[Hardy-l] tess and alec once more

[Rosemarie Morgan]

>We used to call this "instinct," an "instinctual" act ("crime passionel"). 
>Just as Tess strikes Alec so hard as to draw blood so she strikes again 
>driven by what you call "unconscious emotion" and I would call, in an 
>old-fashioned way, defensive instinct. Self-guardedness, self-preservation 
>works up to a point but there are limits to self-control. Mercilessly 
>taunt any "natural" creature and she will strike. I would only add, to 
>your carefully detailed account, Art, that this "pure woman" is a 
>"natural" -- more instinctual perhaps than mannered.. Sexually, Tess is an 
>unaffected, pure, incorruptible female without the "unnatural" artifices 
>and manipulative ruses inculcated in her middle-class compeers; she is 
>guileless in her sexual impulses. Sexual impulse, sexual drive is 
>generated by the same adrenalin gland that generates rage and violence.

Cheers,
Rosemarie

>When Tess kills Alec, her purpose must come out of her basic, gut-level
>identity as a woman.  It  has to be understood as intimately connected 
>with her sexual self.
>--Art Efron