Critical Essays on Thomas Hardy's "Tess of the D'Urbervilles"

The three critical receptions that I will be looking at for this blog in regards to Thomas Hardy’s Tess of the D’Urbervilles are “From The Illustrated London News (January 9, 1892)” by Clementina Black, “From The Saturday Review (January 16, 1892)”, and “From The Spectator (January 23 1892)”, by R. H. Hutton.  Black’s article makes the claim that, “Mr. Hardy’s story, like Diana of the Crossways, is founded on a recognition of the ironic truth which we all know in our hearts, and are all forbidden to say aloud, that the richest kind of womanly nature, the most direct, sincere, and passionate, is the most liable to be caught in that sort of pitifall which social convention stamps as an irretrievable discgrace.”(Black 383)  The author of the excerpt from The Saturday Review of Janurary 16, 1892 makes the more critical claim that “The story gains nothing by the reader being let into the secret of the physical attributes which especially fascinated [Alec D’Urberville] in Tess.”(383) Hutton’s article in The Spectator argues that “to illustrate his conviction that not only is there no Providence guiding individual men and women in the right way, but that, in many cases at least, there is something like a malign fate which draws them out of the right way into the wrong way.”(Hutton 384)

 I would personally disagree with the post in The Saturday Review when he says later in the article that, “Mr. Hardy, it must be conceded, tells an unpleasant story in a very unpleasant way.”(384) Although I don’t particularly like Tess’ character, I really enjoy the story, and I think Hardy tells it beautifully.  Another point I disagree with in The Saturday Review article is the claim that “The story gains nothing by the reader being let into the secret of physical attributes which especially fascinated [Alec D’Urberville] in Tess. […] It is these side suggestions that render Mr. Hardy’s story so very disagreeable, and Tess is full of them.”(384) I think that the vivid descriptions of Tess’ appearance are necessary, as to understand her allure.  I agree with Black’s claim form earlier in the article that “The conventional reader wishes to be excited, but not to be disturbed,”(383).  However, I disagree with her claim that the “conventional” reader “detests unhappy endings, mainly because an unhappy ending nearly always involves an indirect appeal to the conscience,”(383).  I think that unhappy endings are more realistic, and far easier to believe that life is hard, and in that death is inevitable in the end.