Tradition And Originality: A Study Of Tess Of The D'Urbervilles

This article consists of four parts. The first part makes a study of the carrying forward of the English literature traditions and the originality of the novel theory. The second part studies the characteristics of the figures appeared in the novel. Tess, the heroine, was the image of a completely new agricultural worker. Angel was the figure of a capitalist idealist, and Alec was the figure of a upstart, by means of the business, in the early capitalist period. The spirit of Tess was pure and she was a noble-minded person, but she was considered as a woman offending public decency. She was the symbol of beauty and love, a daughter of the nature, with both the traditional and modern characteristics. Angel and Alec destroyed Tess spiritually and bodily. The third part of the article makes an analysis of the theme. Thomas Hardy lived, in a period of the old traditional ideas changing, at the background of the revolution of the English society. The competition among the capitalist countries were making a rapid decline of the agriculture of England. The peasants were got rid of the land and had to leave their native place and lived in a very difficult situation. The Victorian civilization faced the challenge of the modern industrial civilization, which brought a change of the social structures. In the period of the time and space , with contractions and various new trend of thoughts, the social morals, marriages, religions, laws and mode of thinking were also changed. The society's not forgive her losing of the chastity made Tess feel depressing and guilty. From this we can see that Tess was a girl with traditional concepts. Her not stoop to compromise demonstrated that Tess was the figure of a new woman with the rebellious spirit. As for the religion, it did not forgive the "sin" of Tess, while the real sinner Alec carrying on the lascivious activities was under the cloak of religion. This, of course, revealed the hypocrisy of the religion. Being abandoned by Angel and repeatedly cheated by Alec, Tess burnt with anger and killed Alec. She was hanged by the law and "Justice" was done. The fourth part of the article studies the artistry of the novel, focusing on Hardy's new realistic representative ideas and his exploration of tragedy. The writer revealed the Victorian Dynasty in a realistic style and vividly described the difficult dilemma of the people in the capitalist society.Hardy carried forward the English literature traditions and absorbed the factors of the naturalism and came to be in the bud of the modernism so that he could have enriched the realism. Hardy believed that it was not the so called supernatural power-the "God", but the oppression of the society powers. The tragedy aroused from the collision of the objective environment and the social systems. Those unfortunates and sorrows were closely related to the objective environment and the social systems, which was the social causes of the tragedy. By the desalination of the concept of the fortune, the novel created its originality of artistry of the tragedy.