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Caitlin M. Lejeune
EN 303
Dr Sigler
25 Nov. 2013
The Question of Purity in Hardy's
Tess of the d'Urbervilles
In 1891, Hardy published Tess of the d'Urbervilles: A Pure Woman Faithfully Presented, and
the novel's subtitle became the contextual theme for reading the novel, immediately sparking
intense criticism and heated debate (Parker 273). Some Victorian critics were very skeptical of
Tess’s equivocation with purity, believing Tess to be nothing more than a whore and a murderess.
They therefore dismissed all suggestions of tragic elements and argued that Tess deserves the full
extent of her punishment, elucidating Tess's unfortunate situations as ". . . the incapacity of the
peasant-born woman to see that her having borne a love-child to another man might render her
less desirable as a wife" ("Mr. Hardy's New Book.*."). Simplifying Tess's circumstances to one
cause, however, is erroneous for two reasons. First, Tess acknowledges that her sexual relations
with Alec d'Urberville are taboo in her Victorian society, and she rejects Angel's proposals of
marriage multiple times, denying her own happiness because of her so-called "undesirable"
status. More vital still, Tess's fate is riddled with complexity and cannot be reduced to a singular
cause or action, and, as Shires explains, Hardy ensures that every event and action in Tess results
from "multiple causes" (151). The multifaceted plot makes the determination of blame or
responsibility difficult and additionally complicates the stereotypical plot for a fallen woman that
Hardy's contemporaries were using: "fall, punishment, and redemption" (Shires 150). Shires

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explains that Hardy challenges Victorian stereotypes by using Tess as a symbol of Eve in her fall,
Griselda in her punishment and Christ in her redemption, justifying Hardy's claim that Tess truly
is a "pure woman."
Tess's association with Eve is perhaps the most vital symbolic motif because Hardy draws
from both the Biblical and Victorian stereotypes. Throughout the novel, Tess is associated with
various gardens and wildlife, intimating a connection with the Garden of Eden. When Tess first
discovers her ancestral connection to the aristocratic d'Urberville family, Tess "return[s] along
the garden-path [and] muse[s] on . . . the recent ancestral discovery" (14). In collaboration with
early association with gardens, Tess is "at this time of her life . . . a mere vessel of emotion
untinctured by experience" (8). Tess's initial appearance reflects the biblical view of Eve, an
innocent creature wandering the Garden of Eden. Like Eve, Tess encounters a "serpent" of sorts,
Alec d'Urberville who is a man with ". . . an almost swarthy complexion . . . [and] touches of
barbarism in his contours" (28). The "dark hue" ("swarthy, adj. 1") innate in Alec's demeanor and
his barbarous nature manifests in Alec as a dark, "singular force" (28) that manipulates Tess's
pure and innocent nature. He acts as the serpent does in Genesis, offering fruit to Tess from his
own garden upon their first meeting in the strawberry episode. She claims, "I would rather take
[the fruit] in my own hand" (29). However, Alec refuses and feeds her by his own hand, "and in a
slight distress [Tess] part[s] her lips and [takes the strawberry] in" (29). When Eve consumed the
forbidden fruit, she was persuaded by the serpent, "the most cunning of all the animals" (New
American Bible: The Catholic Youth Bible, Gen. 3:1), but she still ate the fruit entirely with free
will, literally with her own hands. Tess, on the other hand, is not solely responsible for bringing
the fruit to her own lips because Alec cunningly manipulates Tess's innocence. Additionally,
Tess's fall from a societal standpoint is not yet realized after she eats the fruit, but the episode

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remains vital because it foreshadows her inevitable destruction. As a result, readers should begin
to question the extent of Tess's responsibility in her fall from purity.
The actualization of Tess's first, and most important, fall is not fully realized until "The
Chase" episode and evolves around the stereotype of a "seductive" Eve rather than biblical Eve.
The archetype of a seductive Eve pervades history, but one of the most famous depictions is in
Paradise Lost. Milton's seductive Eve becomes prideful of her beauty, eats the fruit, and
purposefully manipulates Adam with sex, supposedly "forcing" Adam to fall. Unlike Milton's
Eve, Tess is initially ignorant of her effect upon men, innocently unaware that "there [is] a danger
in men-folk" (64), referring to, generally, man's sexual passion for women. Hardy, however,
affiliates Tess with the color red, a symbol of sensual erotic passion: "a red ribbon in her hair" (7)
when she is first introduced, her "red lips" (69) become a recurring motif, and her cheeks "flush"
(40) red repetitively. The red signifies that Tess's physical person embodies the essence of
"womanliness" (8), and both Alec and Angel repeatedly obsess over her "too tempting mouth"
(118) that represents "the sexuality she embodies in her person and the desire she excites in men"
(Mohammad and Khalis 221). Thus, in The Chase, Tess inadvertently provokes Alec's passion, so
he successfully pursues her, taking advantage of her innocence so that "[her] eyes [become]
dazed by [him] for a little" (59). Whether or not Alec rapes or seduces Tess is not clear but
purposely left ambiguous. Hardy's society would have instinctively condemned Tess because she
has "officially" fallen from purity by having premarital relations. Nevertheless, Hardy uses
ambiguity to persuade his Victorian society both to question the circumstances or forces that
cause Tess to have sex and to reevaluate judgments condemning the girl who loses all innocence
when she tragically "learn[s] that the serpent hisses where the sweet birds sing" (58).
By eating the forbidden fruit, both Eve and Adam forfeited their place in the Garden of Eden,

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incurring judgment that all humanity will forever endure: pain in childbearing, husband's mastery
over his wife, toiling of the land for survival, and death. Tess does indeed experience each of
Eve's punishments after Tess, too, "eat[s] of the tree of knowledge" (81), learns of the evil in men
and still inevitably falls. Tess must, like Eve, accept retribution, and Hardy demonstrates Tess's
suffering through symbolism with Eve and, more prominently, Patient Griselda, one of the most
famous Christian female characters in literature whose legend, according to Goodwin, dates
before 1373 (50). Essentially ". . . an idealized embodiment of perfection" (Cottino-Jones 39),
Griselda is the Victorian's paragon woman because she is pure, virtuous and completely
subservient to her husband, no matter his actions or offenses. Angel repeatedly proposes to Tess
because he believes her to be a Griselda-like "visionary essence of woman" (103). Although Tess
has "lost" her purity, she attempts to remain virtuous and consequently suffers by continuing to
deny Angel's proposals, admitting that "[she] could never conscientiously allow any man to
marry her" (108). However, just as Chaucer "implie[s] analogy between [Griselda's husband] and
God" (Goodwin 43), Hardy utilizes the analogy when Angel becomes "godlike in [Tess's] eyes"
(142). When Angel repeatedly "urge[s]" (189) Tess to marry, she feels that she has no other
choice but to marry in obedience to Angel's, her God's, commanded wish.
When Tess marries Angel after failing to enlighten him about her fallen state, Tess dooms
herself because "[Angel] love[s] her dearly, though rather ideally and fancifully" (159). Lacking
Tess's thorough devotion, Angel unwittingly subjects Tess to further pain and punishment after he
knows the truth. Deciding to abandon his wife, Angel forbids Tess to search for him rather to
wait until he returns to her and additionally commands her to write him only if she is sick, she is
in need, or he writes to her first. Tess submits to his strict wishes, responding, "I agree to the
conditions, Angel; because you know best what my punishment ought to be" (199). Angel's

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"punishment" becomes a test of love, faith and purity, mimicking Griselda, who is likewise tested
by her husband when he takes & presumably murders her children (Goodwin 55). Griselda's and
Tess's decisions are disturbing because the reader is divided between horror stemming from the
husbands' ability to reign as tyrants over their wives and approval of the wife's "correct"
obedience. Obedience, Cottino-Jones explains, is derived from love: "Griselda's love is no desire
to be fulfilled for her own personal benefit; it is an extension of love still in human terms, but
replacing personal gratification with unselfishness and self-sacrifice. Griselda is not simply a
woman in love; she is the embodiment of love on a sacrificial level" (39). Tess loves similarly as
Griselda; after Angel leaves, Tess chooses a hard lifestyle on different farms, forsaking all hope
of happiness without him. The reader, like Izz, knows "nobody could love [Angel] more than
Tess did! . . . She would have laid down her life for [him]" (212). For years, Tess refuses to doubt
Angel, but over time she becomes plagued with poverty and desperation. In order to support her
family, Tess is victimized into becoming Alec's mistress (Shires 154), but her actions should not
be misunderstood or misconstrued. Tess unselfishly sacrifices her happiness even further for her
family, but she later surrenders her life for Angel when she murders Alec so that she could be
reunited with her husband, knowing that she will have to die for her actions.
By willingly sacrificing herself for Angel & her family out of love, Tess becomes a
Christ-like figure, and she represents Christ several times in the novel. As a Christ figure, Tess
redeems her bastard baby, herself and Angel. When Tess's baby is on the threshold of death, she
decides to perform a baptism, "her high enthusiasm having a transfiguring effect upon the face
which had been her undoing, showing it as a thing of immaculate beauty, with a touch of dignity
which was almost regal" (74). Tess's association with Christ's immaculate and regal essence
attempts to persuade the audience that the baby's soul and her fallen state are, in fact, redeemable.

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Tess's role as a Christ figure is further emphasized when Angel and Tess, now a newly-married
couple, are interrupted in their departure by three crowing cocks. Parker claims the crows
symbolize "the cuckolding of Angel Clare" (276). However, just as the cock crowed three times
to represent Peter's betrayal to Jesus, the three crows similarly foreshadow Angel's imminent
unfaithfulness to Tess's love and devotion. Once Angel knows of Tess's past, he consciously
believes that Tess cannot be redeemed (Lovesey 927). Sub-consciously, on the other hand,
Angel's sleep walking scene foreshadows his killing Tess and represents her "resurrection" as
well as his future redemption. When Tess dies, she takes on all of her sins as well as Angels’,
sacrificing herself for him. Tess is symbolically resurrected ". . . in the person of her sister
Liza-Lu . . ." (Lovesey 914), the untainted and "pure" Tess doppelganger. Therefore, Tess saves
Angel and becomes redeemed symbolically through her sister.
Hardy symbolically links Tess to purity throughout the novel, imploring readers to consider
the relative nature of all their judgments (Shires 154) because Tess's downfall is seeded in
multiple causes. One writer for the Times notes, ". . . There broods an ironical fate" ("Mr. Hardy's
New Novel.*."), and Hardy ensures "that no one reason for Tess's fate can stand out among the
many offered" (Shires 151). The tragedy of Tess is found in the ironic ambiguity because the
reader pities Tess's misfortunes that should have been avoidable, such as if Angel had asked Tess
to dance at the beginning of the novel or if the d’Urberville and Durbeyfield correlation had not
been misappropriated. Furthermore, the reader fears because Tess seems propelled to her death
not wholly by her own fruition and could not have escaped her end, as Tess claims, "Once victim,
always victim: that's the law" (261). Hardy forces his contemporary audience to question whether
"'Justice [is truly] done" (314) to a woman who verily seems to be pure.

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Works Cited
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50.1 (1973): 38-52. JSTOR. Web. 23 Nov. 2013.
Gardiner, Anne B. "Milton's Parody of Catholic Hymns in Eve's Temptation and Fall: Original
Sin as a Paradigm of "Secret Idolatries"" Studies in Philology 91.2 (1994): 216-31.
Academic Search Complete. Web. 23 Nov. 2013.
Goodwin, Amy W. "The Griselda Game." Chaucer Review 39.1 (2004): 41-69. Humanities Full
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Hardy, Thomas. Tess of the D'Urbervilles. Tess of the D'Urbervilles: An Authoritative Text,
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Lovesey, Oliver. "Reconstructing Tess." SEL: Studies in English Literature, 1500-1900. 43.4
(2003): 913-38. JSTOR. Web. 22 Nov. 2013.
Mohammad, Shazia G., and Abdus S. Khalis. "Thomas Hardy's Tess: A Seductive Eve or a
Blemished Woman?" The Dialogue 8.2 (2013): 218-25. Academic Search Complete. Web.
22 Nov. 2013.
"Mr. Hardy's New Book.*." Times [London, England] 30 Mar. 1894: 14. The Times Digital
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"Mr. Hardy's New Novel.*." Times [London, England] 13 Jan. 1892: 13. The Times Digital
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Parker, Lynn. "Pure Woman" and Tragic Heroine? Conflicting Myths in Hardy's Tess of the

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D'Urbervilles." Studies in the Novel 24 (1992): 273-81. Humanities Full Text (H.W. Wilson).
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"swarthy, adj.1". OED Online. September 2013. Oxford University Press. 25 November 2013
<http://www.oed.com/view/Entry/195515?rskey=yuwN9h&result=1&isAdvanced=false>.