The famous works named Tess of the D’Urbervilles is written by Thomas Hardy who was born in higher Oakhampton in Dorset, a rural region of southwestern England. Though he gave serious thought to attending university and entering the church, a struggle he would dramatize in his another great novel “Jude the Obscure”, declining religious faith and lack of money led Hardy to pursue a carrier in writing instead. He spent nearly a dozen years toiling in obscurity and producing unsuccessful novels and poetry. “Far from the Madding Crowd, published in 1874, was the author’s first critical and financial success.

    In many respects, Hardy was trapped in the middle ground between the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, between Victorian sensibilities and more modern ones, and between tradition and innovation.

    His novel, “Tess of the D’Urbervilles” is a treasure in both English and the world literature. Published on July 4, 1891, the novel was a great success. The novel is about a pure, unsophisticated, upright, diligent, clever, and beautiful girl who is driven into a corner by social prejudices and finally kills her lover, Alec. Alec is a typical dandy who is lascivious and ungrateful. Tess is destroyed by two men, one is Alec and the other is Angel.  The latter changes his mind when Tess tells him about her history with Alec on their wedding night. Their peaceful and affectionate days are gone forever. Finally, because Tess murders Alec, she is arrested and sentenced to death.

     Tess’s tragedy is caused by her family and the community she lives in. her family belongs to an unpopular social stratum in the countryside. At that moment men dominates the society, who regard the chastity of women as important. Traditionally, a wife’s chastity belongs to her husband. If she loses her chastity, a woman is regarded as unchaste. In order to pursue her pure love Tess would rather lose her love without purity, which is her noble choice but also the reason for her tragedy. Thus she punishes the man who has taken advantaged of, deceived her and torn her life to pieces but also loses her life for that. There is no denying that the punishment is appropriate.

In this novel Thomas Hardy loudly appeals to the world for the eradication of social prejudices which lead to tragic events and for a rational society, thus reducing such regrets.