Editing Tess of the d'Urbervilles (section)

==Symbolism ==
=== Themes ===
[[File:Hambledon Hill towards Stourton Tower 20070730.jpg|thumb|right|The [[Vale of Blackmore]], the main setting for ''Tess''. [[Hambledon Hill]] towards [[King Alfred's Tower|Stourton Tower]]]]
Hardy's writing often explores what he called the "ache of modernism", a theme notable in ''Tess'', which as one critic noted, Hardy draws on imagery associated with hell to describe modern farm machinery and suggests the effete nature of city life as milk sent there must be watered down before townspeople can stomach it.<ref>[https://books.google.com/books?id=VSlD9b_o4JQC&pg=PA14&lpg=PP1&ie=ISO-8859-1&output=html Kramer, Dale (1991), ''Hardy: Tess of the D'Urbervilles'', Cambridge University Press]</ref>

On the other hand, the Marxist critic [[Raymond Williams]] in ''The English Novel from Dickens to Lawrence'' questions the identification of Tess with a peasantry destroyed by [[Industrial Revolution|industrialization]]. Williams sees Tess not as a peasant, but as an educated member of the rural working class, who suffers a tragedy through being thwarted in her hopes to rise socially and desire for a good life (which includes love and sex), not by industrialism, but by the landed bourgeoisie (Alec), liberal idealism (Angel) and Christian moralism in her family's village (see Chapter LI). Earlier commentators were not always appreciative. [[Henry James]] and [[Robert Louis Stevenson]] in Bournemouth "loved to talk of books and bookmen. Stevenson, unlike James, was an admirer of Thomas Hardy, but wrote to James expressing his violent reaction to ''Tess of the D'Urbervilles;'' James wrote back agreeing the book was 'vile' (not a word used by Stevenson).

=== References, personification, character, experiences ===
Because of the numerous [[Paganism|pagan]] and neo-[[Bible|Biblical]] references made about her, Tess has been seen variously as an Earth goddess or a sacrificial victim.<ref>[https://books.google.com/books?id=av57F0sS-HoC&pg=PA183 Radford, ''Thomas Hardy and the Survivals of Time'', p. 183]</ref>

Tess has been seen as a personification of nature, an idea supported by her ties with animals throughout the novel. Tess's misfortunes begin when she falls asleep while driving Prince to market and causes the horse's death; at Trantridge she becomes a poultry-keeper; she and Angel fall in love amid cows in the fertile Froom valley; on the road to Flintcomb-Ash, she kills some wounded pheasants to end their suffering.<ref>{{Cite book |title=Tess of the D'Urbervilles |last=Hardy |first=Thomas |publisher=W.W. Norton & Company Inc. |year=1991 |isbn=978-0-393-95903-1 |location=New York |pages=218–219}}</ref>

However, Tess emerges as a powerful character not through this symbolism but because "Hardy's feelings for her were strong, perhaps stronger than for any of his other invented personages."<ref>[https://books.google.com/books?id=W6aycisnuiAC&pg=PA119&lpg=PP1&ie=ISO-8859-1&output=html J.Hillis Miller, ''Fiction and Repetition'', p. 119.]</ref>

When Hardy was 16, he saw the hanging of [[Elizabeth Martha Brown]], who had murdered a violent husband. This fascinating, yet repellent experience contributed to the writing of ''Tess''.<ref>{{Cite web |url=https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2008/aug/02/law.ukcrime |title=Proposed changes to murder laws could end patriarchal double standards. 'What a fine figure she showed as she hung in the misty rain' |work=[[The Guardian]] |date=August 2, 2008 |access-date=April 12, 2018 |author=Morrison, Blake |author-link=Blake Morrison}}</ref><ref>{{Cite web |url=http://www.capitalpunishmentuk.org/browne.html |title=Elizabeth Martha Brown. The inspiration for Thomas Hardy's "Tess of the D'Urbervilles" |publisher=Capital Punishment UK |access-date=April 12, 2018}}</ref>

=== Morality and society ===
The moral commentary running through the novel insists that ''Tess'' is not at fault, instead imposing mythological, biblical and folk imagery on a story of a young girl seduced and abandoned to create a "challenging contemporaneity".<ref>{{Cite book |last1=Hardy |first1=Thomas |title=Tess of the D'Urbervilles |publisher=Oxford University Press |page=13 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=LwQUDAAAQBAJ&pg=PR13 |access-date=8 September 2019|isbn=9780199537051 |date=14 August 2008}}</ref> It was controversial and polarizing, setting these elements in a context of 19th-century English society, including disputes in the Church, the [[National school (England and Wales)|National School]] movement, the overall class structure of English society, and changing circumstances of rural labour. During the era of [[first-wave feminism]], civil divorce was introduced and campaigns were waged against child prostitution, moving gender and sexuality issues to the forefront of public discussion. Hardy's work was criticized as vulgar, but by the late 19th century other experimental fiction works were released such as [[Florence Dixie]]'s depiction of [[feminist utopia]], ''[[The Story of an African Farm]]'' by [[Olive Schreiner]], and [[Sarah Grand]]'s work ''The Heavenly Twins''. These raised awareness of [[syphilis]] and advocated sensitivity rather than condemnation for young women infected with it.<ref>{{Cite journal |last1=Kennedy |first1=Meegan |title=Syphilis and the hysterical female: the limits of realism in Sarah Grand's the heavenly twins |journal=Women's Writing |volume=11 |issue=2 |pages=259–280 |doi=10.1080/09699080400200231|year=2004|s2cid=162372430}}</ref>

=== Rape/seduction ===
Hardy's description leaves it unclear whether Alec d’Urberville rapes Tess or whether he seduces her, and the issue has been the subject of debate.<ref name=":1" /><ref>{{Cite book |last=Bullen |first=J. B. |url=https://www.worldcat.org/oclc/855836986 |title=Thomas Hardy : the world of his novels |publisher=Frances Lincoln Limited |year=2013 |isbn=978-0-7112-3275-4 |edition= |location=London |pages=139 |oclc=855836986}}</ref>

Mary Jacobus, a commentator on Hardy's works, speculates that the rape/seduction ambiguity may have been forced on the author to meet publisher requirements and the "[[Mrs Grundy|Grundyist]]" readership of his time.<ref>{{Cite journal |last1=Jacobus |first1=Mary |date=1976 |title=Tess's Purity |journal=Essays in Criticism |volume=XXVI |issue=4 |pages=318–338 |doi=10.1093/eic/XXVI.4.318}}</ref>