Tess Loss Of Innocence

At the end of the second phase, Tess has the opportunity to work on a dairy farm as a milkmaid for a family friend. One might think that this favorable circumstance is a second chance for Tess to reinvent herself and forget about the past. I believe that this opportunity presents itself as Tess’s quest for innocence. As stated on pg. 117, “Was once lost always lost really true of chastity? she would ask herself. She might prove it false if she could veil bygones. The recuperative power which pervaded organic nature was surely not denied to maidenhood alone.” Tess believes that there is hope in retrieving her innocence despite the fact that it has been taken away from her. I think that after the events that have transpired throughout the two phases, it is hard to imagine Tess truly gaining innocence again. Although she can remove herself from where it all started, eventually the past will catch up with her.
By looking at the next two phases we have read (phase …show more content…
Does she actually have a chance of restoring her innocence or is it lost for good? Although I do not have an exact answer for this yet, I believe that Tess could still be considered pure and innocent. From what I’ve read so far, Hardy establishes Tess’s purity by omission. He never explains or provides details of the worst things that have happened to Tess; this is left only to the reader’s imagination. Hardy leaves out the details of Alec’s violation of Tess, her living situation after the violation, and Tess’s confessions to Angel. When confessing to Angel, the only thing the reader gets is a simple introduction: “and pressing her forehead against his temple she entered on her story of her acquaintance with Alec d’Urberville and its results…” (231). The readers never get a full account of all the bad events that have happened to Tess; perhaps that is a way of securing and maintaining her