Social/ Political Context

Question 1

Predominant social change in the 19th century

Answer 1

• Britain changed from a largely rural country to being a predominantly urban country
• great cities sprung up (Manchester, Birmingham)
• old cities grew (London)

Question 2

Where were people from the countryside drawn to

Answer 2

Urban areas in which there were often squalid conditions

Question 3

Economic conditions of agricultural sector

Answer 3

• difficult as they had to compete with rise of urban industrialisation
• agricultural workers had low wages
• work became temporary

Question 4

Poor law amendment act

Answer 4

• relief of the poor through workhouses
• vastly unpopular
• resulted in protestations such as Tolpuddle near Hardy home

Question 5

Dairy farms

Answer 5

• did particularly well, result of developments in railways could be transported to the city’s

Question 6

Socio economic changes that Hardy alludes as the novel progresses

Answer 6

• increasingly great movement of people in search of employment
• dispossession of country people - Durbeyfields forced to find temporary accommodation
• growing use of farm mechanisation (reaper at Flintcomb ash

Question 7

Different social divisions

Answer 7

• professional middle class (Angel)
• farmers and liviers (dairyman Crick)
• copyholders (Jack)
• skilled and unskilled farm labourers

Question 8

Social mobility

Answer 8

• Tess’s families downwards mobility (from aristocrats to middle lower class rural to desperation)
• Alecs family is upwardly mobile - economic boom of Victorian industrialisation meant there was new money

Question 9

Social betterment

Answer 9

• marriage
• professional development
• prospects for women
• emigration

Question 10

Inter class marriage

Answer 10

Possible but not easy or socially acceptable

Question 11

Hardy affected by social aversion to intermarriage

Answer 11

Considered to have married above his class - emma sister in law of a vicar

• Hardy’s parents were tradespeople
• Hardy connected to both classes but never fully accepted

Question 12

Professional development was a form of social betterment

Answer 12

• entering a profession like architecture/ the church was a way for a man to improve his social standards

Question 13

Social betterment for women

Answer 13

Only option for country girls was teaching

Question 14

Emmigration

Answer 14

Became more feasible due to increasingly reliable transport

Question 15

Education act

Answer 15

National school 1811, promoting the education of the poor in principles of the established church