Summary & Analysis of "Critical Reception of Tess of the D'Urbervilles"

Summary:

I loved reading the critical reception for Tess of the D’Urbervilles because I’m still a little unsure how I feel about the novel overall, and it’s interesting hearing how others during that time period reacted. Many of the reviews were positive; for example, the reviews called it “a most moving presentment of a ‘pure woman’” (The Pall Mall Gazette), “not only good, but great” (The Athenaeum), and “one of [Hardy’s] most powerful novels” (The Spectator). Others are not so positive, such as The Saturday Review, which states, “It matters much less what a story is about than how that story is told, and Mr. Hardy, it must be conceded, tells an unpleasant story in a very unpleasant way” or the correspondence between Henry James and Robert Louis Stevenson, in which Stevenson writes, “Tess is one of the worst, weakest, least sane, most voulu books I have yet read.” James simply replies that Tess is “vile.” My favorite piece to read of all of these was the interview with Thomas Hardy. He defends the character of Tess by saying, “I consider that she was to all intents and purposes a pure woman till her last fall” (388). I liked getting the author’s own opinion about Tess, despite all of the critics against both him and her.

Analysis:

The most compelling piece to me was the one from The Illustrated London News by Clementina Black because she recognizes that Tess of the D’Urbervilles is not going to be popular according to most of the public, but that this fact reveals more about society’s opinions rather than reflecting a lack of talent of Hardy’s part. She states, “The conventional reader wishes to be excited, but not to be disturbed; he likes to have new pictures presented to his imagination, but not to have new ideas presented to his mind. He detests unhappy endings, mainly because an unhappy ending nearly always involves an indirect appeal to the conscience.” She goes on to say that Tess of the D’Urbervilles is “a challenge” for readers (383). In other words, the reason readers were reacting so negatively to the novel was because Hardy was challenging their traditional notions about something controversial like women’s purity. Readers of the time were disgusted with the character of Tess and hated the ending of the book, but Black points out how they just wanted a simple, happy ending like what they were used to. Tess of the D’Urbervilles makes readers really think about tough questions in life, which is one of the reasons I liked reading the book so much. Black sums up the novel nicely by saying, “Its essence lies in the perception that a woman’s moral worth is measurable not by any one deed, but by the whole aim and tendency of her life and nature” (383). This statement led me back to thinking about Angel. He seemed like such a free and progressive thinker , definitely not someone who would go back on his love for Tess because of one aspect of her past. However, that is exactly what Angel did, which is why I think I almost dislike him more than Alec in a way. Angel recognized eventually that Tess is so much more than just her past ‘misdeeds’, but he already broke her heart before he realized it. I think the outcome in the end could have been much different if he would have just behaved differently. But, then again, Tess’s fate was meant to be (as Hardy says) and maybe nothing could have changed her actions.