TESS OF THE D'URBERVILLES' BY THOMAS HARDY
SUMMARY ALONG WITH LIST OF CHARACTERS
LIST OF CHARACTERS:
🔹Tess Durbeyfield - The novel’s protagonist - a beautiful, loyal young girl living with her impoverished family in the village of Marlott. She is absolutely pure at heart, mind, and soul but is seduced by Alec and consequently loses her physical chastity and virginity.
🔹Angel Clare - An intelligent young man who has decided to become a farmer to preserve his intellectual freedom from the pressures of city life. Angel’s father and his two brothers are respected clergymen, but Angel’s religious doubts have kept him from joining the ministry.
🔹Alec d’Urberville - The handsome, amoral son of a wealthy merchant named Simon Stokes, but a manipulative, sinister young man who does everything he can to seduce the inexperienced Tess when she comes to work for his family. Alec is not really a d’Urberville—his father simply took on the name of the ancient noble family after he built his mansion and retired.
🔹Mr. John Durbeyfield - Tess’s father, a lazy peddler in Marlott.
🔹Mrs. Joan Durbeyfield -Tess’s simple-minded and naturally forgiving mother with a strong sense of propriety. She is continually disappointed and hurt by how her daughter’s life actually proceeds.
🔹Mrs. d’Urberville - Alec’s mother, and the widow of Simon Stokes. She is blind and often ill. She cares deeply for her animals, but not for her maid Elizabeth, her son Alec, nor Tess when she comes to work for her. In fact, she never sees Tess as anything more than an impoverished girl.
🔹Marian, Izz Huett, and Retty Priddle - Milkmaids whom Tess befriends at the Talbothays Dairy.
🔹Reverend Clare - Angel’s father, a somewhat intractable but principled clergyman in the town of Emminster. Alec d’Urberville proves to be one of the most difficult cases for him to convert.
🔹Mrs. Clare - Angel’s mother, a loving but snobbish woman who places great stock in social class. She looks down upon Tess and wants Angel to marry a suitable woman, but later grows to appreciate her.
🔹Reverend Felix Clare - Angel’s brother, a village curate.
🔹Reverend Cuthbert - Clare Angel’s brother, a classical scholar and dean at Cambridge.
🔹Eliza Louisa Durbeyfield - Tess’s younger sister. Tess believes Liza-Lu has all of her own good qualities and none of her bad ones, and she encourages Angel to marry her after she dies.
🔹Sorrow - Tess’s son with Alec d’Urberville. Sorrow dies in his early infancy after Tess christens him herself.
🔹Mercy Chant - The daughter of a friend of the Reverend Clare. Mr. Clare hopes Angel will marry Mercy, but Angel marries Tess.
SUMMARY:
The poor peddler John Durbeyfield is stunned to learn that he is the descendent of an ancient noble family, the d’Urbervilles. Meanwhile, Tess, his eldest daughter, joins the other village girls in the May Day dance, where Tess briefly exchanges glances with a young man. Mr. Durbeyfield and his wife decide to send Tess to the d’Urberville mansion, where they hope Mrs. d’Urberville will make Tess’s fortune. In reality, Mrs. d’Urberville is no relation to Tess at all: her husband, the merchant Simon Stokes, simply changed his name to d’Urberville after he retired. But Tess does not know this fact, and when the lascivious Alec d’Urberville, Mrs. d’Urberville’s son, procures Tess a job tending fowls on the d’Urberville estate, Tess has no choice but to accept, since she blames herself for an accident involving the family’s horse, its only means of income.
Tess spends several months at this job, resisting Alec’s attempts to seduce her. Finally, Alec takes advantage of her in the woods one night after a fair. Tess knows she does not love Alec. She returns home to her family to give birth to Alec’s child, whom she christens Sorrow. Sorrow dies soon after he is born, and Tess spends a miserable year at home before deciding to seek work elsewhere. She finally accepts a job as a milkmaid at the Talbothays Dairy.
At Talbothays, Tess enjoys a period of contentment and happiness. She befriends three of her fellow milkmaids—Izz, Retty, and Marian—and meets a man named Angel Clare, who turns out to be the man from the May Day dance at the beginning of the novel. Tess and Angel slowly fall in love. They grow closer throughout Tess’s time at Talbothays, and she eventually accepts his proposal of marriage. Still, she is troubled by pangs of conscience and feels she should tell Angel about her past. She writes him a confessional note and slips it under his door, but it slides under the carpet and Angel never sees it.
After their wedding, Angel and Tess both confess indiscretions: Angel tells Tess about an affair he had with an older woman in London, and Tess tells Angel about her history with Alec. Tess forgives Angel, but Angel cannot forgive Tess. He gives her some money and boards a ship bound for Brazil, where he thinks he might establish a farm. He tells Tess he will try to accept her past but warns her not to try to join him until he comes for her.
Tess struggles. She has a difficult time finding work and is forced to take a job at an unpleasant and unprosperous farm. She tries to visit Angel’s family but overhears his brothers discussing Angel’s poor marriage, so she leaves. She hears a wandering preacher speak and is stunned to discover that he is Alec d’Urberville, who has been converted to Christianity by Angel’s father, the Reverend Clare. Alec and Tess are each shaken by their encounter, and Alec appallingly begs Tess never to tempt him again. Soon after, however, he again begs Tess to marry him, having turned his back on his -religious ways.
Tess learns from her sister Liza-Lu that her mother is near death, and Tess is forced to return home to take care of her. Her mother recovers, but her father unexpectedly dies soon after. When the family is evicted from their home, Alec offers help. But Tess refuses to accept, knowing he only wants to obligate her to him again.
At last, Angel decides to forgive his wife. He leaves Brazil, desperate to find her. Instead, he finds her mother, who tells him Tess has gone to a village called Sandbourne. There, he finds Tess in an expensive boardinghouse called The Herons, where he tells her he has forgiven her and begs her to take him back. Tess tells him he has come too late. She was unable to resist and went back to Alec d’Urberville. Angel leaves in a daze, and, heartbroken to the point of madness, Tess goes upstairs and stabs her lover to death. When the landlady finds Alec’s body, she raises an alarm, but Tess has already fled to find Angel.
Angel agrees to help Tess, though he cannot quite believe that she has actually murdered Alec. They hide out in an empty mansion for a few days, then travel farther. When they come to Stonehenge, Tess goes to sleep, but when morning breaks shortly thereafter, a search party discovers them. Tess is arrested and sent to jail. Angel and Liza-Lu watch as a black flag is raised over the prison, signaling Tess’s execution.
BY SAMIA UMER
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