"Cliff Notes - Tess of the D'urbervilles" - читать интересную книгу автора (Cliff Notes)

in life. However, he's too steeped in traditional values and
philosophical abstractions to translate his dreams into reality.

Angel calls Tess a heathen, and Alec treats her like one. Tess is
religious, though not in a conventional way. She believes in being
good and charitable but refuses to believe that God--if there is
one--would care more about the letter than the spirit of the Bible.
She takes tender care of the wounded animals left in her charge.

Many readers ask whether Tess is the pure woman that Hardy insists
she is. Although you'll have to decide that for yourself, you are
given one unwavering picture of her--that of a lone woman trying, or
at least willing, to do good regardless of the horrors and
temptations thrust in her way.

Tess also has an irrational, violent side that Hardy attributes to
her ancient d'Urberville warrior heritage. It's this part of Tess
that lashes out against Alec and eventually drives her to murder him.
While Hardy blames her noble blood, we can see her fiery temper also
as a primitive survival tool.

Her subservient attitude with Angel is the complete opposite of her
fury with Alec. Angel brings out not only her giving, sweet nature
but also her lethargic, self-denigrating tendencies. Perhaps one of
Tess' big mistakes is to let Angel's disappointment in her affect her
so deeply; it nearly drives her insane. Why do you think she puts so
much faith in a man who could turn on her so quickly? Tess is a
tragic heroine; she's a lofty soul who is destined to suffer and die.
From the start of the novel we sense that she's playing a losing
game, though we can't help but hope for her each time she picks
herself up from despair and moves bravely on.

Most important, Tess is herself. She never tries to be more than she
is. Tess always reminds Angel and Alec that she is a poor, simple
dairymaid. She's not trying to become a grand lady. Tess' goals are
to be happy and to make those she loves happy, to try to live a good
and giving life in a difficult world. Do you think she succeeds?

TESS OF THE D'URBERVILLES: ANGEL CLARE

You can see Angel Clare as a hypocrite or as a man torn between moral
conventions and his sensual attraction to the land and to a woman.
In either case he tries to make everything, from Talbothays to Tess,
a storybook dream so that he can avoid dealing with reality.

Some readers find Angel an unconvincing character. After all, how
could such a sensitive, reflective man turn brutally against his love
because she fails to fit into a moral code he says he rejects? Other
readers find nothing unusual about this contradiction in his nature.
Don't many of us pay lip service to ideals that we just can't live up