[Hardy-l] more about killing Alec

[Arthur Efron]

Thanks for the two responses I received about a week go to my posting 
concerning Tess's decision to kill Alec, an act I think is best 
understood  in terms of split-brain dynamics.

One reply proposed some less complex  alternatives to my way of reading 
that part of the novel, and the second said that there simply was no 
problem here to be worked on: Hardy had made it all quite clear.

So, to take up the first reply. There is the "righteous anger" 
suggestion. This I find insufficient. It is  pretty monstrous to kill 
someone because of  righteous anger. There are a lot of ill-timed and 
provocative confrontations in life, but killing the other person is not 
usually chosen s the remedy.

Are there similarities to the "battered wife" syndrome? No, for this you 
would have to show that Alec has been beating or otherwise physically 
abusing Tess, and threatening her with dire consequences if she should 
leave him  There is no evidence, and her appearance before Angel upon 
his sudden return does not look as if she is being mistreated.  The 
Hardy sentence about her not regarding her body any longer as her own, 
though, is important. But it is of a different order than spousal abuse.

On Angel saying  "Ah--it was my fault."  This occurs before the murder 
of Alec. I notice that few commentaries mention this statement of 
Angel's. In my book on TESS,  I deal with it as the end-point of a 
series of  changes (at first  tentative, later more definite) that Angel 
goes through. So far as I am aware, this series is not taken up by 
other  TESS  critics.

Is Angel (partly?) responsible for Tess's act of murder? That is tricky. 
Ultimately, the  concept of responsibility must remain personal if it is 
to have any meaning. She did the killing. Angel's admission that "it was 
my fault" can be taken as a sign that he finally realizes the damage he 
has done. But given that statement, I do not find that he is suggesting 
that she kill her lover. As we know, he did say, many chapters back, 
that he didn't see how he and Tess could live  together while Alec was 
still alive. But that was before.   He  accepts her command  to just 
leave, and goes away.   

On "the husband in nature" concept:  I  think of this as monstrous. At 
one time I made an effort to find any other occurrences of such a notion 
in Victorian literature. I consulted  some experts. There were no other 
examples that they could think of. Where does Hardy get this?

 In TESS, it does stem from Angel.  Tess's introjection of it, though is 
not un-changeable. At  the point where the Durbeyfield family, now 
without the father, has been  evicted from its home in Marlott, Tess 
herself  is thinking as follows: " ...a consciousness that in a physical 
sense this man alone [Alec} was  her husband seemed to weigh on on her 
more and more."  It is one of the factors in driving her back into 
Alec's arms. But notice that it is limited to "in a physical sense," and 
especially, that the concept becomes more powerful in her mind as her 
situation becomes worse. Even after many chapters, it has not  become 
totally fixed in  her  mind. Its increasing strength  is connected with 
Angel's absence, his apparent abandonment of her. It is not 
unchangeable. In the scene of his return, he shows her that he has not 
abandoned her.

Now, on the second response, on the idea that Hardy makes the situation 
of the killing  quite clear. Tess is simply "driven out of her mind" at 
this juncture of Angel's return and her recognition  that Alec had been 
wrong in saying the this would never happen.
I don't know if is is ever clear that Alec has simply been telling her a 
lie. He may have believed what he had told her. It turns out to be 
wrong, and that surely is a factor in her murderous act. But how so? 
Someone may have told me a lie with disastrous consequences for my own 
life, but would that  lead me to murder him?  This is not just any sort 
of serious lie; it has special qualities that need to be recognized.  I 
do that in my book on TESS.

In connection with this problem, I will point out that not all of Alec's 
promises to Tess are exactly self serving. When they are negotiating 
Tess's return, she expresses a fear that he might tire of her and quit 
supporting her family. He says he would take care of "your Mother's 
family" even if he did tire of Tess, and that he would even put this 
condition "in writing."

I also do not find that Tess  engages in "incoherent ranting" prior to 
the murder. If it were that, rather than a series of grievous phrases 
overheard-- with some seven ellipses-- by the landlady, then we would 
have evidence suggesting that  Tess is going out of her mind. But the 
passage doesn't add up to incoherent ranting.

There is no question that Tess is suffering greatly during and just 
after the scene of Angel's return. But that this leads her to commit 
murder is not  clear.  

There is also a nasty problem that I, and a few others, have noticed: 
there is no need for Tess to kill Alec. She would just have to tell him 
the truth, that her true love, Angel, has come back, and that she 
chooses to leave Alec and be with her legal and beloved husband. Alec 
could hardly  hold her  against her will. This is one of the things that 
baffled the early readers of the novel: why must she do it?
 
No matter if we name  her state of mind as "mad," disturbed, "out of her 
mind," or  "going ballistic." None of these explain why she has to kill 
Alec. By doing so she sets up a process that activates her own death 
warrant and ends the support that Alec gives to her family. She must 
have done it for a purpose (or purposes)  of primary importance. What 
was it?

--Art Efron

PS  Lately I have been grieved by the death of a colleague's son. My 
colleague, retired as I am, is someone I have taught with in the same 
department since the 1960s. Her son was shot dead by the man who was his 
room-mate and also his landlord, in an apartment they shared. The killer 
called the police and told them he had just killed his room-mate. They 
came, arrested him, and set bail at one million dollars. But four days 
later they released him, because he told them he had done this deed in 
self-defense. He showed them some marks on his neck. A further 
investigation is going on. Meanwhile Peter's remains have been shipped 
back to his mother. Peter was killed with a single gunshot.
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