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1.1 The social and personal background of Hardy
Thomas Hardy was one of the most important novelists in the Victorian Era and the first important poet in the 20th century. Victorian era is considered as the summit of Britain’s Industrial Revolution and British Empire. At that time, manual labors were replaced by machines. Large numbers of owner-peasants enter into cities to find work. In the course of the industrialization, although the economy has developed fast, the living situation of peasants becomes tough and difficult. Because their farmland has been requisitioned and they have to go out for work, their social status became lower than before. Merchant and the working class have become the dominant force of British economy. Under this circumstance, Hardy has seen too much tragedy happen on toilers especially peasants which caused by capitalist system and patriarchal society, especially happen on women, because at that era, female has a very low status in the society, in their families and in their marriage. They are appendix to the men and are the property of men. So under his pen, he describes lot of female tragic images to express his deep sympathy towards women and awaken people’s consciousness to this social problem.
1.2 The main plot of Tess of the D’Urbervilles
Hardy’s most famous novel, Tess of the D’Urbervilles, published in 1891, tells a story about the miserable life of a girl named Tess. Tess was born in a poor seller’s family and she is forced by her parents to claim kinship with a rich woman after her father knew that they were the descendants of an old noble named D’Urbervilles. But Tess is seduced by the rich woman’s son—Alec D’Urbervilles and pregnant. She goes back home, and the baby dies a few days after birth. After that she goes far from her home to find a job as a milker. Then she falls in love with priest’s son Angel Clare and engages with him. On their wedding night Tess tells Clare about her adversity but doesn’t receive Clare’s forgiveness and they separates, Clare goes to Brazil. Several years later, due to her impoverished family and Alec’s entanglement she lives together with Alec. Clare comes back and expresses his remorse to Tess afterwards, but when he knows that Tess lives with Alec, he leaves again. After her secret meeting with Angel, Tess confronts Alec and accuses him of lying to her about Angel. In a fit of anger and fury, Tess stabs Alec through the heart with a carving knife, killing him. Tess finds Angel and tells him of the deed. Angel has trouble believing Tess’ story but welcomes her back. They forgive each other and escape via back road to avoid detection. They spend a week in a vacant house, reunite in bliss for a short time and then they are discovered, before she is executed for her crime, Tess has Angel promise to marry her sister Liza Lu once she was gone. Finally she is arrested and hanged. Angel agrees her request and he, along with Liza Lu, witness Tess’s death.