[Hardy-l] RE: Tess

[Jane E Thomas]

I agree wholeheartedly with Keith on every point. I was sorry that the
BBC adaptation felt it necessary to portray the Chase scene as a rape
when Hardy goes to tremendous pains to obscure the issue literally and
metaphorically. To roundly assert that Tess is indisputably raped by
Alec is to miss Hardy's subtle point about Tess's sexuality and her
desire - even her confused and problematic desire for Alec! 

As they canter away from Car Darch the conversation between Tess and
Alec relates to Tess's 'obligation' to Alec for all her has done for her
and her family (read 'sexual' obligation) and Tess's 'dubiousness' as to
the wisdom of her agreeing to ride away with him. However, when Alec
asks Tess if she is sure she doesn't love him she replies 'I am angry
with you sometimes' to which the narrator responds 'Alec did not object
to the confession. He knew that anything was better than frigidity.
'When Alec asks if he has offended her by his 'lovemaking' (ie flattery
and attention rather than sex) she replies 'sometimes' and 'too many
times' but does not reply when he asks 'Every time I have tried?'. Tess
responds to his suggestion that they should 'prolong our ride a little'
with 'archness and real dismay'.

The novel suggests that after this event Tess remains with Alec as his
mistress for 'some few weeks' . Tess tells Alec that she loathes and
hates herself 'for my weakness' and that 'My eyes were dazed by you for
a little, and that was all'.

To absolve Tess of all desire (however shallow, short-lived and
wrongly-directed) in the matter of Alec is to miss Hardy's most
contentious point about her being a 'Pure' woman which is that a
person's worth should not be judged by her or his sexual activity
whether coerced or seduced. Hardy achieves far more by letting his
readers make their own minds up about just how consensual the sex was
for the young, naive and vulnerable Tess. The fact that, in the later
edition, he omitted the bit where Alec gives Tess a strong potion or
draught before the event adds more indecidability to the event.

Likewise I agree that, however unwittingly, Angel may have put the
suggestion of murdering Alec in Tess's head when he declares 'How can I
live with you while that man lives? - he being your husband in Nature,
and not I. If he were dead it might be different'. Tess appeals to Angel
'I thought as I ran along that you would be sure to forgive me now I
have done that (ie killed him)'. 

Apart from the Chase scene I though the adaptation did a good job:
keeping fairly close to the spirit and letter of the novel in a mere
four hours. The editing was judicious (especially the sleep walking
scene) and the carrying of the dairy maids across the flooded road was
very well done. I also found myself deeply moved by the ending despite
being so familiar with it.

I recommend it.

Finally it's as well to remember that, however moved by and drawn to
Tess we may feel, she is a fictional construct and not a real woman.
Therefore it is somewhat idle to speculate outside what is given in the
text itself!

Cheers

Jane

Dr J.E.Thomas
Senior Lecturer
Department of English
University of Hull
Cottingham Road
HULL
HU6 7RX

-----Original Message-----
From: hardy-l-request at coyote.csusm.edu
[mailto:hardy-l-request at coyote.csusm.edu] 
Sent: 15 October 2008 20:00
To: hardy-l at coyote.csusm.edu
Subject: Hardy-l Digest, Vol 37, Issue 8

Send Hardy-l mailing list submissions to
	hardy-l at coyote.csusm.edu

To subscribe or unsubscribe via the World Wide Web, visit
	http://coyote.csusm.edu/mailman/listinfo/hardy-l
or, via email, send a message with subject or body 'help' to
	hardy-l-request at coyote.csusm.edu

You can reach the person managing the list at
	hardy-l-owner at coyote.csusm.edu

When replying, please edit your Subject line so it is more specific
than "Re: Contents of Hardy-l digest..."


Today's Topics:

   1. RE: Tess (Rosemarie Morgan)


----------------------------------------------------------------------

Message: 1
Date: Tue, 14 Oct 2008 14:38:38 -0500
From: Rosemarie Morgan <Rosemarie.morgan at yale.edu>
Subject: RE: [Hardy-l] Tess
To: hardy-l at coyote.csusm.edu
Message-ID: <6.0.0.22.2.20081014134639.02fc4e30 at rm82.mail.yale.edu>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"; format=flowed

THis is subtle and sensitive, Keith, and I agree with all of it.  Just
one 
or two more points to complicate the issue. Victorian readers would have

known that taking sexual advantage of a sleeping woman constitutes 
statutory rape. No two ways around it. Moreover, despite the recent c19 
revision in the law and upping the legal age of consent to (I think?) 16

(it could have been 15 -- my memory fails me) Tess is borderline "child"
at 
the time of the violation.

  Alternatively, in the MS,  the narrator has a distinctly tired and 
trusting Tess leaning, yieldingly, even affectionately against Alec on
the 
ride to the Chase.  Hardy revises these acts (in MS) of apparent
"yielding" 
presumably to lessen the implication of the vulnerable Tess as
compliant.

As in all cases of date -rape an affectionate, cuddling-up woman is all
too 
often mistaken for one seeking sexual conjugality and clearly Hardy 
perceives the danger as an innocent young girl, exhausted, desperate for

sleep and beyond all mannered gestures of self-defense, relies on the 
warmth and safety provided by her male companion. And is misunderstood?

As to erotica in general, in Hardy, I think we might accept the mores of

his rural culture (as Keith notes, in W) where occasions of sexual
intimacy 
are far more frequent than his more puritanical biographers allow. It
may 
be that Hardy's grandparents, parents, aunts and nieces conceived out of

wedlock more often than not and it may be that such 
autobiographical  influences are immaterial., but it is not irrelevant
that 
sexual freedom in rural cultures prevailed over the virginity cult of
the 
Victorian middle-classes . We surely can't override that?

One last point. I'm interested in the varying interpretations of Tess' 
knifing of Alec.  Here I would disagree with Keith.  I don't feel Tess
is 
that naieve (to feel that Angel influences her homicide in any way or
would 
even feel gratified by it) - yes I know that's not quite how Keith put
it 
but that seems to be the outcome. Tess (to my admiration) has an
extremely 
uncharacteristic courage -- I mean, a warrior courage not characteristic
of 
Victorian women in general although evidently Florence Nightingale also 
possessed this warrior spirit.  Tess *can* strike a man in 
self-defense.  And does. Earlier with Alec's leather gauntlet and later 
with his knife.  Driven to passion she acts with violence.  This is 
actually quite astonishing if you think back on Victorian codes and 
practices (for women) and how anger is regarded as male behavior solely
. 
Yet Tess exercises quite a strong degree of violence  in her young 
career.     That she will hit back (or, less aggressively, but 
anarchically, baptise her own child, or more dangerously, suggest to
Clare 
that they need not marry -- she only wants to "love him") seems to me 
perfectly commensurate with her instinct to fight back, at whatever
cost.

She is, to my mind a warrior. And if she "drifts" upon a current in her 
last days (and here I think I agree with Jackie) -- it is because she is
at 
peace, now, and "ready" to go. She has in a sense moved beyond (as she
does 
in moving mind out of body when gazing at the stars) -- and in common
with 
many of her sisters in history, she will "burn" for all that she has
done. 
So Be It.
This -- I think -- is the sublimation of her heroism
Besties
R



his readers to examine their preconceptions about moralized sexual 
categories.  Just as surely, his way of presenting Alec's murder 
deliberately challenges his readers to examine more thoughtfully -- in
this 
particular instance, at least! -- the superficially straightforward 
categories of "murderer" and "victim."
>
>Best,
>
>Keith Wilson
>
>




------------------------------

_______________________________________________
Hardy-l mailing list
Hardy-l at coyote.csusm.edu
http://coyote.csusm.edu/mailman/listinfo/hardy-l


End of Hardy-l Digest, Vol 37, Issue 8
**************************************
-------------- next part --------------
*****************************************************************************************
To view the terms under which this email is distributed, please go to http://www.hull.ac.uk/legal/email_disclaimer.html
*****************************************************************************************