Bitterness, Weariness and Impotence in Hardys Tess of the dUbervilles

Bitterness, Weariness and impotence in doubting doubting Thomas venturouss Tess of the dUbervillesIn his novel Tess of the dUbervilles, as well as much of his poetry, Thomas Hardy expresses his dissatisfaction, weariness, and an overwhelming sense of injustice at the cruelty of our universal fate- disappointment and disillusionment. Hardy argues that the hopes and desires of Men are cruelly thwarted by a potent combination of powerful Nature, fate, unforeseen accidents and disasters, and tragic flaws (Mickelson 32). Although Tess, the heroine of the novel, is fully realized with physical, emotional, and mental attributes, grasping urgently to be her own master, she is nevertheless overpowered, becoming a victim of circumstance, nature, and favorable hypocrisy. Likewise, Hardys sulky realities bleed into and saturate his poems. First, Hardy personifies Nature as a main character in the novel. Instead of allowing the influence of Nature to envision only in weather and seas onal changes, allowing the reader to sense the plot, Hardy creates a Nature who is not the typical capricious but inappropriate goddess. Instead, she is terrifyingly responsible for influencing and overpowering man. Hardys Nature is not only essential for the subsistence of the completed farming countryside, but the waxing and waning cycles - in the weather, time of day, and season, - which calculate to influence the actions of the characters. Every disastrous occurrence seems preordained by the mood of Nature. in the beginning Prince, the Durbeyfield horse, is killed, Tess brother wonders at The strange shapes assumed by the various dark objects against the sky of this tree that looked like a raging tiger springing from a lair of that which resembled a giants head (p. 24... ...rocess and the Case of Tess and Jude. New Perspectives on Thomas Hardy. Ed. Charles P. C. Pettit New York St. Martins, 1994. 16-40. Chapman, Raymond. Good Faith, You do Talk Some Features of Hardys Dialogue. New Perspectives on Thomas Hardy. Ed. Charles P. C. Pettit. New York St. Martins, 1994. 117-36. Hall, Donald. Afterward. Tess of the dUrbervilles. By Thomas Hardy. New York Signet, 1980. 417-27. Hardy, Thomas. Tess of the dUrbervilles. 1891. New York Signet Classic, 1980. Jacobus, Mary. Tess the Making of a Pure Woman. Thomas Hardys Tess of the DUrbervilles. Ed. Harold Bloom. New York Chelsea House Publications, 1987. 45-60. Mickelson, Anne Z. Thomas Hardys Women and Men The pound of Nature. Metuchen Scarecrow, 1976. Weissman, Judith. Half Savage and Hardy and Free. Middletown Wesleyan UP, 1987.