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

[Rosemarie Morgan]

Thanks again Philip - I agree with all you say - (of course TH doesn't use 
the word trauma - I don't think he ever uses it -- but he certainly does 
*show* it).  And that Tess tells Alec she doesn't love him does not appear 
in the segment you originally quoted, nor is it in dispute. But as I say, 
I'm with you in all but one thing. Hardy rarely employs one narrator. Hence 
what the field woman might say isn't the voice of the narrator. And if Tess 
grows more robust at Talbothays I think we might follow the text which 
reveals her upsurge of spirits as she leaves home and looks out over the 
valley of the Great Dairies, enters the life of the dairy and finds it 
congenial, meets Angel and falls in love for the first time in her life and 
so on.  A new life and falling in love generates healthy "robust" spirits 
in most of us. Being sexually assaulted does not.

  All best
Rosemarie
PS  Now I see why you and I talked long into the wee hours when I was your 
Phd Student!

>Thanks, Rosemarie.
>
>I suspect there are some matters on which readers of this (and any other 
>novel) will never wholly agree, and on which any reader might take 
>different views at different times of his or her life, so I won't keep 
>urging my view. Part of the issue here clearly turns on definitions of 
>trauma, but since the w
>Phillip
>
>-