[Hardy-l] Tess

[carolyn mcgrath]

Here's the second, and final, misdirected posting:

I agree with Keith that, in a sense, "it's Angel who might be said to make Tess kill Alec as a result of her confused and naive acting out of the logic of his awful doctrine of primacy of sexual possession," but then who didn't contribute to that awful doctrine? Only Lisa Lu. Despite Alec's own culpability, his death was a result of Angel's return, which exposed him in Tess' eyes as a double deceiver. His scorn transformed her anguish to wrath. Angel knows he is morally responsible for this transformation.

I don't agree with JoAnna that "Tess abdicates any sense of free will; she puts herself totally in Angel's hands and then the law's/society's." I feel as though, protective though Angel is, this is the only time they can truly be described as equals: 

"Whenever he suggested that they should leave their shelter, and go forwards towards Southampton or London, she showed a strange unwillingness to move. 

"Why should we put an end to all that's sweet and lovely!" she deprecated. "What must come will come." And, looking through the shutter-chink: "All is trouble outside there; inside here content." 

He peeped out also. It was quite true; within was affection, union, error forgiven: outside was the inexorable."

'error forgiven' - whose and which one? both and all.

best wishes



Carolyn McGrath