Tess of the D'Urbervilles

Question 1

1. Plot

Answer 1

• mess pt2
  -John Durbeyfield is a poor peddler that discovers he is a descendant of an aristocratica family THE D’UBERVILLES =) hard times so daughter Tess starts working as a poultry maid at the D’Ubervilles estate

-Her master Alec D’Urbervilles tries to seduce her and then rapes her in the woods

• She finds out she is pregnant so she goes to her village to birth the baby who dies soon after
• she flies to south England and works as a milkmaid = she meets Angel Clare, a clergyman’son and they fell in love

-she leaves a letter explaining her past ,but he doesn’t find it and when she tells him her past on their wedding night he leaves her

-She ends up working in a field and hears a preacher who turns out to be Alec who ofc presses her to become his mistress

-Angel comes back for his wife and Tess decides to kill Alec and flee with Angel

• she is later arrested and executed

Question 2

2. What is Tess like and what factors cause her suffering?

Answer 2

-she is smart and clever, but very unlucky

-Heredity= cuz her ancestors raped young girls

-coincidence= death of the horse and letter not found

-Tess had the energy to endure she a fighter she a rockstar + victim of society’s values

-presented through symbolic images often from natural world to emphasise her beauty and innocent

Question 3

3. How does Hardy present the male protagonists ?

Answer 3

-Alec = a wealthy piece of shit

-Angel= interested in moral and liberal ideas but still kind of a piece of shit
he sees Tess as an angel of the House I genuinely have no idea what he means by that but slay

Question 4

4. What themes does he deal with ?

Answer 4

-draws attention to victorian double standards

-develops 2 key themes =

1.man cannot control fatte
2.differences between man and women in society

• christianity also mina suck and it cannot fulfill the need of a modern man go Hardy