The dissertation is based on Hardy's representation of Victorian working-class women's experience, exemplified by the heroine of Tess of the D'Urbervilles (1891), in the radically gendered nineteenth-century society. Physical mobility as metaphor and metonymy in the novel stands for the transgression and subversion of patriarchal influence and is revealed as having a complex significance in relation to gender distinction. Hardy subverts Victorian norms of femininity through Tess's movements from one physical space to another in her struggle for freedom and autonomy. However, Hardy's inability to transcend completely the conventions of his society is apparent in the way Tess is literally destroyed in her quest for autonomy, respect and contentment. A study of the novel reveals Tess as a victim of the wearing and destructive impact of social and economic realities that Hardy does not adequately questioned. Finally, the novel follows the conventional realist pattern where the transgressive heroine is punished in the end. / English Studies / M.A. (English)

M.A. (English) / Please refer to full text to view abstract

A commonplace among Hardy critics is that as a young man Hardy lost his Christian faith and entered a serious religious disillusionment. The mainstream of Hardy criticism has followed the general consensus that Hardy suffered keenly as a result of this experience and looked back on Christianity with poignant nostalgia. If his view is not purely nostalgic, traditional criticism has insisted, then it seems at worst only ambivalent. The purpose of this dissertation is to argue that Hardy's attitude toward Christianity as revealed in his novels is not only not ambiguous, but, as a matter of fact, is specifically anti-Christian, often to the point of vehemence; that his treatment of various components of Christianity in his novels is aggressively anti-Christian; and that the feeling is so pronounced that the novels may be read as anti-Christian propagandistic tracts. This dissertation evaluates Hardy's cynical view of and attack on Christianity by examining his treatment of its symbols, such as its architecture, and its practitioners, both clergy and laity. Furthermore, since Hardy's attitude is shown not only in specific comments and particular situations but also in general tone, attention is directed toward the pervasive irony with which Hardy regards the entire panoply of Christianity. Although a few short stories and poems considered particularly relevant receive passing attention, this study is restricted primarily to a consideration of Hardy's fourteen novels. Moreover, this study notes the lack of continuity of development or logical intensification of Hardy's attitude toward Christianity during the twenty-four years spanning the time between the publication of his first novel, Desperate Remedies, in 1871 and the publication of his last novel, Jude the Obscure, in 1895.

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In Thomas Hardy's Tess of the d'Urbervilles a relationship exists between the symbolical sacrifice of Tess at Stonehenge and her association with fertility, ritual, and mythic cycles of seasonal death and rebirth. Because Hardy associates Tess with fertility, reproductive power, and seasonal change, she personifies nature and closely resembles the earth mother goddess Demeter. Ritual is evident in her participation in the May-Day club revel, in her intended suicide under the mistletoe, and in her manner of killing Alec d1Urberville. Myth cycle culminates with a fertility ritual in the powerful sacrificial incident at Stonehenge, for, although Tess physically dies at Wintoncester, she symbolically dies at Stonehenge. Following her execution, the significance of her symbolic death at Stonehenge becomes apparent in her rebirth in 'Liza-Lu, In the Demeter-Persephone myth, two anthropomorphic entities, the mother and the maiden, enact the single phenomenon of organic nature--the principle of life seen in the seasonal growth of vegetation. Tess, then, as mother symbolizes the end of the old year's crops, while 'Liza-Lu as maiden signifies the fructification of Tess's seed in the burgeoning fertility of the new year. By being reborn in 'Liza-Lu, Tess thus completes the mythic pattern of seasonal changes.

This paper explores and interrogates late Victorian anxieties concerning the issues of masculinity and labor, taking Thomas Hardy’s Jude the Obscure as a key text in this discourse. I argue that Hardy, drawing upon his own experiences, offers a meditation on the differing Victorian modes of masculinity outlined and embodied in the thought of John Henry Newman and Thomas Carlyle, and in doing so, constructs a dialectical tension between already outmoded, yet remarkably persistent, answers to the questions and pressures of modernity. Through the use of one of the text’s central images—that of Christminster and its accompanying Gothic architecture—Hardy creates an opposition between an idealized intellectual labor and the earthy reality of manual labor. Both forms—figured in either the heroic and organic terms of Carlyle or the reserved, tradition-bound reaction of Newman—represent the ideal that allows Jude to live, but also the force that leads to his death. Therefore, in the clash between the ideal and real, the dialectic fails to deliver a possible synthesis, and instead spirals restlessly in the darkened gaps of self-negation. At the same time, because the specter of a crude social and biological Darwinism consciously haunts the edges of the story, the dialectic never stops demanding a synthesis if Jude is to discover the grounding for a fully integrated identity or ethics. The central question for Hardy thus becomes one of form: For a modern masculine subjectivity to take hold, external social forms must have a connective vitality with interior dispositions, a proposition that Hardy views as a near impossibility. / text

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This study examines the forces which shaped the main character--Tess Durbeyfield--in Hardy's novel in terms of the effects which her alcoholic family had upon her mental and emotional potential and which ultimately become the determining factors in her self-destruction. Using the elements and patterns set forth in the literature regarding the dynamics of the alcoholic family, I attempt to show that Hardy's novel may best be understood as the story of a woman whose life and destiny are controlled by the consequences of her father's alcoholism. This interpretation seems to account best for many elements of the novel, such as Tess's destruction, and provides a rich appreciation of Hardy's technique and vision.

L’unitarienne Elizabeth Gaskell rejetait les doctrines anglicanes qui aliéneraient Thomas Hardy de sa religion. Elle était aussi championne de plusieurs penseurs qui exerceraient une forte influence sur les convictions d'Hardy. La continuité de la religion de Gaskell avec la vision du monde d'Hardy est évidente dans leurs écritures personnelles et aussi dans leurs romans. L'authenticité de voix que tant Gaskell que Hardy donnent aux caractères marginalisés, et spécialement aux femmes, provient aussi de leurs valeurs chrétiennes communes. Les convictions religieuses des deux auteurs et l'influence de la religion sur leurs travaux ont été abondamment étudiées, mais une comparaison entre elles doit encore être entreprise. Après avoir examiné les liens entre la foi de Gaskell et les convictions d'Hardy, je compare les attitudes des deux auteurs envers la classe dans North and South et The Woodlanders et leurs sympathies envers la femme tombée dans Ruth et Tess of the d’Urbervilles. / As a progressive Unitarian, Elizabeth Gaskell rejected the Anglican doctrines that would later alienate Thomas Hardy from his religion. She also championed many of the thinkers who would exert a strong influence on Hardy’s beliefs. The connection between Gaskell’s religion and Hardy’s worldview is evident in their personal writings and in their novels. The authenticity of voice that both Gaskell and Hardy give to marginalized characters, specifically to women, also springs from their common Christian-based values. Both authors’ religious convictions and the influence of religion on their works have been extensively studied, but a comparison between them has yet to be undertaken. After examining the links between Gaskell’s Unitarianism and Hardy’s beliefs, I compare the two authors’ attitudes towards class in North and South and The Woodlanders and their sympathies with the fallen woman as expressed in Ruth and Tess of the d’Urbervilles to demonstrate their intellectual and artistic affinities.

The purpose of this study is to demonstrate that the concept of a godless universe governed by a consciousless and conscienceless Immanent Will in Hardy's poetry is an ineluctable outcome, given the expanded scientific knowledge of the nineteenth century, of the pantheistic views of the English Romantic poets. The purpose is accomplished by tracing characteristically Romantic attitudes through the representative poetry of the early Victorian period and in Hardy's poetry. The first chapter is a brief introduction. Chapter II surveys major Romantic themes, illustrating them in Wordsworth's poetry. Chapter III treats the decline of the Romantic vision in the poetry of Tennyson and Arnold. Hardy's views and the Victorian poets' influence are the subject of Chapter IV. Chapter V demonstrates Wordsworth's influence on Hardy in several areas.