[hardy-l] More on the ending to Tess of the D'Urbervilles

[Rosemarie Morgan]

There is also the aesthetic/ideological problematic of attributing noble 
qualities to those who die young in an untimely manner.  What if Jeanne 
d'Arc had been tried and found innocent and had married her beau and had 
borne 10 lusty children and died as a dear old mind-wandering, arthritic, 
varicosed greatgrandma?  Or perhaps, had she be born today, diagnosed 
schizophrenic and housed in a psychiatric ward eventually to die as a 
middle-aged, over-medicated drooling spinster hallucinating about Jesus?

Cheers,
Rosemarie

and perhaps their unconscious collective rage of having "to take the fall" 
for many of the injustices of society and religion.  That's the only way I 
can make sense in my own mind of the ending of the novel.

>   Susan
>
>