浅析《德伯家的苔丝》悲剧的社会成因

浅析《德伯家的苔丝》悲剧的社会成因

摘要《苔丝》是英国作家托马斯·哈代最著名的一部长篇小说。女主人公苔丝生于一个贫苦小贩家庭，父母要她到一个富老太婆家去走亲戚，结果她被少爷亚历克诱奸，后来她与牧师的儿子克莱尔相恋并订婚，在新婚之夜她把昔日的不幸向丈夫坦白，却没能得到原谅，两人分居，丈夫去了巴西。几年后，苔丝再次与亚历克相遇，后者纠缠她，这时候她因家境窘迫不得不与仇人同居，不久克莱尔从国外回来，向妻子表示悔恨自己以往的冷酷无情，在这种情况下，苔丝痛苦地觉得是亚历克·德伯使她第二次失去了克莱尔便愤怒地将他杀死。最后她被捕并被处以绞刑。

关键词：苔丝相恋绞刑

the social causes of tess’’s tragedy

abstract tess of the d’’urbervilles (1891) came into conflict with victorian morality. it explored the dark side of his family connections in berkshire. in the story the poor villager girl tess durbeyfield was seduced by the wealthy alec d’’urberville. she became pregnant but the child died in infancy. tess found a work as a dairymaid on a farm and fell in love with angel clare, a clergyman’’s son. they got married but when tess told angel about her past, he hypocritically deserted her. tess became alec’’s mistress.

angel returned from brazil, repenting his harshness, but founded her living with alec. tess killed alec in desperation, she was arrested and hanged.

keywords tess; fell in love; hanged;

i. introduction of tess of the d’’urbervilles

“tess of the d’’urbervilles”is thomas hardy’’s most famous novel. under hardy’’s pen, the heroine tess is created as an attractive and warm-hearted pure woman, who has the quality of endurance and self-sacrifice. tess has long been regarded as the most exceptional woman character in english literary history. however, the life of this pure woman is tragic. she is firstly seduced, then abandoned and finally driven to murder for which she is hanged. what is responsible for her tragic fate? what is the reason for a pure woman to become a murderer? we couldn’’t help thinking over these questions again and again. from the tragic story of tess’’short life, we can see in a deeper sense that it is the capitalist society of the time that has ruined her. living in a society overwhelmed by capitalist law, religion and state apparatus, tess, a poor peasant, inevitably leads a tragic life and finally goes to her collapse. this paper is trying

to make comments on the social causes of tess’’ traged ii. analysis of the cause of tess’’s tragedy

the destruction of english peasant caused by capitalism. the social environment made tess’’s tragedy inevitable. at the end of 19th century, capitalism prevailed in the whole england that made broad masses of peasant went bankrupt then they had to live in poverty and worried situation. it was the decisive force that had driven “tess” to tragedy doom. in the novel, there are many reasons of tess working in the field. she was exhausted with manual labor; she could hardly support her family. the self-supporting displaced and made poor. both alec and angel, they also made fun of tess. tess’’s physically was injured by alec d’’urberville, and mentally was affected by angel clare. alec and angel made tess’’s tragedy from bad to worse in different ways.

tess’’s tragedy was not only caused by external reason, but also the internal reason. tess herself was pure in heart and had a kind heart, and without life experience. unfortunately that tess met alec, who was a terrible man, so she could not escape from entice into unlawful sexual intercourse of alec. after the disgraced thing, tess left alec.