Tess of the d'Urbervilles - A Pure Woman

Synopsis

Tess of the d'Urbervilles: A Pure Woman, is a novel written by Thomas Hardy, an English novelist who prefers to be called himself as a poet, though his initial recognition came through his novels such as Far from the Madding Crowd, The Mayor of Casterbridge, Jude the Obscure and Tess of the d'Urbervilles.

Tess of the d'Urbervilles, explores the pathetic story of how the evil minds of two narrow minded men victimizing an innocent woman and to death. Tess, a beautiful and eldest child of rural peasants John and Joan Durbeyfield, comes to know that, she might have a noble blood of one of the aristocratic families. She has been raped by Alec in a cunning plot, and delivers a baby much to shame. The baby dies after couple of years. She wanders around farm and do minor jobs to feed herself. During this period she encounters with Angel Clare, whom she had fallen in love before being victimized by Alec.

Angel plans to marry Tess without knowing about her past. Tess in a dilemma of confessing her past, write a confessing letter and keeps it in Angel’s wardrobe. As Angel does not speak anything, she thought he might have accepted her confessions, without knowing he never read the letter. Quiet unexpectedly Angel confesses about his fling with a strange woman before he met Tess. This confession gives the courage to Tess to speak about her past, as it was not her mistake.

Horrified to know, she is not a virgin, Angel breaks away and disappears. Tess is again into problems and while wandering for a job, she re encounters Alec again. Alec persuades her again to live with him. In the preceding incidents Tess stabs Alec in a hotel room and flees away with Angel. Later she was hanged to death by law.

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