The immorality attached to Tess's past has been established as 'unnatural', and this brings about a crisis for both of them, in which fate plays its part in making the results as tragic as possible. Later, Angel says that if Tess had told him her history earlier he might have been able to accept it. Tess must be held to blame for not telling him, though fate, in the letter she wrote him remaining unseen, and social pressure from her mother, are also partly responsible. Angel has imagined himself to be an enlightened humanist, but when he discovers his wife's immoral history he finds that his new attitudes have penetrated no deeper than his intellect. 'I do forgive you, but forgiveness is not all.' 'And love me?' To this question he did not answer. (p.274-5) And Tess, as she often does, verbalises the viewpoint Hardy is expressing through her: 'It is in your own mind what you are angry at Angel; it is not in me.' (p.274) So the intellectual and free-thinking Angel is the 'slave to custom and conventionality' (p.309), and the relatively ignorant Tess is the true humanist. It takes Angel a year of travelling and suffering during which 'he had mentally aged a dozen years' (p.388) before he can throw off his strictly moral upbringing and realise the validity of Tess's viewpoint. Religious belief is further undermined by the rapid conversion, then de-conversion of Alec d'Urbeville. He believes himself to be sincere, but Hardy shows his fanaticism to be a passing fad. It is during the arguments between Tess and Alec, (the dialectic nature of which puts rather a strain on the reality of Tess as a character), that Hardy seems to indicate his own beliefs. Alec: 'You seem to have no religion . . . ' Tess: 'But I have. Though I don't believe in anything supernatural . . . I believe in the spirit of the Sermon on the Mount' (p.368) Tess: 'Why, you can have the religion of loving-kindness and purity at least, if you can't have - what do you call it - dogma.' (p.377) To develop his argument Hardy has to admit the inadequacy of Tess as a spokesperson: She tried to argue, and tell him that he had mixed in his dull brain two matters, theology and morals, which in the primitive days of mankind had been quite distinct. But . . . she could not get on. (p.377) If there is any optimism, or tendency to suggest a code of conduct in Hardy, it is in these humanistic ideas. And if there is any tendency towards a religion involving worship of a superior being, it is towards a natural, a-moral object, the sun. His present aspect, coupled with the lack of human forms in the scene, explained the old time heliolatries in a moment. One could feel that a saner religion has never prevailed under the sky. (p.122) It is evident that Hardy regards Christianity as a worthless debasement of primitive spiritual ideas (sun-worship) from the bitter irony of this comment: but on this day of vanity, the Sun's-day, when flesh went forth to coquet with flesh wile hypocritically affecting business with spiritual things (p.182) It is on the ancient altar of this 'saner religion' that Tess is finally sacrificed to spiritually-empty modern society. By killing Alec Tess freed herself from the man who twice separated her from her lover, and allowed herself and Angel a few days of happiness together. But in Hardy's view this kind of happiness, between two enlightened people who take upon themselves responsibility for their own moral conduct, cannot be but short-lived. The incongruity of modern policeman surrounding the ancient temple of Stonehenge indicates Hardy's view that modern man is in a spiritually hopeless state, as does Tess's attitude on being captured. 'It is as it should be,' she murmured. 'Angel, I am almost glad - yes, glad! This happiness could not have lasted. It was too much. I have had enough; and now I shall not live for you to despise me!' (p.447) Bibliography
Hardy, Thomas. Tess of the d'Urbervilles. New Wessex edition introduced by P. N. Furbank. London. Macmillan. 1974. (Tess of the d'Urbervilles First published 1891) Copyright: Ian Mackean |
