The Importance Of Alienation In Tess Of The D Urbervilles

“A person banished from his or her native land.” This is the definition of exile, but it also goes to explain what happened to Teresa d’Urberville, also known as Tess, the main character of Tess of the d’Urbervilles, a book written by Thomas Hardy. Although this is usually not of the choice of the person at hand, but in this particular book that’s not the case. The book is a tale about a girl named Tess, who is pressured by her family to choose between working or marrying a man who was believed to be a rich distant family relative, Alec Stoke-d’Urberville after her work horse dies from what she believes to be her fault.”’Tis all my doing--all mine! (Hardy 29)” Tess chooses to go for the opportunity to marry Alec, which is the beginning of …show more content…
That experience was when she willingly went to the dairy farm. Her mother’s opinion and viewpoints of Tess and how her life should be was the major cause of the alienation. Since the d’Urberville family had heard of the rich distant relative, Alec Stoke-d’Urberville, Joan, Tess’ mother had wanted Tess to become the wife of Alec. Although the mother had the thought that Tess would have a better life if she married into money, she had her own selfish reasons for this as well. Her father believed that if Tess married into a more improved family member than it would help to redeem the part of the family name they were all responsible for at the same time.“I’m head of the noblest branch o’ the family, and I ought to live up to it (Hardy 31). Despite the redemption of the family name, Joan also was thinking that if Tess had money, then so did the rest of the family. However the dairy farm exilation was a completely different alienation situation. While Tess was away some things occurred with Alec that were not of the highest quality, so Tess returned home. Due to the situation Tess’ family was in when she returned home she decided it was best to take an opportunity that was offered to her.That opportunity was to go work on a dairy farm. Little did she know when acting upon this opportunity that she would meet the man who would wed …show more content…
The alienations occurred while she went to find Alec Stoke-d’Urberville and when she went to work on the dairy farm for Angel Clare. The enrichment events that Tess experienced mainly occurred while at the dairy farm with some linking back to Alec as well. Through the experiences Tess had, Hardy was able to illuminate his work as a whole by widening the aspects of the book both internally, such as the suspense scenes, and externally, through the audience expansion. Although Hardy made Tess’ choices to leave home all in her control, he set it up in a way where Tess of the d’Urbervilles could be relevant and entertaining to many variations of