Tess of the d’Urberville :: Literary Analysis, Thomas Hardy

Thomas Hardy’s Tess of the d’Urbervilles is a criticism on Victorian society. But the major, universal idea it criticizes is the existence of true love. Through the relationships Tess has been in, as well as the time era in which Hardy lived in, it has become evident that there will always be a flaw with romance. To begin with, Hardy wrote realist works of literature. In order to escape the â€Å"fantasy† of Romantic works realism was a response in which the true social characteristics of life were illustrated. This is evident in Tess of the d’Urbervilles as Tess is depicted as admitting to the condition of our planet, â€Å"a blighted one† (40). By admitting life and Earth to be a decaying one, Hardy has shown that things could be better, a major standpoint of other social writers of his day. But as well as being a novelist, Hardy was a poet and a renowned one at that as well. In his poem â€Å"Between Us Now† Hardy again demonstrates characteristics of a realist writer: â€Å"Let there be truth at last / Even if despair† (lines 7, 8) meaning that he will be acceptant of both the truth and its consequences. Therefore, Hardy is completely capable of describing social issues, and does so in Tess. Now, the first major relationship Tess is in is with Alec d’Urberville in which she is subjugated to mistreatment. One of the most evident examples of the way Alec treats Tess in the garden, in which he feeds her strawberries while she was â€Å"in a slight distress† and even smokes in front of her, although she claims that she minds â€Å"not at all† (52). Now the clearer example, the strawberry abuse, alludes to the rape which comes later on in the novel. She is forced to consume the strawberry although she would rather â€Å"take it in [her] own hand† (52), obviously showing refusal at a blunt state, In addition to this Alec unabashedly smoked around her, which is not only disrespectful but hazardous to her health. The â€Å"narcotic haze† (52), which permeated the rooms Alec and Tess were in, acted like enigmatic amnesiac clouds of death. They not only limited visibility but choked Tess and damaged her eventually later on. This is also parallel to her rape in that the damage done by Alec was invisible for a long time in both cases. Later on in the novel, Alec is very shortly converted into a devout Christian but is â€Å"tempted† by Tess, whom he calls a â€Å"dear damned witch of Babylon† (377).