From the 19th century till today, Tomas and his novels have been the great topics in the critical literature for a very long time. All kinds of critics interpret this great novel Tess of the D’urbervilles from all kinds of perspectives. For example, Professor Webster, who was the first one to discuss the writer’s intention in describing Tess, thought Tess of the D’urbervilles is contribute to Tomas Hardy’s thought against man’s inhumanity. Of course there are many different points of views, among which the most important is Kettle. He thinks the subject of Tess of the D’urbervilles is the destruction of the peasantry at that time in England rather than the tragedy of a poor young woman. Chinese people also like the novel and have their own ideas. Prof. Zhang Zhongzai is one of them, and he had published his own books on Tomas Hardy’s novel.
This part is an introduction to Tomas Hardy and Tess of the D’urbervilles. The writer of the novel is known home and abroad. Except this, the author has some more important introduction to him, for it will be helpful to read his masterpieces better. Then, the author will introduce his novel.
II. The Literature Review to Tomas Hardy and Tess of the D’urbervilles
2.1 A Review to Thomas Hardy
The writer Tomas Hardy is the first novelist in England to describe the countryside in his works in a serious manner. The great writer 源Z自)751+文`论,文]网[www.751com.cn was born In June 2,1840 in the West land, so he belongs to the age of Victoria. He was a son of a stonecutter, he was treated very strict in education by his parents. When he was young, he learned the theology, but with the time flies, he became a young man and realized that what he loved that was literature. When he was sixteen years old, he left school and turn to be a apprentice for a architect. In 1862, he began literature creative in London University, at the same time, he also did the part time job to earn money to pay for his literary dream tutor. At the beginning, he wrote many poets, unfortunately , he didn’t have the chance to publish them in 1871. After three years, he wrote his forth novel Farm from Madding Crowd, from then on, he decided to pay all his attention to his novel creation. During his long span of life, he created 20 long novels. There are many famous novels, Tess of the D’urbervilles(1891) is one of them. Tomas Hardy’s novels reflected the dark world at his time, which showed the great changes of the society, such as economy, moral, political and tradition. He was a sympathetic writer which showed in his works, so that he could write the remarkable tragic masterpieces for the poor men.
2.2 A Review to Tess of the D’urbervilles
Tess of the D’urbervilles described a poor and kind young woman’s life after losing her virginity. In this novel, we all know that Tess was a understanding considerate girl and a responsible daughter. Considering that her parents couldn’t take care of the family very well, she took the responsible for their lives. Life was so hard for her, things became worse after their physical prop, the horse, was killed on the way to carry loads. Then their whole family run out of energy and everybody worried about their latter lives. Kind Tess followed her mother’s opinion and went to work for D’urbervilles family. It seemed that the God never took care of the poor girl, the rich son of the family Alec rapped her and she deeply loved man Clare abandoned her. Tess left the place she worked with dignity with the baby in her body to her family. Unfortunately her baby died young. She found a labor job with the great pain of loosing her son at a farm of Talbothays. What surprised her is that the gentle man Angle Clare loved her and they got married. When Clare knew what happened to Tess and Alec, he left her cruelly, lefting her crying helplessly on their wedding night. After Tess’s father died, she had to depended on Alec who was her blasting fuse of her tragedy. When Tess found Clare looking back for her and he still loved her, Tess killed Alec with anger. Then Tess and Clare spent six happy days together.At the same time, she was ready to take the punishment.