[Hardy-l] Tess/rape

[Rosemarie Morgan]

Just one caveat, Phillip : The actual site of this phrase. "An immeasurable 
chasm was to divide our heroine's personality thereafter from that previous 
self of hers who stepped from her mother's house" doesn't occur after she 
leaves Trantridge but in the Chase chapter itself --some four months before 
she leaves Trantridge.  And according to Hardy's narrator the chasm 
divides- Tess--The Maiden_  from Tess- Maiden-No-More -- not Tess not 
against other "innocent" women.

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>"Once Tess has left Trantridge, she no longer has the law's protection. 
>This is one result of the valorisation of virginity - rather, 
>fetishisation - and it is surely part of what the narrator has in mind 
>when referring to the 'immeasurable social chasm' which has now opened up 
>between Tess and other 'innocent' women."
_______________

I like the confused/admixed reader response in Philip's account; this is 
possibly the heart of the matter. No -one on this list has disputed the 
ambiguity of Hardy's text but we do seem to differ considerably  in our 
response to it.

All best
Rosemarie