Phase the Sixth: The Convert
Phase the Fifth concluded with the startling reappearance of Tess's nemesis, Alec D'Urberville, in his new guise as a miraculously reformed man — an itinerant preacher!
But we are soon to learn that in whatever state of mind Alec appears, he remains a device that Hardy uses to continue harassing and besetting poor Tess. So this entire phase is really just a continuation of "The Woman Pays".
Some general thoughts about what has been taking place as we
complete Phase the Sixth --
It seems to me that even though he attributes much of Tess’s misfortune to a cruel
Fate, Hardy must have also been a deeply disillusioned man regarding the pernicious
nature and hypocritical behavior of the society in which he found himself
living:
- He points to the neighbors who
criticize Joan Durbeyfield for “harboring” Tess, an undesirable person who they
see as bringing disrepute on the village.
- He observes that far from the machines
serving the workers, it is the workers who must act in ways that serve the
needs of the machines.
- The laws are such that despite having lived all their lives in their humble
cottage (and used over half of Tess’s money to maintain it) when John dies, the
Durbeyfields have no right to occupy their home and are summarily turfed out.
- And of course, most irrationally, the entirely
blameless Tess is punished at every turn by the deliberate actions of people,
quite apart from any random misfortune.
While Fate may be pulling many strings, there’s an even more compelling theme at work: Injustice.
I wonder if Hardy’s own fate was to have suffered disillusionment, having lived long enough to see the darker side of the late 19th century. It seems to me that writers such as George Eliot, Charlotte Bronté and Charles Dickens, all of them born some 20 or so years earlier than Hardy and dying much sooner, were able to retain more optimism, even humor, permitting their protagonists to recover from the misfortunes that befell them and rise above injustice.
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