To wish Tess had just gone with Angel

[WallaceinAnderland]

This is probably a popular and well discussed opinion but it just makes me so sad every time. She didn't have to kill Alec, she was legally married to Angel. She could have just walked away.

Tess probably didn’t think she deserved Angel. He basically told her Alec was her rightful husband. Also Hardy wanted us traumatised.

One of my favourite novels and as mentioned it’s so bleak it really shouldn’t be!

I like books where there is at least one character you like. Or even have one feature that you can like. Tess is a dreadful wimp, even when stuff is going well for her she’s still a wet blanket.

Because women in her situation, with a lifetime of trauma under her belt, lose the ability to make rational choices.

She’s written that way because that’s how people are.

Devastating.

You could equally ask why Clare was such a hypocrite, and why Alec was so destructive.

This was the moment Tess reclaimed her agency. But I’m worried about her little sister…

Formative, bleak book!

I recall our anger discussing all this in English at school. V good teacher. The disappointment that ‘Angel’ was another bad guy. Some of the class were angry with Hardy for killing Tess rather than finding her a way out, like you suggest@WallaceinAnderland , also saying that his writing of her was sexist with her being passive etc Others disagreed and thought it showed she/women were trapped The boys found it difficult because of all the awful men. Powerful stuff!

I couldn’t face much other bleak Hardy so went for the relatively upbeat ones - Far from the Madding Crowd, where at least Gabriel lived up to the name!

Jude the Obscure damn near broke my heart!

I'm racking my brains to think of a single decent man in "Tess". Angel is indeed a dickhead, Alec is just plain nasty and Tess's dad is a feckless twat.

I was a bit more forgiving of Angel as I got older. Obviously he was wrong to judge Tess for being raped but he was a product of his time as much as she was; it was the standard reaction of the time and he did come to realise how wrong it was. (I think that's one thing that made the book controversial at the time.) Nowadays Tess would have all sorts of support and outlets available to her but back then, perhaps killing the guy whose fault it all was was all she had. Which obviously doesn't make it OK! But you can see how women would have been driven to madness.

But for most women, life was pretty tough then and included a lot of sadness.

Different if they came from rich families, admittedly, but even rich women didn't have much agency or control over what happened to them.

I love Hardy, and I think he wrote women well.

why? It's a novel. Tess of The d'Urbervilles.

A great read. I might re-visit.

@Amelie2025 if you are so particular about where something is posted why would you suggest a question about a classic novel is posted in the tv section?

Can you provide us with a list of topics that are acceptable for AIBU, please?

Same question to @Amelie2025 as well.

I doubt @Amelie2025 will be back.
Angel got together with Liza-Lu, which is also a bit off. Though it was what Tess wanted. I wonder how that worked out.

Because we are too menny

Also I ‘what are they teaching in schools these days?’ If people think Thomas Hardy was a TV scriptwriter.

FWIW Angel was far worse than Alec. Alec was many things but not a hypocrite.

It was not so unusual back then; it was seen as a way of securing her future. There's a Bible passage that says if a man dies then if he has an unmarried brother, that brother should marry the widow. Obviously very off today, but at the time the reasoning was that a woman must be married for security and this way she and her children will be provided for and protected, and it's all kept within the family.

There was a scene in Game of Thrones where the Dothraki were pillaging and Daenerys (or however it's spelled!) made them take women as wives rather than slaves. Nobody needs me to explain what's wrong with that, but in that culture, which took some inspiration from real life history, the reasoning was that a wife has rights that a slave hasn't; you can discard a slave and do what you like with them, but you need to take responsibility for a wife and provide for her... and she can divorce you!

We studied it at school too and Far from the madding crowd. Tess is so depressing, no one other than the teacher liked it, and the other 4 English classes didn’t do Thomas Hardy, which made it worse!

Oh I thought you meant angel from buffy the vampire slayer or angel from angel...wasn't there someone called Tess or was that from another supernatural teen series?

(Still think buffy is the best program ever made!!)

Doubt she's going to read it now that the plot's been given away!

Yes, sorry, did that far too early in the morning. The clue was Wolf , Hilary Mantel, and nobody got it. Incredible.

Yes, I read it that way too

As I got further and further into the book that sickening desperation got worse and my anger at Angel increased.
Not a pleasant read for a 15yo.
Glad she didn’t stay with him.

Unbelievable!

Yes, much better to be hanged. I think the subtitle - A Pure Woman - goes a long way to explaining Tess. Hardy was telling the misogynist Victorians that purity and virginity weren’t synonymous.

He was less liberal about consensual sex, though. Poor Lucetta (MoC).