[hardy-l] Tess, a pure woman

[Rosemarie Morgan]

Apologies Carolyn for not responding.

I don't feel that Tess' rejoinder to Angel means quite that . They both 
have sexual "transgressions" in their past and have not told each other of 
them -- hence the mutual confession on the bridal night -  *that* certainly 
is the same.   But it ends there.

She says

"Perhaps, although you smile, it is as serious as yours, or more so."

Angel argues that it can't be more serious and Tess, grabbing at straws, at 
comforting words, at solace --  call it what you will,  cries out "joyfully"

"No, it cannot be more serious, certainly....because 'tis just the same."

Well clearly it isn't. She is a "fallen woman" in the eyes of 
the  world  (hence the mockery and jeers she receives from others)-- but he 
isn't a fallen man.  Yes-- double standard, of course !  This is Hardy's 
critique -- one set of rules for women, another for men.

There are even more complications which can't be explored here.  But that 
is the crux of it.

Tess's cry that her "story" is the same as Angel's creates a terrible 
shudder in the reader (in this reader I should say) because although we 
don't share the sexual double standard we know (especially given the 
narrator's ghastly premonitory images) --for certain -- she is going to be 
damned.

I think it sensitive of TH/narrator not to have "overheard" her 
confessional words to Angel. Many feminists (the pro-misogynists in 
particular) take this to be a way of "silencing" her, but I feel it to be a 
circumspect way of preserving her purity. To have her stumbling over 
unfamiliar words and explanations by which she might easily be misread, or 
that might even misrepresent her, might well throw this "purity" into 
jeopardy (in the eyes of the reader). For, after all, how *could* she 
describe to Angel her complete ignorance of the "tricks" men play, tricks 
that she never had "the chance of discovering"-- when she can barely talk 
about it to her mother. Yes -- Alec has admitted to have done "wrong" (" I 
did wrong, I admit it") -- but how can she account for this to Angel 
without endless (defensive?) explanations?

Even victims trying to defend themselves in courts of law find themselves 
incriminating themselves unwittingly -- trapped by arguments and the kind 
of high-faluting, baffling (to Tess) rhetoric that Angel falls back upon 
(to elevate himself above her) in the bridal night scene.

The question of rape or seduction would be of lesser importance, I would 
suggest, to Angel, rape being a legal issue and seduction a social issue 
and both carrying a serious social stigma in Hardy's day. Moreover we have 
no idea how Tess expresses the event to Angel. It would be sufficient, on 
his part, that she bore a child out of wedlock, and that he should disown 
her on that count (being such a moral man!).

But these aren't relevant to the points you raise so I'll leave off here. I 
hope you gain more responses to your questions.

All best
Rosemarie
PS  I don't quite understand how Tess's "cheeks" could suffer the "coarse" 
trace of Alec's body. It is after all a "trace" that will eventually take 
the form of a new (infant) life -- where do her cheeks fit into this 
figuration ?

>I agree there are layers of meaning regarding 'feminine tissue': cheek and 
>vagina are both possible readings of the text;
>best wishes
>
>Carolyn McGrath