[Hardy-l] about Tess

[Nathalie Ba]

Well, I have the feeling that Hardy decided to leave it to the reader to imagine what actually happens in the Chase. It certainly all looks like a rape, but still...It also looks to be far more ambiguous than that. To me Alec is more than a mere seducer and a mere villain especially as the novel draws to a close. If he starts a jerks and a man on the hunt for a naive girl to seduce, his feelings change when he realizes Tess is the only girl he has met who has a strong temper and who refuses to behave like a  seduced girl devoted to him, as the others probably have done. It seems to me that she wins him because she has enough will to try her luck elsewhere instead of living with him and depend upon him. She is her equal and far more, and he acknowledges the fact when he says at some point she is a genuine D'Urbervilles whereas he is a fake. I do believe he ends up sincerely loving her and even that he isn't manipulating her when he says
 Angel will never come back. He has some sincerity in him, he is not the archetype of the villain. When the latter finally does, Tess feels trapped again : how can Angel forgive her again as long as Alec lives to claim his role as her true husband, the only one who perhaps had intercourse with her? She undoubtedly kills Alec in a fit of anger but also because she sees her nighmare is resuming, now she has stopped feeling guilty or at least now she deems she has paid the price.   And it is, among other things, because he is more complex than we may believe that the novel goes on asking questions...
 
Best,
 
Nathalie.


      
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