Why is Angel Clare more detestable than Alec Durberville?

[rubberglove]

Alec raped Tess did he not?

Yet I am interested that readers seem more enraged by Angel's self-righteousness and abandonment of Tess. Is this less forgivable than rape?

I suppose I took it as being Alec = obviously criminal, Angel = immensely damaging but would be regarded (at the time) as behaving understandably.

We were told when studying the book at school that it's not made completely clear whether she was raped or seduced. Either way Alec was a bad 'un. Angel was a hypocrite and all put out that she wasn't a virgin. I wouldn't go so far as to say that they're as bad as each other but she certainly wasn't lucky in her relationships. Or anything else really.

Ah I wasn't sure if it was rape or not. I have only just read this book for the first time and found it very moving

Fair point actually. Angel Clare makes me very angry indeed, more angry than Alec does, but why? Hmm...

Maybe it's because the reader so desperately wants Angel Clare to be the one who makes her happy, and it looks like he will for so long. Even his name makes him sound lovely. It's such a bitter, terrible shock when he reacts like that, whereas Alec we can see coming a mile off.

Or maybe it's because we see Alec-type characters around us today, but we don't share the same standards as Angel Clare and that's why we find what he does so revolting.

Hmmm... for me I think it's the first one. Not thought about this book for years, quite enjoyed that!

It's depressing isn't it that we weren't discussing it at school on the basis that Alec raped Tess when she was ASLEEP - how is that seduction?? I disliked Hardy for deciding that only if Tess were asleep could she definitely be without culpability in the act, but I guess that might have been the view at the time. And reading MN has taught me that it's still not clear cut to some people.

I don't think the rape/seduction question is that important really.

To us, it is, but to Tess, once she had lost her virginity it was a moot point. She lived with Alec for some time, because once she was damaged goods, she had no other choice.

Angel is judging her by society's (double) standard. We see this as wrong (as does Thomas Hardy, I think) but the Victorians accepted it.

I found his reaction when she 'confesses' quite chilling. I read that bit late into the night by torchlight with a racing pulse!

He seemed quite personality disordered. He loved an image of her and cut her off so coldly when she didn't live up to this image. I didn't think his love was real at the end either

I have started Jude the Obscure I enjoyed Tess so much

Oh God, not Jude. Brace yourself rubberglove.

My English teacher told us after Tess to leave it a few years before we read it. I ignored him and read it at 17 and I don't think I will read it again. It took me to pieces.

I just read Claire Tomalin's biography of Hardy. A lovely, lovely book. I'm planning to read Far from the Madding Crowd which I have never read, and may also try Return of the Native which apparently was Hardy's own favourite of his novels.

I only managed 1/3 of Jude, couldn't bear to carry on, but I know many people absolutely love it.

I really like Far from the Madding Crowd.

The idea of a woman just deciding to go it alone must have been quite revolutionary.

I have only read it, and Tess, so I think I will read some more, as well. It sounds like I might need to build myself up to Jude the Obscure?

Tess has got to be the most relentlessly miserable book I've ever read. Interesting though why Angel is so much more awful than Alec. Didn't Alec go all "good" and then went "bad" again when he met Tess again? Apparently it's because Tess is so irresistible. (Can't remember very well - read it a few years back.) It's the woman's fault. Does anyone remember some awful TV series where Sebastian Faulkes said Tess was somebody you (a man) did things to or something equally awful like that - I had to switch off the telly quickish before I started chucking things at it ...

Certainly need to brace yourself for Jude. I remember a friend who proudly said that Jude was set in Oxford you know. I don't think she understood the novel...

I thought Hardy's point was that Tess is in some way responsible for her own downfall?

If it is rape by Alec in the woods, then everything Tess gets is deeply, deeply unfair.

But the Aristotelian model of flawed hero/ heroine which Hardy bought into means that only if Tess is compkicit in some way can she achieve the status of tragic hero. Otherwise, it's not tragedy just bloody, bloody awful luck.

So, the key bit is after the sexual encounter in the woods, Tess says (something like, sorry, don't have the text to hand): "my eyes were dazed by you for a little".

People say the sex scene in The Chase is (a) rape or (b) ambiguous but I really think the novel is richer if it is read as a semi-consensual encounterr as it opens the door to the idea of a woman's enjoyment of sex.

By the way, I don't think a 21st century understanding if consent can be applied. Obviously, a sleeping woman cannot give consent, that is clear legally and morally, but that would not have been Hardy's perspective.

Jude finished Hardy for me. I loved every devastating moment of it when I was 17 but couldn't bear to put myself through another hardy novel afterwards.

Not wishing to have spoilers or anything, but Jude is a bit final ...

Re: Jude again. I'm not sure I'll ever read it again, but I'm glad I read it, and it is a great novel. Nothing like it. Someone more knowledgeable may correct me: it's Hardy's last novel, isn't it? Inspired book-burning and banning from bishops and such like, didn't it? What a great book and a great man! But a bit final, really.

It was his last novel, yes, but he turned to writing poetry after that. So there's thirty years worth of work there.

A Clare was so complacent. Which is always unforgivable except in very small children and ducks.