Tess of the D’urbervilles is generally considered as one of Thomas Hardy’s tragic masterpiece.

As tragic as the story is comes a protagonist, a tragic character in the person of Tess Durbeyfield.

The tragic heroine in this text cannot be said to be the one that conforms to the classical

definition of a tragic hero as she somehow deviates from what makes up the tragic hero in the

classical tragedy. In the classical tragedy, the protagonist is typically from a wealthy, noble or

royal family, and the story centers mostly on their royalty or nobilty. But in Hardy’s text, the

protagonist, Tess, is from a common and poor background, and the story centers on her problems

which make the story more realistic. This is one of the characteristics of a modern tragic

character or hero. In this text, the tragic heroine cannot be said to be a true tragic heroine as she

exhibits traits that both qualify her either as a tragic heroine or a product of poetic justice.

Readers are torn between these two traits exhibited by the protagonist, but one definitely

supersedes the other.

In Tess of the D’urbervilles, Hardy presents a tragic heroine, Tess. Although she might not come

from a wealthy background or may not be of noble or royal birth, she possesses qualities that are

admired by readers, and this makes her stand unique wherever she finds herself. Hardy’s

description of Tess as a pure and innocent woman makes her seem noble in character and this

nobility in character creates in readers a high figure which they so much hold in high esteem.

The title of the first chapter in the text, which is The Maiden gives as an idea of the heroine,

Tess, as a pure and virtuous woman.

Hardy in the second chapter tries to let readers understand that Tess has no flaw in her character

as he says “Tess Durbeyfield at this time of her life was a mere vessel of emotion untinctured by

experience.” This means that Tess, as Hardy puts it, has no stain in her character and therefore is

innocent and pure. To emphasize that she was innocent, Hardy continues with the description as
he says “ Phases of her childhood lurked in her aspect still. As she walked along to-day, for all

her bouncing handsome womanliness, you could sometimes see her twelfth year in her cheeks, or

her ninth sparkling from her eyes; and even her fifth would flit over the curves of her mouth now

and then.” This, Hardy lets his readers admire the beauty coupled with innocence and purity of

Tess. As at her age, she still has the character and beauty of that of a child.

Tess’ beauty attracts the people in her community, Marlot, and even strangers as Hardy tells us

in chapter two of the text “… a small minority, mainly strangers, would look at her in casually

passing by, and grow momentarily fascinated by her freshness, and wonder if they would ever

see her again…” Tess is described as someone everybody would like to see over and over again

as her beauty and innocence as Hardy describes is one of a kind.

Hardy again in chapter forty two continues to inform the readers how pure Tess is in character

and appearance as he describes her saying “…Tess walks on; a figure which is part of the

landscape; a fieldwoman pure and simple, in winter guise.”

These physical characteristics of Tess and the writer’s description of her as pure and innocent

makes everyone fall in love with her personality which somehow elevates her above the ordinary

in the text as she has a sort of nobility in her character. And this makes her qualify to be the

tragic heroine in the text. In the early chapters of the text, we are told that Angel Clare who at

that time had not known Tess regretted not choosing Tess as a partner for a dance when he was

passing through the town of Marlot with his brothers. At the dairy, Angel again chooses Tess

ahead of the other ladies as a lover. It can therefore be said that Tess, though of ordinary

background is considered extraordinary wherever she is found.

These descriptions given to Tess make readers feel pity for her anytime she suffers in the text.

When Alec D’urberville raped her, readers are made to feel pity for her because we feel that such

a pure and innocent soul does not deserve to be raped. We feel pity for her when her son,

Sorrow, a product of the rape incident felt seriously sick and was at the point of death; and

readers sympathized with her when the son finally died. We are made to feel sorry for her when

she marries Angel Clare and he abandons her because he found out Tess was not as chaste as he

thought her to be. Readers feel pity for her because it was not a fault of hers that she got raped.

We pity and fear what might become of her after she had murdered Alec.

As any tragic character may evoke in us pity and fear as Aristotle says, Tess in Tess of the

D’urbervilles also has in her the characteristics to evoke in readers pity and fear; and therefore

she qualifies to be the tragic heroine.

In modern tragedy, the tragic character is an ordinary person with real problems. We could see in

Tess of the D’urbervilles that the tragic character, Tess, is an ordinary person with a number of

problems. This makes her story tragic. First, she is a girl from a poor family who finds it difficult

to get her basic needs. Her life and that of the whole family depended on her parents, John and

Joan Durbeyfield, who actually do not do any work that could cater for their proper well-being.

She later somehow caused the death of the family horse, the only property of the Durbeyfields

which she felt guilty of. As the tragic heroine, Tess faces a lot of problems. She was sent by her

parents to the D’urbevilles so she could own kinship as the father discovered that they were the

real ancient D’urbervilles- that was the genesis of her real problems. She got raped by Alec

whilst she was staying with the D’urbervilles and this ruined her life and changed her forever.

Even after she was married, she was not given the necessary attention, and the happiness she

expected to have from her marriage to Angel was absent as she was left to stay alone by her
husband because she had been raped at her young age. And it is this that grew in her bitterness

and which later made her stab Alec. Our tragic heroine goes through all these troubles and

problems and this make the tragedy more realistic as the problems Tess goes through in the text

is one that we can associate with in our daily lives.

As it is characteristic of a tragic character to have a tragic flaw, so does Tess the tragic heroine in

Hardy’s Tess of the D’urbervilles. Tess is seen as unforgiving and that is a flaw in her character.

After Alec had raped her, he later comes back as a changed person and seeks to marry Tess. It

could be seen from Alec’s actions that he is indeed a changed person and wants the good of Tess

and her family. He suggested to Tess how he could help her and her family so they could cater

for some of their needs. Tess seemed to have forgiven Alec at first but in the end we find out that

the pains Alec has caused her is still fresh in her mind which she seeks to avenge as she stabbed

and killed Alec. And it is this act that caused Tess’ tragic end as she was arrested and hanged to

death. If she had forgiven Alec, she would not have committed the crime which later led to her

tragic death.

Also the description of Tess as pure and innocent could also be a flaw in her. Her beautiful and

innocent appearance in a way contributed to her downfall. Alec gazes sexually at Tess when they

meet first, the incident which reveals her sexuality as Hardy describes “…she had an attribute

which amounted to a disadvantage just now; and it was that caused Alec d’urbervilles eyes to

rivet themselves upon her.” Alec is charmed anytime he sees Tess. And it is this that makes him

develop the desire to have sex with her which he later rapes her. This rape goes on to ruin Tess’

life forever as it ruins her marriage with Angel and makes her feel the need to kill Alec as he is

the cause of all her troubles. Alec becoming a convert in Phase the sixth, is once more seen

‘observing her from some point or other’, and then he remembers their de facto marriage and
makes up his mind, to be officially married to her, though he is unable to achieve it in the end.

Her beautiful and innocent description makes her become a sexual object to men anytime she is

seen by them.

As the tragic hero, Tess later kills Alec for causing the greater pain in her life. This act of killing

causes her downfall as she is arrested and hanged to death; thus, her tragic life finally ends in a

tragic way.

All these that Tess goes through in Thomas Hardy’s Tess of the D’urbervilles make her qualify

to be the tragic heroine in the text as she passes through a lot of tragic incidents which later she

suffers a tragic end.

It could be argued that Tess deserves her tragic death for murdering Alec and therefore she

should be rather considered as an object of poetic justice. On the face of law, yes she deserves

the punishment given to her for an act of murder. So she could be said to have been dealt with

‘justly’ for anyone that commits a crime is punished. For a woman who is described as innocent

and pure to have the boldness to stab and kill a man in a society where the female is sidelined

tells us that that woman has indeed lost her innocence and purity as she said it herself that ‘…

formerly I never could bear to hurt a fly or worm, and the sight of a bird in a cage used often to

make me cry.’ One could be right to say that Tess is rather a product of poetic justice, but on the

other hand, as Isaac Newton’s third law states ‘for every action, there is an equal and opposite

reaction’, Tess did not just wake up and murder Alec. She was more sinned against than she

sinned. Alec ruined Tess’ life when she was too young and innocent to know how to protect

herself. He raped and impregnated her when she was fifteen, leaving her a shamed and fallen

woman in their culture. Later when Angel Clare, her husband, comes back from Brazil, Alec’s
presence as her lover threatens to ruin Tess’ life a second time. One could understand how the

anger against him welled up inside her.

On the other hand, as Alec says, people like he and Tess ‘pay to the uttermost farthing’ for what

they have done, and this is true. Both pay with their lives, but Angel Clare, who hurt Tess even

more profoundly than Alec with his hypocrisy and double standard, rejecting Tess for having a

sexual past when he had one too, gets away with his misdeeds scot free, and in fact, watches

Tess hanged. It seems unfair that the lower class Tess has to pay a high price whilst the middle

class Angel is allowed to go on living as if he is good and upright person.

It would be found easier to justify Tess’ execution if Angel also had to pay a legal price for what

his narrow-minded sanctimoniousness did to Tess. However, since he paid nothing, Tess’

punishment seems unjustified, and therefore Tess appears to us more as a tragic heroine that she

appears to us as a product of poetic justice.