浅析《德伯家的苔丝》中苔丝的悲剧因素-毕业论文.doc

浅析《德伯家的苔丝》中苔丝的悲剧因素

摘要： 《德伯家的苔丝》，作为托马斯·哈代最为有影响力的一部巨著，描写了社会命运以及其他力量把一个纯洁、质朴、关丽、善良而又勤劳的农村姑娘苔丝逼得走投无路而成为杀人犯，最后付出生命代价的悲惨故事。苔丝的悲剧性结局有多方面的原因，家庭、社会、性格对苔丝的悲剧，本文主要对其社会原因进行分析。

关键词: 苔丝;悲剧;原因

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An Analysis of the Social Reasons of Tess’s Tragedy
in Tess of the D’Urbervilles

Abstract

Tess of the D’Urbervilles, a significant work of Thomas Hardy, created a girl of purity, plain, beauty, kindness and diligence, suffering by social and other force, became a murderer and paid her life in the end of the tragic story. There are various reasons for Tess’s tragedy, family, Tess’s own, and social elements. This paper mainly analyzes reasons of social.

Key words: Tess; Tragedy; Reason

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Acknowledgements

First and foremost, I would like to express my heartfelt gratitude to my supervisor, Mr. Ding , both for his intellectual guidance and for his warm and constant encouragement during the process of writing this thesis. With patience and prudence, he labored through drafts of this thesis and pointed out defects in my theorizing. Therefore, I owe all the merits in this thesis, if any, to him, though I am fully aware that the thesis might still contain some mistakes, for which I bear the whole responsibility.
My cordial and sincere thanks go to all the teachers in the Department of English。 They are interesting and informative courses have benefited me a lot during my college years. The profit that I gained from their profound knowledge, remarkable expertise and intellectual ingenuity will be of everlasting significance to my future life and career.
I am also very grateful to my classmates, who have given me a lot of help and courage during my stay in the University and throughout the process of writing this thesis.
Last but not least, big thanks go to my family, which have shared with me my worries, frustrations, and hopefully my ultimate happiness in eventually finishing this thesis.

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Contents
中文摘要……...............................................................................…………i
Abstract…………………………………………...……………………………….…..ii
Acknowledgements......................................................................................………….iii
Ⅰ. Introduction……………………………………………………………………….1
A. Introduction of the Writer…………………………………………………….1
B. Introduction of the Work...............................2
Ⅱ. Reasons of Her Own for Tess’s Tragedy…………………………………………..3
A. Her Sacrifice for the Family…………………………………………………4
B. Her Sacrifice for love…………………………………………………..........4
Ⅲ. Reasons of Family for Tess’s Tragedy………………………...........................6
A. Family Background ………………………………………………................6
B. Her Parents for Tess’s Tragedy………………………………………………6
1. Her Father to Tess’s Tragedy……………………………………….......6
2. Her Mother for Tess’s Tragedy……………………………………........6
Ⅳ. Reasons of Social Element for Tess’s Tragedy…………………………..........7
A. Analysis of Alec and Clare’s Character Reasons of Tess’s Tragedy………..8 1. Analysis of Alec’s Character…. ……………………………………......8
2. Analysis of Clare’s Character………………………………………......8
B. Analysis of the Social and Environmental Reasons in Tess’s Tragedy ….....9 1. Hypocritical Capitalism Moral’s View and Unequal Legal System……11
2. Impoverishment and Decay of Small Farmers…………………………11
3. The Male Factor in Tess’s Tragedy……………………………………...12
Conclusion……………………………………………………………………….…..14
Works cited……………………………………………………………………….…15

Ⅰ. Introduction

Tess of the D’Urbervilles was Thomas Hardy’s most famous work and published in 1891. As a novelist, Thomas Hardy had reached the great place in his achievements because of Tess of the D’Urbervilles. People were attracted not only by the tragic life of Tess, but also the inherent beauty. In a world filled with falseness and pretence, Tess was quite soft and kind. Tess was repeatedly cheated and abandoned, she tried to be good though. Tess showed the most beautiful side of her innocent character when she worked in the farming fields. (Hu, 176) Combined a beautiful appearance with many other wonderful qualities, Tess was diligent, honesty, tenderness. She never played with men’s emotions or never learned to flirt with men, but that became the weakness. (Feng, 62) From the beginning, Tess was destined for tragedy. Although she was beautiful, she was poor. She could not become the master of her own life because she was a woman. She was only an object to be tormented. Tess killed Alec in the end of the story. That society where power was controlled by the rich men, so what she did was against the society, the law. The law was rigid, and the Justice was done.

A. Introduction of the Writer

Tess of the D’Urbervilles, Thomas Hardy’s greatest novel of British described the misfortunate life of a poor peasant girl Tess. He was famous for novel and poem.
Thomas Hardy enriched the tragic art in his unique work of character and environment. He was an outstanding and cross-century realistic writer. Born in Egdon, which was a country in the Westland. The main environment in the Hardy’s writings was from the natural environment. (Jiang, 96) As a stonecutter, Hardy’s father, but liked music. There was much attention was paid to Hardy’s education. In his childhood, he turned to learn about the literature after he received theology in education. Leaving school became an apprentice of an architect in 1856. He became a building draftsman after he went to London in 1862, at the same time he enrolled as a student and took advanced courses for language and started to create literature in King’s College London. At the very beginning, Hardy wrote poems, but his poetry was not published. In 1868, he finished his first long novel, but was not published. Farm from Madding Crowd, the celebrated work was his fourth novel in 1874. He abandoned construction industry from then on, and devoted himself to the novel creation. From late nineteenth century, the works of Thomas Hardy and himself were the critics’ hot topics for a long time. (Lu, 72) With the development of modern literary criticism after the Second World War, diverse critics interpret Tess of the D’Urbervilles and Thomas Hardy’s other novels from different perspectives.
In the book named The Second Common Reader, Virginia Woolf once claimed:
When we say that without Thomas Hardy seems like English fiction lost a leader, we mean that there is no one like Thomas Hardy whose supremacy would be generally accepted, none to whom it seems so fitting and natural to pay homage.
Thomas Hardy and Paradoxes of Love, Woolf's comment is not just a compliment about hardy claimed:
Hardy's work is ...characterized by its strikingly modernist techniques that align him with the great modernists such as D. H Lawrence, James Joyce, and Joseph Conrad and reveal him to be their inventive forerunner.

B. Introduction of the work

The tragedy of Tess is the main point of Tess of the D’Urbervilles. Born in a poor countryside family, Tess was simple. One day, Tess’s father was informed that he had noble blood. Tess’s parents asked her to visit Mrs. D’ Urberville, who was a rich widow. (Dong, 10) Because her family’s horse was killed in an accident, they need some help from the Mrs. D’ Urberville. Tess got a job there after she went to the D’ Urbervilles. However, she was raped by Alec, and she got pregnant. She had no choice but give birth to her child after she went back her home. Unfortunately, the child died several days later. Then, she met Angel Clare when she worked at a dairy farm. They could not help falling in love with each other. Angel told Tess about his past, an evening of debauchery, and asked for Tess’s forgiveness on the wedding night. (Xiong, 137) Kind Tess of course forgave him. Then Tess told Angel about her past. Pure Tess thought that she had forgiven him, so it stands reason that Angel could forgive her. However, Angel left her for Brazil because he was really disappointed with her. After that, Tess had to work under bad conditions in order to support her poor family. And then her father died and the family was driven away from their house. Tess had no choice but go back to Alec for supporting her poor family. Angel returned from Brazil after one year and wanted to get together with Tess again. But she could not go with Angel because of her relationship with Alec. Tess could not feel more angrily with Alec, and after a big fight Tess killed him. Tess was arrested and executed after she had five day’s happy time with Angel. From the very beginning to the end, Tess was pure of heart and kind. However, a woman of honesty like Tess was driven to hell by society. Tess lost her virginity because of Alec when Tess was an innocent, simple, 17-year-old village girl. Tess was regarded as a fallen woman, and the society blame her. Even Angel could not accept Tess’s “impurity” and thought the same as other people, after that, Angel left her. Later on, Tess was forced to live with Alec for her family. (Feng, 61)In the end, Tess was punished by the law because she killed Alec who took away her virtue.

Ⅱ. Reasons of Her Own for Tess’s Tragedy

A. Her Sacrifice for the Family

For her kindness, Tess devoted herself to support the whole family. As a girl from a countryside family, she kept the peasant qualities: innocent and simple. The whole family lived on was an old and unhealthy horse. Besides, Tess’s parents were not diligent at all and would not work to support themselves. It was a big family that seven younger sisters and brothers. So the family had a hard life. Although Tess was just 17 years old, she had to take her parents’ duty because she was the eldest child and carried the financial burden of the whole family. But Tess was really young at that time, and she did not know the dark side of the world. (Lu, 72)
John D’urbeyfield, Tess’s father, was a plain haggler in the village of Marlott. He was very arrogant for his noble ancestor and flaunted in a tavern when he learned that he was knightly family of the D’Urbervilles, the lineal representatives of ancient from a priest. After that, he decided to claim kinship with the D’Urbervilles, so he sent Tess to the D’Urbervilles. He was selfish and thought Tess should marry a rich man, because in this way would make his family very rich and respectable. From this we can see he was hypocritical and ignorant. Besides, Tess’s mother, a rural woman, was also selfish and hypocritical, ignorant. She should and could realize the risk and danger if sending Tess there when she learned that the old lady Mrs. D’Urbervilles was blind. ( Qu, 69)What’s more, his son, who was called Alec was still unmarried. She was the one should take the responsibility for her chastity. When Tess came back, she really could not understand why Tess refused Alec’s proposal. In her world, it seemed like money was love or anything. Their family fell into a very poor condition, which her parents even could not meet their ends. In their family, brothers and sisters were so young that could not share responsibility. Thus, supporting the whole family, the heavy burden and difficult work fell on Tess. It proved Tess’s kind that she was willing to work hard and share the burden. It should not have been her responsibility for the family, but Tess sacrificed her own happiness. Tess never loved Alec, but she still submitted to him because there was just him could save her family. That was a great sacrificed for the family.

B. Her Sacrifice for love

Alec and Angel were in her life. She was cheated by Alec and lost in Angel. She never compromised anything in love. However, instead of succeeding in love, Tess was a slavery of love and was not brave enough. It was Alec made Tess’s physically injured, while Angel made her mentally hurt. Alec, who was an evil, spoiled person. From the first time she met Alec, Tess was destined her tragic story. Tess met Angel when she worked on the dairy farm, and then they fell in love with each other. Tess not only loved him, but also admired Angel Clare very much. Unfortunately, he abandoned her after Tess told Angel what happened about her past. The reason was that he had the thought of egoism, and the most important was that he was deeply affected by the so called conventions and the traditional society morals. Although he knew clearly that he also was not a pure man any more, he still could not accept the impure bride for his selfish. (Xiong, 138)Tess was so sad because she really loved Angle and desired a happy life, some time she was not confident about her love though. Because of the pressure of life after Angel’s leaving, Tess had no choice but to return to Alec for live.
Several years later, Angel
told Tess that he forgave her past for that really meant nothing, and missed her very much because her real love to him. What Angel did really made Tess very happy once, at the same time there was sad in her heart because it was late, and then Tess murdered Alec. “To her sublime trustfulness he was all that goodness could be…and she thought every line of his person the perfection of masculine beauty in the contour, his soul of a saint, the soul his intellect that of a seer.” (Feng, 61) Tess lost herself and her own dignity because her love was so worthless. Tess’s love was blind and not equal at all, love made Tess lost the right of pursuing her real love and Tess who could have seek her own happiness. This was the directly reason caused Tess’s tragic story.
Ⅲ. Reasons of Family for Tess’s Tragedy

A. Family Background

At the beginning of this novel, Tess was a daughter of poor family. She was a dairymaid, who lived in the country. As a dairymaid on the village roadside, Tess was beautiful but humble, and she did not complain about her family. Family background did not bring any good to Tess, but her tragic life began.

B. Her Parents for Tess’s Tragedy

1. Her Father to Tess’s Tragedy

Tess’s father was a carter in Marlott. He was a lazy alcoholic. He hated to work hard. He was more than happy when he knew his noble relatives. In order to get some profits, he decided to claim relation at the time priest said “D’Urbeyfield, I am very happy to tell you that you are the lineal representative of the ancient and knightly”. There was no doubt that he became excited and began to make his ridiculous dream: “tell them to send a carriage and a horse to me right now, and make me comfortable back home” As if the pedigree could change his poverty, he became complacent and ridiculous unlimited dream. The unrealistic illusion changed Tess’s destiny which could be good.

2. Her Mother for Tess’s Tragedy

Tess’s mother’s thought was much simpler. She wanted Tess to make her family rich by making