How does Hardy present death in Tess of the D'Urbervilles? -- A grade - page 1
Keywords: Thomas Hardy Tess of the D'Urnbervilles death pheasants sorrow jack durbeyfield
By georgie1 on 31/12/2009
Level: A Level (Year 12) / AS Level
Page Number: 1 of 4 pages: 1 2 3 4
How does Thomas Hardy present death in Tess of the D’Urbervilles?
Following the archetype of the Victorian novel, Hardy’s Tess of the D’Urbervilles encompasses the love, strife and hard work of a central protagonist. However, instead of a resulting punishment being inflicted on only Alec D’Urberville in an attempt to demonstrate moral lessons concerning his behaviour, Tess is also punished by death for her murderous actions. Perhaps Hardy’s decision to punish Tess with death is a moral lesson within itself, regardless of her previous struggle. The death and destruction throughout the novel influence the development of significant characters, in turn causing the reader to question their own mortality and the justification of natural death against murder. Hardy primarily uses the content and context of the novel to explore issues surrounding death, highlighting the effects of fatality.
The predominant representations of death as a natural and human life process are the death of Tess’s child, Sorrow and her father, Jack Durbeyfield. Neither of these deaths are intentionally induced by another character, so there is no one to blame for their deaths. When Tess learns of her unwanted pregnancy, both she and her mother are disappointed by the circumstances and by the child’s illegitimacy. Although Tess struggles to care for her baby, she strives to protect him and to provide for him, showing that she loves him and that she endeavours to make sure he has a strong and healthy life: “her soul’s desire was to continue that offence by preserving the life of the child.” The word “desire” represents an intense passion that Tess wants to follow. However, by “preserving” his life, is it clear that she is aware of the inevitability of her son’s death, and that she does not want it to happen. The death of the child causes one to question whether Sorrow’s death was predetermined by a supreme being due to the neglect of Christian and moral guidelines at the conception of the child. If so, this shows Hardy implementing common features of the Victorian novel by reinforcing the moral values important within the era. Similarly, the death of Jack Durbeyfield is seemingly natural as we are not directly informed of his death. However, we can assume that age and alcohol abuse affected his body in such critical ways. This could be interpreted as an accidental suicide, where his regular intoxication causes his unintentional death. Although alcohol was not prohibited
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