[Hardy-l] The Facts of LLife/Tess

[Charles.Anesi at wellsfargo.com]

>The late nineteenth-century periodical press was awash with articles 
>on the importance of educating (mainly) girls in the facts of life

Same thing was going on in the U.S. Try to solve a licentiousness
problem with prudery and you end up with an ignorance problem. And
bourgeois girls and boys often needed such education.  

My point was that Tess's innocence in these matters, while perhaps
believable for the daughter of a prosperous townsman, seems at least
dubious for the daughter of a country ne'er-do-well.  But I can forgive
the lapse from strict realism as it contributes to the plot and plays to
the bourgeois target audience.  Having an engineer/innkeeper and a
jeweler's apprentice living on a heath (in Return of the Native) seemed
rather preposterous too, but I understand why Hardy did it.     
 

Chuck Anesi
charles.anesi at wellsfargo.com
office 480-575-3478
cell 612-940-3345
fax 480-575-3519
 
** These opinions are strictly my own and not necessarily those of Wells
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