Tess of the D'Urbervilles - Key Quotes

Prose - Women and Society - Edexcel - A-level English Literature

-       Similar outlook on illegitimate children.

-       Sorrow.

-       Angel’s hypothetical child after Tess’s confession. Similar derogatory language (p.243)

-       ‘Think of the wretches of our flesh and blood growing up under a taunt… feel the full force’

-       Angel’s accusations of Tess, double standard and expectation of purity.

-       ‘I have forgiven you for the same’ (p.228)

-       ‘You were one person now you are another’

-       ‘I didn’t understand your meaning until it was too late’ Alec

-       ‘That’s what every woman says (p.77)

Tess are confined by societal norms, she is trapped by a double standard. 

Notions of the disgrace of society in their judgement of women – inequality for women.  

Inferiority from birth - Tess’ social status which makes her inferior from women. Both inferior from start.

SEXUAL DOUBLE STANDARDS

-          ‘Angel I am almost glad - because now you can forgive me!’ (p.225)

-          ‘Justice was done. The president of the Immortals had ended his sport with Tess’

-          ‘Beautiful feminine tissue as sensitive as gossamer… The coarse pattern as it was doomed to receive’ (p.77)

-          ‘The woman I have been loving is not you’ p.229

-          ‘You are an unapprehending peasant woman’ p. 232

Power is patriarchal - Alec and Angel wielding sexual and moral power.

All of them wield economic power. Societies structures place absolute power into the hands of men.

Tess seems to have a doomed life.

Hope is fragile - often the trade of patriarchal figures. Tess’ hope continually placed in patriarchal figures and consistently shattered. Alec helps family, Angel to forgive her.

Reveals the vulnerability nature of women.

Endure Alec’s sexual advances, Strawberry scene: (page 42)

-          ‘Young man was pressing’

-          ‘In a slight distress she parted her lips and took it in’

-          ‘She obeyed like one in a dream’

Joan’s letter page 191:

-          ‘On no account do you say a word of your Bygone Trouble to him’

Death of sorrow – enduring the brutality of the church (patriarchal power structure) p. 91

Present endurance not as strength but as a symptom of oppression. Women are expected to bear pain quietly, reinforcing patriarchal power structures - To endure is to be silent as a woman in Tess. - Loss shapes the identity of women - fatalism.

Joan

-          ‘Marry ee…Any other woman would’ve done it but you’ , page 81

-          ‘Why didn’t you think of your family rather than yourself.’

Joan, after Tess’s assault

Aside of men themselves, the biggest contribution of patriarchal standards is the mothers (Joan)

Tess

-          ‘I can put an end to myself… I am not afraid’ p.239

Tess always sees the option for suicide as a route to freedom – she contemplates suicide multiple times.

Symbolism of Stonehenge,

-          ‘I am at home’

-          I am ready’

Freedom in death, fatalistic reading of the novel, constantly foreshadowed in the red imagery, embryo of the novel- the only solution for Tess to be free is death.

‘President of the immortals playing with Tess’

For some women, death is the only route to freedom.

Angel weaponizes their marriage to control Tess as punishment

Joan orchestrating a marriage at the beginning between Tess

Marriage is considered to be one of the biggest structures of patriarchal power – used as means to control women

Expose how societal expectations trap women in patriarchal structures. Tess’s coerced labour/relationships reveal that women are expected to endure, not aspire.

Powerlessness of women

‘She was the walking, breathing embodiment of their shame’

Also applies to Tess and how marriage is used.

-           ‘marriage contract’ p. 53

‘The point is he’s seeking her, not the other way round’ p 52

Objectification of women.

Alec – kissing

Her objections to going to claim kin

‘But I don’t want anyone to kiss me sir,’ she implored… He was inexorable and she sat still, and D’Urberville have her the kiss of mastery’.

Female voices are used differently across both tests. Whilst Mariam is silenced, both Tess and Laila have an empowered sense of voice.

Nevertheless, what both Hardy and Hosseini highlight is that either way, the female voice is powerless.

Strawberry scene

 

‘No-no!’ she said quickly … I would rather take it in my own hand’

‘Nonsense!’ he insisted and in a slight distress she parted her lips and took it in’.

‘you artful hussy! Now, tell me, didn’t you make that hat blow off on purpose’

Depict the forced obedience of women through the physical power of men from the very start

Threatening language to control women – male power – Journey to Tantridge

Angel seeing Tess as reflection on him – deeply engrained patriarchal notions of the church

Hardy’s constructed embodiment directly of the church

‘scandal of divorce’ – Angel who’d be scandalised if this came out.

‘my ruined husband’

Divorce act – p. 238

Depict religion as upholding and creating patriarchal values that you used as a means to control women through societal views

‘She felt that she would do well to be useful again … the past was the past’.  p. 91

‘She was not an existence, an experience, a passion … to anybody but herself’ p.91

Hope is intrinsically linked to motherhood for Tess.

Hope is shattered for both protagonists through the loss of their children and worsens life’s cruelty.

Hope is short-lived for women.

‘by her shame’ p.93

‘no salvation’ p.92/3

‘I’ll never come to your church no more’ p.97

‘prisoner of the flesh’

Religious subtext that the baby is punished for Tess’ crimes.

Hope is presented as cruelly temporary for Tess - the loss of her child = punishment for her ‘crime’.

Strawberry Scene

‘No-no!’ she said quickly … I would rather take it in my own hand’

‘Nonsense!’ he insisted and in a slight distress she parted her lips and took it in’.

Foreshadows The Chase

‘Same wrong’/’doomed to receive’

‘hands of the spoiler’

Sexual violence

Male power is enforced through violence.

In Tess, it’s sexual violence that Tess endures in the Chase Scene

Tess becomes increasingly fatalistic.

Hardy presents her as subject to an indifferent universe, where endurance leads not to survival but to destruction. Hardy presents tragedy as inevitable for women trapped in rigid moral systems.

Alec destroys Tess’ reputation but its her fault and Mammy tells Laila her reputation is her own responsibility

Joan:

‘marry ee … any woman would have done it but you’ (page 81)

Mothers are seen as the biggest upholders of patriarchal standards; it is the fathers who defy these expectations.

Society shows that women are the only maintainers of their own reputation, placing on women unfair standards – men always play a part in the expectation of women

‘Hope a traitorous illusion’ – (the lilies in Tess) – poisonous flowers – symbolic of love and hope

‘a blighted star’ - Marriage with Alec – rejects constantly only to give in

female solidarity/isolation in face of struggle

‘You were more sinned against than sinning, that I admit’ (Angel)

‘Remember, my lady, I was your master once! I will be your master again. If you are any man’s wife you are mine!’ (Alec)

‘Once a victim, always a victim – that’s the law’ (societal + fate’s intervention) - An intervention to stop hope

‘It was a tall young man, smoking’ – p. 40 – villainy of Alec

‘She could not have borne their pity … she simply knew that she felt it.’ - Society’s judgement imprisons Tess

Male Authority

‘She had no fear of the shadows; her sole idea seemed to be to shun mankind-‘

‘She could not have borne their pity … she simply knew that she felt it.’

‘Never in her life – she could swear it from the bottom of her soul – had she ever intended to do wrong … why should she have been punished so persistently?’

Society’s judgement imprisons Tess

Law vs Morality Policing

‘she passionately swung the glove by the gauntlet directly in his face’ p. 331 – she hits Alec – A moment of female power is illusionary and ephemeral

Hope and Resistance

Inherited Patriarchy