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Evan Jones

Ms. Winter

British Literature/ Period 1

May 2, 2017

In the End, Death Controls Life

Death is not the greatest loss in life. The greatest loss is what dies inside us while we

live. Norman Cousins was a political journalist, author, professor, and world peace advocate,

and his knowledge and teachings will be used and upheld for generations to come. Death is

something that can have a huge ripple effect, in some cases it can affect entire communities, and

in Tess of the Durbervilles by Thomas Hardy, this is no exception. In the novel, we see Tess

Durbeyfield, a country farm girl trying to provide for her family, discover that her lineage is

connected to the Durbervilles, a family of overwhelming wealth and power. But throughout the

story we see Tess go through very tragic and unfortunate events like rape, losing her only child,

ridicule from society, and eventually her own demise. Also, her inability to speak up for help,

due to the level of oppression towards women during this time period, created more problems.

But the key component that evolved the story, above all other things, was death. Death is a major

catalyst for change in Tess of the DUrbervilles, and although death is very frequent, the death of

Prince, Sorrow, Alec and Tess really transformed the story. Tess Durbeyfield experienced

transformation, whether good or bad, to the point of the inevitable ending we all knew would

come.

The first death that really changes the

story, and that sets all of the following events of the

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novel in motion, is the death of the Durbeyfields horse, Prince. One night, while Tess is

returning home from the local bar trying to retrieve her father, she falls asleep on the reins and is

awoken by a sudden jerk. When she steps out to see what happened, she sees that The pointed

shaft of the cart had entered the breast of the unhappy Prince like a sword, and from the wound

his lifes blood was spouting in a stream and falling with a hiss into the road (Hardy, 43). Back

in those days, horses were one of the main ways of transportation, and for a farmer which relies

highly on being able to deliver goods to the market and sell them, this meant they essentially lost

their main source of income. They would have to find a new way to support their family, and

back in those days, it was very difficult to switch from farming, because farming is something

that becomes a way of life. The fact that when children are born into a family of farmers, they

were welcomed by a family as a future farmhand, rather than budgeted for as a quarter-million

dollar expenditure, as said in Fame and Misfortune by Lisa Alther, shows that the being a

farmer was more than just an occupation, it was a way of life (Alther, 1). Their entire lifestyle

would have to change, which leads Tess to do something that she will regret for the rest of her

life. Also, the death of Prince is a metaphor reflecting the death of her dreams and aspirations of

becoming rich and wealthy. Tess felt that things were going to start looking up due to the fact

that her ancestor was one of the twelve knights who assisted Lord of Estremavilla in Normandy

in his conquest of Glamorganshire (Hardy 18). But when Prince was stabbed by the cart like a

sword, it showed that all her hopes and dreams of being able to attain this power and wealth had

passed away from her grasp, Prince resembling the royalty in her bloodline.

Another death that had a huge impact on the life of Tess Durbeyfield is the death of her

baby boy, Sorrow. After Prince dies, Tess goes to find work at Mrs. D'urberville's mansion,

hoping her ancestry and connection to this family can help her obtain a stable job to support her
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family. While she is there, she meets Mrs. D'urberville's son, Alec Durberville, who proceeds to

try and persuade Tess into marrying him. One night, Tess and Alec are trying to find a way home

from a carnival when Tess falls asleep, and Alec rapes her while she is sleeping. Time passes and

Tess leaves the mansion and has a child she names Sorrow. He becomes very ill and ends up

dying from his illness. She eventually has to bury Sorrow herself in a church graveyard because

when she asks the minister to give her child a proper burial, he responds with Well-I would be

willing to do so if only we were concerned. But I must not-for certain reasons (Hardy, 113).

This is a very major turning point in Tesss life because it is symbolic of burying her actual

emotional pain, or her sorrow. She can never tell anyone that she has been raped and given

birth to a child because in the Victorian period, women did not have a voice. Even though she

had all these emotions, she could not let them out and tell people what was really going on

because it would ruin her chances at finding a husband, since she would most certainly no longer

be viewed as innocent. In A Woman's Story: Tess and the Problem of Voice by Margaret R.

Higonnet, she explains that even though Tess was feeling all these emotions, she could not speak

up due to the gender codes and her exploited body whose pleasures have been fatally

contaminated by rape (Higonnet, 5). Under no circumstances could she let her true fear of

losing a potential suitor from her lack of innocence show because during this time period, being

a single woman means either prostitution or death.

A third death that really changed the course of the story in a radical way was the death of

Alec Durberville. After Angel, Tesss newfound husband, leaves to go on a vacation as a way

of separation from Tess and his new knowledge of her lack of innocence, Tess meets Alec again

as an alleged evangelist. He then finds her after his sermon and continues to persuade her into

marrying him. She inevitably gives in, and when Angel returns he is heartbroken. Then that night
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Alec and Tess fight, and Tess ends up stabbing Alec in his sleep. This dramatically changes the

story for two reasons. First, this now puts Alec and his pestering completely out of the picture.

The possibility of Tess running away with Angel without being pestered by a perverted, so called

christian is within grasp, and as she says to Angel on page 404, I could walk forever and ever

with your arm around me! (Hardy, 404). Also, she had to go to the last resort in terms of the

power of women over men. In Richard Carpenters article Tess of the DUrbervilles, he states

that there was a moral code which condemns the innocent victim of a seducer (perhaps a

rapist) to ostracism while he goes scot free (Carpenter, 2). No matter what Alec will do to her,

he will never get punished due to the fact that women have literally no right in that time period,

so they will always take the mans word over the womans word, even if there were witnesses

that testified against the man. Alec and the society had oppressed her so much that the only way

she could truly gain power over a man in this era is with the power of life and death. Secondly,

this creates a level of fear in Angel and Tess because Tess is now a wanted criminal. They have

to find areas and paths that are not normally traveled on, that might become an obstacle due to

the fact that they will have to explore new, uncharted locations. One example of this is when

Angel says to Tess I think we may as well steer in a general way towards the interior of the

country, where we can hide for a time, and are less likely to be looked for (Hardy, 405). The

fact that they will have to go through dense, unknown areas of the country creates more and

more problems the longer they keep hiding from the authorities.

Finally, the death that was inevitable, and created so much sadness and relief at the same

time, is none other than the death of Tess Durbeyfield herself. After trying to flee from the

authorities and run away with her true love, Angel, she is eventually caught, exclaiming It is as

it should be she murmured. Angel, I am almost glad-yes, glad! This happiness could not have
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lasted. It was too much (Hardy, 414). She is taken to stonehenge where she is executed and

where Angel and Liza-Lu, Tesss younger sister, watch as something moved slowly up the staff

and extended itself upon the breeze. It was a black flag (Hardy 416). The reason that the death

of the main protagonist in the novel is so significant is because it brought closure and finality to

so many things. First off, it brought an end to all the horrible things that were happening to Tess.

She had gone through so much pain throughout the duration of this novel, that to finally see

some form of an end, whether that be death or not, is somewhat relieving. Also, this is what

Hardy wanted. If Tess had been allowed to live, then what would be the level of effectiveness in

terms of the theme or moral of the story? That women who kill people and run away with their

true love will succeed in escaping society? No, thats just it. Hardy was trying to convey that you

cannot escape the horrors of the Victorian society. That no matter what you do, if you are a

woman without innocence in the Victorian period, there is only one escape from the pain and

oppression that consumed so many lives, and that escape is death. Hardy is poking directly at the

gender roles of the Victorian era and exposing them to the world. In the article You did not

come: Absence, Death, and Eroticism in Tess by James Kincaid, he explains that If we find

Tess's career... terrifying,... tragic and titillating, then we are doing no more than dutifully playing

the part of the implied reader. The death of Tess Durbeyfield was something that could not be

avoided, or else everything that Hardy is trying to convey through the words of this rollercoaster

of a story would not be make a real impact on the reader and the society as a whole.

Tess lived a very hard life in a very difficult time period. She fought through so much,

and in the end she was finally granted the release she so desired. All throughout the novel, we see

death being a huge variable in the advancement of the story, and although death happened very

frequently, the death of Prince, Sorrow, Alec and Tess Durbeyfield herself really changed the plot
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to the highest extremes. Even though Tess of the Durbervilles is fiction, the power of death is

very real and can hurt more people than ever intended. It can create revolutions, cause mass

depressions, and form unities that may have never been imaginable before. So the question is,

what impact will be left in the world once death is right at the door? The answer is yet to be

revealed.

Works Cited

Images

1. Tess of the D'urbervilles (2008). Digital image. Tess of the D'urbervilles: Photos.

Famous Fix, 23 May 2009. Web. 4 May 2017.

Online Resources
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1. Higonnet, Margaret R. "A Woman's Story: Tess and the Problem of Voice."

Twentieth-Century Literary Criticism, edited by Thomas J. Schoenberg and Lawrence J.

Trudeau, vol. 229, Gale, 2010. Literature Resource Center, go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?

p=LitRC&sw=w&u=eldorado&v=2.1&id=GALE

%7CH1420096922&it=r&asid=c97ea43908b0ad1567efe5b9ff5d94a6. Accessed 3 May

2017. Originally published in The Sense of Sex: Feminist Perspectives on Hardy, edited

by Margaret R. Higonnet, University of Illinois Press, 1993, pp. 14-31.

2. Kincaid, James. "'You did not come': Absence, Death and Eroticism in Tess."

Twentieth-Century Literary Criticism, edited by Thomas J. Schoenberg and Lawrence J.

Trudeau, vol. 229, Gale, 2010. Literature Resource Center, go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?

p=LitRC&sw=w&u=eldorado&v=2.1&id=GALE

%7CH1420096921&it=r&asid=f90cfb5000ce13c617c538d5377319d5. Accessed 27 Apr.

2017. Originally published in Sex and Death in Victorian Literature, edited by Regina

Barreca, Macmillan Press, 1990, pp. 9-31.

3. Mustafa, Jamil. "'A Good Horror Has Its Place in Art': Hardy's Gothic Strategy in

Tess of the d'Urbervilles." Twentieth-Century Literary Criticism, edited by Thomas J.

Schoenberg and Lawrence J. Trudeau, vol. 229, Gale, 2010. Literature Resource Center,

go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?p=LitRC&sw=w&u=eldorado&v=2.1&id=GALE

%7CH1420096928&it=r&asid=b7b09f3f62232afc384861ccb7287a21. Accessed 3 May

2017. Originally published in Studies in the Humanities, vol. 32, no. 2, Dec. 2005, pp. 93-

115.
4. Carpenter, Richard. "Tess of the d'Urbervilles." Twentieth-Century Literary

Criticism, edited by Janet Witalec, vol. 143, Gale, 2004. Literature Resource Center,

go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?p=LitRC&sw=w&u=eldorado&v=2.1&id=GALE
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%7CH1420055749&it=r&asid=31a303e4c9929feac5c5d57bc32cf036. Accessed 9 May

2017. Originally published in Thomas Hardy, Twayne Publishers, 1964, pp. 124-138.
5. Alther, Lisa. "Fame and Misfortune." Contemporary Literary Criticism Select,

Gale, 2008. Literature Resource Center, go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?

p=LitRC&sw=w&u=eldorado&v=2.1&id=GALE

%7CH1100039981&it=r&asid=ab7dd1914f8a806e186865d5dd02a6e3. Accessed 9 May

2017. Originally published in Los Angeles Times Book Review, 24 Oct. 1993, p. 2.

Literary Resources

1. Hardy, Thomas. Tess of the D'Urbervilles. New York, New York: Signet Classic,

1891. Print.