In her seminal piece of feminist criticism, French existentialist author Simone de Beauvoir lays out her theory of a universal female experience that transcends different historical periods and societies 1. De Beauvoir argues that women share various experiences regardless of what time or place they live in because of an action she calls “othering” (1218). Othering is a process wherein a dominant group defines the existence and behaviors of a minority or marginalized group (1218). These stereotypes eventually become knit into the fabric of a culture, making up the myths that culture uses to guide moral expectations and social behaviors. In the case of women, throughout history, they have been othered by men (1214–19). Men, particularly male authors, have so othered women that society now has mythic, cultural stereotypes that all women from their youth and throughout their adulthood are expected to heed (1214–21). From a Western literary perspective, these stereotypes are found in Greek and Roman mythology and Christianity. From the Greco-Roman myths, women are labeled as sirens, harpies, fates, Medusas, or “muses” (1215, 1218–21). From Christianity, particularly Catholicism, women are expected to follow the example of the Virgin Mary. Therefore, within a Christian mythic framework, women who do not follow standard mores of female sexual behavior are going against the myth of Marian virginity.
Simone de Beauvoir argues that women always experience their gender and sexuality through the various cultural identities and expectations set forth for them (1218–21). For de Beauvoir, whether a woman follows the positive myths—whether she is virginal like Mary or inspirational like a muse—or whether she rebels against this system, it does not matter. A woman will always be defined and publicly labeled as the mythical representation she most closely resembles (1218). There are numerous women in literature who are “othered” by their culture or society, but perhaps none of these characters experience “othering” as much as Tess Durbeyfield in Thomas Hardy’s Tess of the D’Urbervilles 2. Hardy’s heroine is constantly mythicized and objectified by the men in her life. Tess is particularly “othered” by her husband, Angel Clare. From the very beginning of their relationship, Clare values Tess because she appears to him as a simple, beautiful, and virginal farm girl (120). When Clare learns that Tess was raped, his view of her immediately falls because she no longer reaches the mythical image Clare had of her in his mind. Tess Durbeyfield experiences much of the societal and personal “othering” described by de Beauvoir and her story shows its detrimental effects.
Before Tess meets her husband, Angel, she is othered by her relative Alec D’Urberville (40). Tess learns that she comes from an illustrious family, the D’Urbervilles, from her father who has just learned the news himself from a local genealogist-clergymen, Parson Tringham (7–8). Tess’s father, a lazy, wine bibber, immediately celebrates the news of his heritage, and begins to view work as “beneath him” (10–18). This forces Tess, the eldest daughter, to financially support her family. Tess sets out to deliver her family’s beehives to the local market with her little brother, Abraham (29–30). Their horse is spooked and killed, and Tess—who was driving the cart—feels responsible (33–35). Tess’s family learns that they have a D’Urberville relative in the area, and her parents encourage Tess to go and ask this relative for help (35–40). Tess goes to the D’Urberville residence to ask for financial assistance, and she is met by Alec D’Urberville (38–40). From the first moment Alec meets Tess, he lusts after her and tries to seduce her (40–44).
Hardy’s language throughout his novel both implicitly and explicitly shows how Tess is objectified. Upon first meeting Alec, he looks and speaks in a way that “[makes Tess] blush a little” and she wants to “abridge her visit as much as possible” (41). Hardy uses naturalistic imagery to create a highly sexual environment. When Tess first arrives at the D’Urberville estate, the wooded property is described as “one of the few remaining woodlands in England of undoubted primaeval sate, wherein Druidical mistletoe was still found on aged oaks, and enormous yew-trees, not planted by the hand of man” (38). The house is depicted as “bright, thriving, and well kept,” and the trees are called “Chapels-of-Ease” (38). This imagery reflects how Alec perceives Tess. Upon their first meeting, Alec calls Tess his “big Beauty,” which according to the endnote for this portion of the text is a euphemism referring to Tess’s breast (409n12). Tess’s physical beauty works against her throughout the novel, as it makes her the target of dangerous or cruel men (409n12). Tess is repeatedly set against her environment to emphasize her beauty, with Angel later viewing Tess as a “country maiden,” or a fairy (120). Hardy’s narrator tells his readers that Tess “was a sort of celestial person, who owed her being to poetry—one of those classical divinities Clare was accustomed to talk to her about when they took their walks together” (212). From these descriptions and incidents in the novel, it is clear that neither Alec nor Angel sees Tess as she truly is: a mortal woman, deserving of respect.
Alec and Angel other or objectify Tess in different ways. To Alec, Tess is prey. Alec is presented as a menacing character from the first. Hardy uses adjectives such as “swarthy,” “singular force,” and “bold rolling eye” to describe Alec’s person (40). These physical descriptions reflect Alec’s personality traits. Alec tries several times to force himself on Tess, until he finally succeeds (69–82). The language Hardy uses to describe Tess’s rape feels mythical, and matches a sentiment expressed by de Beauvoir, “In every period, in every case, society and the individual decide according to their needs [i.e., whatever helps solidify the myth of the other’s existence]. Very often they project the values and institutions to which they adhere onto the myth they adopt” (1215). Hardy’s description of Tess’s rape, reads in part as follows:
Why it was that upon this beautiful feminine tissue, sensitive as gossamer, and practically blank as snow as yet, there should have been traced such a coarse pattern as it was doomed to receive; why so often the coarse appropriates the finer thus, many thousand years of analytical philosophy have failed to explain to our sense of order. One may, indeed admit the possibility of a retribution lurking in the catastrophe. Doubtless some of Tess D’Urberville’s mailed ancestors rollicking home from a fray had dealt the same wrong even more ruthlessly upon peasant girls of their time. But though to visit the sins of the fathers upon the children may be a morality good enough for divinities, it is scorned by average human nature; and it therefore does not mend the matter (74).
This statement reflects the myth that Hardy adapts throughout his novel: the ancient concept of fate revitalized by nineteenth century naturalism. While Hardy does not advocate for Tess’s almost ceaseless mistreatment, he does not offer any solution to the greater societal mistreatment of women his novel addresses (74, 396–98). Instead, as the above statement reveals, Hardy believes that evil is the result of fate and cannot be withstood.
One of the logical consequences of this myth is that Tess falls prey to another controlling man. Angel Clare has the appearance of goodness, but he turns out to be a cruel man. Where Alec was physically harmful, Angel emotionally wounds Tess. Angel and Tess meet at a dairy farm Tess has come to in search of employment (86–120). Angel is at the dairy farm to learn about farming life and methods, with an aim of becoming a professional farmer himself (113–21). Angel is one of three sons born to a devout, traditional clergyman and his wife in a small, rural village (113–17). Angel, though academic, was not sent to Oxford because from a young age he rejected his father’s faith, and as a result his pious father did not feel comfortable funding Angel’s education (114–18). Angel at first does not notice Tess, but eventually he does and immediately, subconsciously, turns Tess into a mythic figure. Hardy describes Angel’s frame of mind toward Tess as follows, “But the circumstance was sufficient to lead him to select Tess in preference to the other pretty milkmaids when he wished to contemplate contiguous womankind” (120). While Alec’s view of Tess is akin to the Greco-Roman myths in his violence toward her, Angel’s view of Tess is more in line with the Christian, virginal ideal of womanhood. Indeed, Hardy strongly emphasizes Tess’s sexual status throughout the text. The full title of the novel is: Tess of the D’Urbervilles: A Pure Woman (4). The first “Phase” of Tess is entitled “The Maiden,” while the second is “Maiden no More” (6). Using de Beauvoir’s reasoning in The Second Sex, it is clear that Angel’s absolute standard for Tess to be a virgin is the result of his prejudice and ignorance (1216). De Beauvoir explains that men other women because to men they are “a mystery” (1216). Instead of trying to understand a woman as an individual human being, many men categorize and label women using societal, mythical, and literary archetypes (1214–16). De Beauvoir states, “Assimilating [woman] with Nature is simply a prejudice,” presumably because “Nature” is often presented as a feminine being (i.e., “Mother Earth”) and because women can sustain the life of a child in their bodies (1216–20). Additionally, when a man lifts women up to a mythical status, he “flatters his laziness and vanity at the same time. An infatuated heart thus avoids many disappointments” (1216). Angel does not try to understand who Tess is as a person and is thus inevitably disappointed when reality does not match his lofty expectations. Every time Tess endeavors to tell Angel about how she was raped, had a child, and that the child died, Angel dismisses her and laughs off the idea of Tess’s having a sexual past (121–52). Tess is unable to tell Angel about her rape due to her own fear and Angel’s continual dismissal of her desire to discuss past sexual encounters (125–53). When Tess is finally able to reveal her past assault by Alec on her wedding night, she falls in Angel’s mind because she no longer meets his mythical standard (227–33). In the immediate aftermath of Tess’s confession, Angel and Tess have a lengthy dialogue about how Tess’s past will impact the course of their relationship (227–46). The extent of Angel’s othering of Tess is seen in the following lines:
Angel: “I repeat, the woman I have been loving is not you.”
Tess: “But who?”
Angel: “Another woman in your shape” (229).
Angel feels that he can no longer love Tess because the mystery of her mythical identity is now gone (1216–17). Once Angel understands Tess’s true identity, he is shocked and mortified because he sees what de Beauvoir describes as “emptiness” (1218). De Beauvoir explains what happens when the myth is displaced by the reality, “Kept at the margins of the world, woman cannot be defined objectively through this world, and her mystery conceals nothing but emptiness” (1218). Hardy’s narrator, while explaining Angel’s and Tess’s new dynamic, strongly echoes de Beauvoir’s above statement:
The cruelty of fooled honesty is often great after enlightenment, and it was mighty in Clare now. The outdoor air had apparently taken away from him all tendency to act on impulse; she knew that he saw her without irradiation—in all her bareness. Time was chanting his satiric psalm at Tess then. (231)
De Beauvoir clarifies that “othering” does not occur in one direction, that women also “other” men (1217). Tess certainly does “other” Angel, but for Tess, no façade ever truly falls away. She never sees Angel for what he is: a fallen human like herself. In De Beauvoir’s words, “The truth is that mystery is reciprocal” (1217). Tess possesses a naïveté when it comes to understanding men and their sexual desires, as a result her “othering” comes from a place of innocence and pain. Tess “others” Angel in that she worships him (214). The narrator of the story states, “She tried to pray to God, but it was her husband who really had her supplication. Her idolatry of this man was such” (214). Angel teaches Tess various things, and he becomes a tutor and a god to Tess as a result (214, 394). Tess’s worship of Angel also comes from a place of pain. She has never had a positive romantic relationship, and when she meets and falls in love with Angel, Tess views him as the best she could ever possibly have (227–46). Tess views herself as unworthy the entirety of her relationship with Angel, even when it is revealed that Angel had an affair (227–46, 394). Angel’s hypocrisy in refusing to forgive Tess is all the more palpable because Angel too could not bring himself to confess his past sexual encounter until their wedding night (216–27). What makes Angel’s hypocrisy worse is that he was not raped; he had a consensual affair with a woman (222–27). While Angel is confessing to Tess, she has hope that Angel will forgive her because he also felt unworthy of her love and scared to tell her about his past (224–25). Tess has a moment where she almost views herself as equal to Angel, but unfortunately that equality is taken away, as Angel refuses to forgive her (224–33). Tess’s original view of Angel as a god—as an angelic being—stays constant, even when he leaves for South America without Tess (254–65). The myth of Angel never breaks, but the myth of Tess is shattered.
The ending of Tess affirms Hardy’s belief in fate. Angel finally realizes that he has been a terrible husband to Tess, and his sexual passion for her wins over his pride (241, 338–44). An earlier description of Angel partially explains this change in attitude:
Within the remote depths of his constitution, so gentle and affectionate as he was in general, there lay hidden a hard logical deposit, like a vein of metal in a soft loam, which turned the edge of everything that attempted to traverse it. It had blocked his way with the Church; it blocked his way with Tess. Moreover, his affection itself was less fire than radiance, and, with regard to the other sex, when he ceased to believe he ceased to follow (241).
This statement displays Angel’s disregard for the feminine in general. The Church is often personified as feminine, and once she failed to meet his ideals, Angel no longer “followed” Mother Church (241). Hardy never makes it clear why Angel comes back to Tess. It would seem that Angel comes back because the “hard logical deposit” in him finally realizes being a farmer in South America will not work out and that his former beliefs about Tess’s behavior were too influenced by society (338–44). On top of these reasons, it appears that Angel comes back to Tess because he is “fated” to return to her (389–98). This concept fits both with Hardy’s emphasis on the role of fate and the pagan images that pervade the novel (54, 74, 394–98). Though Angel may appear changed when he returns to England in search of Tess, the text does not support this idea. The story ends with Angel beginning a relationship with Tess’s little sister, Liza-Lu (396–98). Tess, still believing Angel to be the best, most worthy man, encourages Angel to marry Liza-Lu, telling him:
“[Liza-Lu] is so gentle and sweet, and she is growing so beautiful. O I could share you with her willingly when we are spirits! If you would train her and teach her, Angel, and bring her up for your own self! [She] has all the best of me without the bad of me; and if she were to become yours it would almost seem as if death has not divided us” (394).
Again, in keeping with the fatalistic and pagan elements of the story, Angel is set to repeat the cycle of “othering” women because, according to Hardy, this process cannot be avoided (74, 394–98). The structure of Tess of the D’Urbervilles can be compared to that of the ouroboros, the snake eating its own tail, a common image that communicates the pagan belief in the eternal return. As de Beauvoir states, “There is no discriminating between the imaginary and the real except through behavior” (1218). This is why the myth of Tess fails for Angel, and this is why the myth of the virginal, innocent woman will be reaffirmed by Liza-Lu until she inevitably does not meet Angel’s subjective and changing standards (394–98).
The titular heroine of Tess of the D’Urbervilles is constantly othered and mythicized by the men in her life. Tess cannot overcome the ideals set out for her by the men in her society because her physical reality as a victim of rape is in direct contrast to how Angel Clare wishes to view Tess. Tess’s experiences mirror the cultural myths surrounding women that Simone de Beauvoir describes in her book The Second Sex. De Beauvoir states that “myths are explained in large part by the use man makes of them. The myth of the woman is a luxury. It can appear only if man escapes the imperious influence of his needs” (1219). Angel believes he needs the mythical version of Tess to help him understand her because she is different from him. One of de Beauvoir’s great contributions to the field of criticism is explaining how human beings respond to “difference” (1214–21). Because people are often afraid of whatever is not like themselves, men and women dangerously create myths surrounding the opposite sex, instead of understanding the true identities of the individuals they face (1214–17). Tess’s story ends in death because she has been so severely “othered” by the men in her life (389–98). Hardy offers no hope of a solution to the cultural problems he discusses in Tess. For de Beauvoir, the answer to “othering” is demystification and liberation from cultural myths (1214–21). De Beauvoir advocates for a free and equal dialogue between the sexes so men and woman can truly understand the “other” (1217).
