[Hardy-l] Tess--What is Joan's fault?

[Richardson, Angelique]

Yes,  facts of life was perhaps a red herring of a phrase, I meant it to include such facts as the sexual double standard.

Tess's words below (taken from the 1912 edn):

"O mother, my mother!" cried the agonized girl, turning passionately upon her parent as if her poor heart would break. "How could I be expected to know? I was a child when I left this house four months ago. Why didn't you tell me there was danger in men-folk? Why didn't you warn me? Ladies know what to fend hands against, because they read novels that tell them of these tricks; but I never had the chance o' learning in that way, and you did not help me!"


>When Tess upbraids her mother for not telling her about "men-folk" (I
>don't remember the exact phrase she uses but it pretty much paraphrases
>what's in the novel), I thought she meant how men could be seducers.