and ‘twill be a very good thing I don’t see why two branches o’ one family should not be on visiting terms.” “Well, Tess ought to go to this other member of our family. She’d be sure to win the lady— Tess would; and likely enough It would lead to some noble gentleman marring her. In short, I know it.” From words above, we can see that it is actually Mrs. Durbeyfield who pushes her daughter to the pit of hell. “In the Durbeyfield countenances there was nothing of the red wrath that would have burnt upon the girl from parents more ambitious for her welfare.” It is her selfish parents that never regret to exchange Tess with fortune. “Why didn’t ye think of doing some good for your family instead o’ thinking only of yourself? See how I’ve got to teave and slave, and your poor weak father with his heart clogged like a dripping-pan. I did hope for something to come out o’this! To see what a pretty pair you and he made that day when you drove away together four months ago! See what he has given us —— all, as we thought, because we were his kin. But if he’s not, it must have been done because his love for’ee. And yet you’ve not got him to marry!”
Secondly, Alec and Angel have very close relation with Tess’s fate. Alec filled his love to Tess with lust and desire while Angel make his love impure, mixing too much unreality. Alec, the typical good-for-nothing young man from a wealthy family, is the direct killer of Tess. Once, he named himself Satan and actually he is an undisguised young ruffian pressing Tess by every means. He is a representative of dominating social might and “generally acknowledged truth”. For example, he sets a trap and seduces Tess. And then blames Tess using the allusion from the Bible .In addition, he forced Tess to be his mistress when Tess has no ability to feed her whole family by herself. And actually it is all for him that the pure Tess loses her virginity and commit a crime and loses her own life. The more important leading character in the novel to push Tess to death is Clare. It is so satirical that the hypocrite is named Angel. Ostensibly, he acts as an honest, upright, genial, cultured and elegant gentleman, and he never regrets to show his ardor to Tess. He seems to be an open-minded intellectual. Unexpectedly, it is so “perfect” a young man who makes Tess heart-broken thoroughly. ——“Don’t, Tess; don’t argue. Different societies, different manners. You almost make me say you are an unapprehending peasant woman, who has never been initiated into the proportions of social things. You don’t know what you say.” “ ‘My position is this’ he said abruptly. ‘I thought —— any man would have thought ——that by giving up all ambition to win a wife by social standing, with fortune, with knowledge of the world, I should secure rustic innocence as surely as I should secure pink cheeks; but—— However, I am no man to reproach you, and I will not.’” Angel, the man whose mind is deeply ingrained in the traditionally moral conception, makes a judgment that a woman is pure or not with traditional conception of chastity and pushes Tess to desperation with not any sympathy. From the upper words we could find that he is not only a scholar rigidly adhering to principles, but also a poor snob whose love to Tess is founded on the tower of purity. Once the pedestal is taken out, his building of love will totally collapse. He functions just as Alec does to push Tess to death.
Thirdly, some vice in Tess’s characters indirectly to guide her to the entrance of hell. One is called shadow of fatalism caused by the traditional conception. This is one of the contributing factors leading to the tragedy. We can see that after her visiting her pseudo relatives, she was stab by the rose and she thought it was an omen of bad luck. Hardy describes one scene that after Tess was raped by Alec, on her way back to home, she met a artisan of some sort, seeing his painting on the wall: “THY, DAMNATION, SLUMBERRETH, NOT.——2 PET.ⅱ.3,” The words entered Tess with accusatory horror. It was as if this man has known her recent history; yet he was totally a stranger. And he wrote another sentence which suddenly flushed Tess: “THOU, SHALT, NOT, COMMIT——” Those words means everyone should not rape or seduce others which is included in Ten commandments of Bibles. Then, when she was having a try-on of the wedding dress, “Alone, she stood for a moment before the glass looking at the effect of her silk attire; and then there came into her head her mother’s ballad of the mystic robe——‘That never would become that wife That once done amiss,’ which Mrs. Durbeyfield had used to sing to her as a child, so blithely and so archly, her foot on the cradle, which she rocked to the tune.” And when she saw the picture of ancestors, there was a feeling of ill omen well up in her heart with the words of priest Laurence which hints that her wedding would have with an unhappy ending. All the upper connection in the mind misleads Tess to a feeling of unluckiness-approaching and weakens her courage to contend with fate. Another is her dual personality which contains one side of brevity and the other of feebleness. When we were reading those words that she was so frank to her love to Angel and her hatred to Alec, we admired how brave she was to resist traditional morality and run after her happiness. After the running into Angel, Tess became hopeful to see him again, singing: “O ye Sun and Moon… O ye Stars… ye Green Things upon the Earth…ye Fowls of the Air Beasts and Cattle…Children oh men…bless ye the Lord, praise Him and magnify Him for ever!” ——While in Victorian Times, women of good manner should be docile and timid, behave a fit and proper way and regard professing a religion as a virtue.