TESS OF THE D’URBERVILLES by Thomas Hardy

Publishes originally 1891 this edition 1994 by Penguin Books

508 pages.

ISBN 978-0140-62-20-7

Genre: historical fiction of the late 17th century in rural England, place of women in society,

5/5

Interesting, good descriptions of Nature and surroundings, but also what goes on in Tess’s mind.

The book is divided into 7 parts, the 5th is called ‘The woman pays’.

This book is about an era with religious doctrines littering  the community; a woman’s life is about getting married, having a child every year, many of whom died.

This book is about beautiful Tess of a poor rural family, she goes to work as a chicken maid with a family they thought was a far relative of them; they were not. But the son of the family, Alex, is a rich, idle, good for nothing manipulator, he rapes her, so Tess ran away back to her parents, and later realized she was pregnant. Tess’s parents accept her back, do not turn her away. I must say I like them a lot for that, they were poor and lazy, but they were the only sympathetic people around Tess.

The baby dies but only after Tess herself baptized the baby to save its soul (she must be a witch). 

The woman pays - always

A couple of years later she had managed to pull together and moved to another part of the country where nobody knew of her troubles; she kept it to herself, was quiet, did not speak much. She became a milking-cow maid, worked hard, earned her keep; they were four girls living together. There was a student, Angel, the younger son of a preacher, but Angel did not believe in the church so he wanted to become a farmer and had to learn the trade. He was supposed to be a gentleman.

All the girls were in love with him, but he fell in love with a version of Tess, he had put her on a pedestal as a Virgin Mary, not really interested in her talking, when she tried to tell him what her troubles had been. But babbling about his own thoughts, as if the word of a lord.

They get married and on the wedding night she told him what had been. His version of the perfect Tess or Virgin Mary broke in thousand pieces. This stupid, little man was a coward and ran away with the tail between his legs, in spite of the fact that he knew that Tess loved him like Mr. Darcy in Pride and Prejudice: ‘you have bewitched body and soul’. Angel in my mind is no angle and I would prefer to call him the Devil because his betrayal of Tess was so much worse than Alex’s. 

But it is still: the woman pays.

She decided not to tell her parents, that Angel left her, but moved to another part of the country to work as a field worker, hard work will keep her mind away from the betrayal of Angel. She hid the fact that she was married.

By coincidence she met Alex again, he had turned very pseudo religious, but left it behind after meeting Tess again. Alex started to terrorize her again, even wanted to get married. She tried to deny him. After her father’s death, her mother and siblings were turned out of their home. In order to help the family she agreed to live with Alex even he knew that she was married. Tess gave in for the good of the family.

Again: the woman pays.

Alex had persuaded her than Angel had left her for good and would never come back. But Angel did come back only to find Tess with Alex; Tess killed Alex for having lied to her and ran after Angel. In my mind as you can only hang once for murder; she should have killed Angel as well, because in my mind his betrayal was so much worse, knowing Tess’s feelings for him. So, shame on him.

Again: the woman pays. 

Tess had some really awful men in her life. She was the victim throughout the story which was catching and difficult to put down. The language is old fashioned as is the place of the woman in the hierarchy of rural England. 

This book is listed on the 1001 books to read before you die; I am glad not to have lived in Tess’s world, but glad to have read the book.