HARDY FORUM ARCHIVE H01050 5/18/01 "TESS. HER CHARACTER DISCUSSION" ===================================================================== From: "Michael Barry" Subject: Re: Character of Tess Date: Fri, 18 May 2001 12:12:33 +0100 I promised in my other transmission to compensate for "doing business" in these Sacred Halls. I have a fairly pressing concern over the character of Tess which I'm sure many of you are able to help me resolve. At the risk of being contentious, Tess comes off the page to me as a bit of a wimp! Reactive at best, spineless, passive and unresponsive at worst, she appears to be blown about by Fate and others, and hardly ever takes matters into her own hands. When she does act it's not with any dignified sense of self-assertion, but simply because she's been cornered to such an extent that she responds like a trapped animal. The obvious example is her killing of Alec. Whilst I sometimes think there are parallels with Hamlet, he at least spends the best part of 5 hours psyching himself up to kill Claudius. Tess does it at a moment's notice, which is undramatic to say the least. The other examples that leap to mind in her mitigation is that she agrees to go the D'Urbervilles in the first place out of a sense of moral obligation over the death of the family horse. And she does succeed in pushing a letter under Angel's door on the eve of her wedding. These at least are in part an assertion of her own will, however weak or last minute in their application. However, in particular, after her rape, she slumps into being Alec's mistress for 3 months, out of an overwhelming sense of oppressive Fate, whereas most girls (these days) would at the least walk out on the spot. Then she accepts Angel's appalling and embarrassing po-faced decision that she's a sinner and he isn't - without any demur at all! So - is this all to serve Hardy's political agenda in support of the Suffragette movement for women's rights? Is Tess herself a cypher, a pawn in his hands, portrayed as a pawn in the hands of men? And does he get away with this because the novel can successfully host passive protagonists? Drama - whether theatre or film - traditionally needs a proactive central character, someone willing to rise to the occasion, commit to a goal, and systematically tackle the obstacles placed in his/her way by the antagonist, until this goal is achieved. Which, by and large, Hamlet just about does. So does the bookish Hoffman character in Straw Dogs - with a vengeance one might say! But does Tess? I guess that sort of sums up my concerns. My problem is how to put Tess on the stage so that she actively engages an audience - which a wimp doesn't usually do! Just how spirited can we make her? Can we at least give her a sense of always wanting to flail out before then reminding herself of the uselessness of doing so? Can anyone help guide her portrayal in our forthcoming production? With thanks Michael Barry ========== Date: Fri, 18 May 2001 10:57:02 -0300 From: Richard Nemesvari Organization: St. Francis Xavier University Subject: Re: Character of Tess I think the most obvious place to start my response to this posting is to suggest you get hold of Rosemarie Morgan's *Women and Sexuality in the Novels of Thomas Hardy* and have a look at Chapter 4, "Passive Victim? - *Tess of the d'Urbervilles*". For my money this is still the best refutation of the "Tess is a wimp" position, a position I unfortunately continue to hear from a number of my students when I teach the text. A key difficulty, which Michael Barry expresses below, is the introduction of "what most girls (these days)" would do in Tess' position. The precise point is that Tess' narrative is *not* set in "these days," and the suggestion that Hardy should somehow represent her acting with the kind of self-assertion potentially available to a young woman in the early 21st-century is clearly inappropriate. I would suggest (and of course Rosemarie has already suggested) that what the novel presents is Tess' astonishing strength and resiliency. She does not "slump" into being Alec's mistress after the encounter in the Chase (which, by the way, the text carefully refuses to identify as strictly a "rape"); we are told that "temporarily blinded by his ardent manners," she "had been "stirred to confused surrender awhile." This is one of Hardy's finely tuned observations - that Tess has been "stirred" clearly suggests the quite understandable erotic response Alec is capable of evoking, even while the idea of "surrender" emphasizes that he is interested only in. The key thing, however, is that Tess leaves *him,* an event for which he is clearly unprepared. How many other of his working-class victims of seduction have broken off the engagement first, do you suppose? I don't understand why more readers don't recognize the assertion of self-respect this represents, and acknowledge the strength of will it requires. And of course the section following "Maiden No More" is entitled "The Rally." Tess is constantly "rallying," no matter what sexual oppressions and double standards her culture throws at her, as embodied in Alec and Angel. And speaking of Angel, I would argue (and have argued) that in fact Tess poses a serious threat to his sense of self-identity, and that she is clearly presented as the stronger of the two characters. The fact that he has all the patriarchal power, and that this allows him to impose a completely unjust evaluation upon his wife, doesn't really change this. Although she appears to "passively" accept his rejection, Hardy is again careful to show that she is not broken by his verging-on-hysterical inability to deal with her sexual past. And she most certainly does "demur" at the injustice, even though it does her no good. Mostly what she does, however, is endure, and I think we have an unfortunate tendency in our contemporary world of "self-actualization" to see endurance as a weakness, instead of a strength. This is our problem, not Hardy's. What is Tess supposed to do? Do we really want her to be an Arabella Donn, dump the husband she doesn't like, and head off to the colonies and bigamy? Or perhaps be an Anna Karenina, and head for the nearest railway line? And just to conclude with Alec's murder, I would disagree that she does it "at a moment's notice." First, the text has incrementally foreshadowed her potential for violence with the push she gives Alec on the horse in the Chase, and with her striking him in the face with her threshing glove at Flintcomb-Ash. Second, the entire pattern of victimization which Alec has imposed on her (and which, by the way, she has fiercely resisted) has set up this action, and to ignore all of that is to ignore pretty much the entire ideological movement of the text. And finally, Angel's sudden reappearance clearly devastates Tess to the point where she is primed for violence, which Alec himself provokes by taunting her and calling Angel "by a foul name." This posting is going on too long, but I would suggest that there is more than enough opportunity to dramatize Tess as as strong, resilient, erotically powerful woman in Hardy's terms, and that if that isn't good enough for a contemporary audience, well, too bad for us. Just to conclude, I'll go completely off topic to say that I don't think Hamlet is a passive character either, nor do I think he is "flawed" by indecision. I know Michael Barry in his posting doesn't assert that directly, but it seems to be the critical tradition he is invoking. And further, I've always found the transformation of the Dustin Hoffman character in *Straw Dogs* completely unbelievable. He goes out, shoots a couple of quail, and all of a sudden the mild-mannered mathematician is capable of appalling violence. Oh, please - give me Hardy any day. Richard Nemesvari Department of English St. Francis Xavier University rnemesva@stfx.ca ========== Date: Fri, 18 May 2001 11:06:32 -0300 From: Richard Nemesvari Organization: St. Francis Xavier University Subject: Character of Tess - correction In reviewing my unfortunately long reply to Michael Barry's posting I note that one of my sentences somehow got "clipped." What I meant to say in my second paragraph is that Alec is "interested only in conquest." Without that last word my meaning is, to say the least, ambiguous. Apologies to the list. Richard Nemesvari Department of English St. Francis Xavier University rnemesva@stfx.ca ========== From: Meg Cronin Subject: RE: Character of Tess Date: Fri, 18 May 2001 10:06:03 -0400 Dear Richard and others, Oddly, my students this past fall seemed not to have this reaction (the one you are arguing against) at all. The students (3 men, 15 women) generally supported Tess, were impressed by her strength, her endurance, her bizarre, streakily ambivalent will, her eventually "worldly" though bitter-at-times views (why do sinners ways prosper?) , and her "resilience" to use your words. Remember, too, that there's a supernatural quality to her strength at times, though it's a little witchy or goddess-y. And though we might not "approve" her similarities to the D'urberville woman, the bejeweled, fire-lit Tess expresses a different type of strength. It is her innocence that is her strength; this much is clear even in the last scenes when she seems not to have all her faculties intact. I've been reading about monastic "detachment" which has secular and non-Catholic practices as well. I wonder if Tess's "deteachment" from her self and her body at times is this type of strength. One writer (Kathleen Norris--DAKOTA, CLOISTER WALK, etc.) described detachment as thinking, behaving, and believing that the way things are happening to you now is not only a condition to accept, but it is so fully part of you that you can't and don't imagine those things having happened any other way. Now, I'm not going to push this, and I don't intend to look through the novel to see if Tess really does or does not ever imagine herself having a different sort of life. What I'm trying to say is that it interests me to think about supreme acceptance and endurance-without-ever-thinking-how-much-suffering-one-is-enduring can be a type of strength for a female character. Then again, it's easier to consider this in Hardy, when the universe or fate itself sometimes seems to have some relevant but undefinable role in the suffering, rather than trying to ascribe acceptance/strength to a female character who suffers at the hands of one man or society. I believe the syntax and logic of this post is beginning to devolve. So I'll sign off. How many years have people been talking about the same issues in Tess? That really says it all. Meg Cronin ========== Date: Fri, 18 May 2001 11:59:07 -0400 From: Rosemarie Morgan Subject: Re: Character of Tess Michael-- a performance company called (I think) "The Theatre Upstairs" produced "Tess" some 15 years ago, mostly in mime, dance and music, in an upstairs pub in London. It was unforgetably moving and she was powerful! My 12 year old daughter who hadn't yet read the novel was almost speechless at the finish--all she could say, over and over, was "What a strong woman!" And as Richard has already indicated it's all there in Hardy's text whose imaginative literature, as the Victorian poet Coventry Patmore observed of PBE, abounds with "poetry infused in the prose." Reading Hardy's novels with this in mind opens up vast new horizons of meaning. With every good wish, Rosemarie Morgan ========== Date: Fri, 18 May 2001 12:57:38 -0600 From: Harry Sheski Subject: Re: Character of Tess Well said, Richard N., Rosemarie M., and Meg C. I add: Not only must we consider that the social constraints of our time are vastly different from Tess's, but also that, in all her "fateful" situations, Tess was pitted against the entire patriarchal, mechanical mindset in ascendance - even, or especially, in the matter of the death of Prince. Formidable as she is in her representation of nature, it is not enough to prevail. The mail cart with its strange appendage that pierces Prince is "male", carrying the printed word, that two-dimensional influence Angel so enjoyed. Each assault upon Tess's fortunes is part of a larger picture, of mankind, or humankind, imagining that its mind could bring the world to heel. Perhaps endurance is nature's greatest strength. Best wishes, Joan Sheski ========== Date: Fri, 18 May 2001 16:02:13 -0500 From: Nathan Elliott Subject: Re: Character of Tess I agree with Richard Nemesvar and Rosemarie Morgan; reading Tess as passive exposes our own prejudices regarding what constitutes 'action.' But I'd also like to question the assertion that film always needs a 'proactive' protagonist. Of course, in doing so, I might be read as undermining my own agreement that Tess is not passive, but I hope this is not the case. My point, rather, is that the claim that film needs a 'proactive' protagonist is faulty itself. Do we always need active protagonists in order to be interested in a film? The lead female character of _The Mummy_ and _The Mummy Returns_ is certainly active along with her male counterparts, and while it is interesting to see Hollywood willing to give a female character a role outside of sex object or mother (basically they just recode feminine as masculine; Irigaray would have a field day), is this always needed to get interested in characters? Take _The Remains of the Day_, for instance; I found the Anthony Hopkins character fascinating, but I don't think he could be described as 'proactive.' The interest in the film came more from the psychological study of his character, which is anything BUT proactive. _A River Runs Through It_ comes to mind as well. Neither brother in that film is overcoming obstacles exactly, yet the interplay between the two of them keeps me returning to the film. Last year my girlfriend and I went to Magnolia. There were some rather obnoxious viewers were sitting in front of us, who made it clear to each other and every one within several rows of seats that they were not enjoying themselves. When we were able to fight down our anger over this behavior, we found the film, an extended character study, fascinating. Right after the movie, I heard one of these rude patrons declare that it was the worst movie she'd ever seen; her friend responded with: "Oh, Tess of the d'Urbervilles is much worse." I take it this patron simply had no patience for anything psychologically deeper than a wading pool. Is Tess strong or weak? What constitutes strong or weak? What is her relation to society as a whole? These questions themselves keep me coming back to Tess, not their easy resolution. Perhaps the patron in front of me wanted an easily quantifiable character; many moviegoers do. Remember the rest of us though, who at least occasionally enjoy getting to know characters as complex as ourselves. I don't locate my interest in Tess in the actions she takes to overcome obstacles; it stems more from the pathos generated by what society does to a bright, basically kind, young girl. Again, I disagree that Tess is passive; but even more than that, I disagree that film always needs to have "a proactive central character, someone willing to rise to the occasion, commit to a goal, and systematically tackle the obstacles placed in his/her way by the antagonist, until this goal is achieved." I simply don't think of Tess, and many of my other favorite film characters, in this way. Thanks, Nathan Elliott ========== Date: Fri, 18 May 2001 18:57:56 -0400 From: Rosemarie Morgan Subject: Re: Character of Tess Curiouser... and Curiouser... I suppose TH might have enjoyed "proactive" (being a neologist at heart) but I'm not sure he would have liked its use as a portmanteau piece carrying all manner of items bearing no certifiable origin or destination. I suppose it all came about ("proactive," I mean) when "reactive" suddenly degenerated (in the 70s?) into "loser" behaviour (on the therapist's couch), and a word was needed to push assertiveness into favour without its suffering any taint of "control freakiness." I doubt "Tess" fits either of these categories. Yes, she's "proactive" (taking the intiative?)in whipping the gauntlet across Alec's face and yes, she's "reactive" (responding to stimuli) in her erotic arousal in the scene of Angel's harp-playing. Etcetera. But, returning to Nathan's point about "active protagonist" not being the point (sorry to be nitpicking) but a "protagonist" can only be "active" as the leading person, principal performer in the drama-- and this includes (to confuse the issue) the perpetual loser (not so much Anthony Hopkins in *Remains of the Day* but Woody Allen always!), and even the perpetual victim, "Tweetie-Pie" (Boy! does that date me!). I'll leave now! Cheers, RM ========== Date: Fri, 18 May 2001 21:01:26 -0400 From: Robert Schweik Subject: Re: Character of Tess Richard Nemesvari makes a telling point when he writes about *Tess* as follows: the precise point is that Tess' narrative is *not* set in "these days," and the suggestion that Hardy should somehow represent her acting with the kind of self-assertion potentially available to a young woman in the early 21st-century is clearly inappropriate. So, it would be more appropriate to make comparisons of Hardy's characterization of Tess with those of writers more or less contemporary with him. I'd be interested, then, in hearing comparisons of the "strength" of Tess (1891) with such characters as Ruth in Mrs. Gaskell's *Ruth* (1853), Lyndall in Olive Schreiner's *The Story of an African Farm* ( 1883 ), and Grant Allen's *The Woman Who Did* (1895). Bob Schweik Robert Schweik schweik@fredonia.edu rschweik@localnet.com ========== From: "carolfarrelly" Subject: Re: Character of Tess Date: Sat, 19 May 2001 15:51:50 +0100 I am in the final year of doing a PhD on Hardy and nineteenth century readership. I found, therefore, the discussion Michael Barry has provoked on reader reactions to the character of Tess fascinating. I would agree with Richard Nemesvari's eloquent argument that Tess cannot be detached from her historical context. The shameful label of 'fallen women' and the disgrace of bearing an 'illegitimate' child no longer press so fiercely upon westernized women today. I would like to add, however, that Tess should also be understood as a character written for a largely *middle-class* nineteenth century readership. Tess's relationship with Alec and her illegitimate child would have been shocking enough to most middle-class readers sense of propriety. To create a heroine who did not even feel and react to the pressure of such propriety would have been entirely unacceptable to such an audience. The wonder of Hardy's character, Tess, rather, is that he *did* manage to win the sympathy of so many of his readers. He did this by implanting a middle-class sense of shame into the working-class Tess and then demonstrating how that shame so injustly cripples Tess, how her fear of others' moralising judgements agonises her. She does not simply accept Angel's 'po-faced decision that she is a sinner' which, it should be remembered, would have been a general middle-class attitude towards her. Her gradual questioning of her so-called shame and her growing sense of injustice at Alec's and especially Angel's hands are a triumph of character. It is debatable, indeed, whether a rural working-class woman such as Tess would have been so shamed by her relationship with Alec. Her mother's attitude that " 'Tis nater, after all, and what pleases God' may have been more typical. Hardy, however, largely wrote for middle-class men and women. _Tess_ fights against their dominant increasingly powerful attitudes. That Tess imagines that Angel may forgive her, especially after his confession of a past affair, that she imagines a relationship in which a man and woman may love each other with equal passion and acceptance is quite revolutionary. It would have certainly challenged readers of the time. Tess possessed an incredibly strong and challenging mind which can still inspire women and men today. Carol Farrelly University of Sussex email: c.m.farrelly@sussex.ac.uk ========== Date: Sat, 19 May 2001 16:41:02 -0300 From: Richard Nemesvari Organization: St. Francis Xavier University Subject: Re: Character of Tess This is just a brief response to say that I was heartened by Meg Cronin's report that her students recognized Tess' strength, and to agree with everything that Carol Farrelly says below. Last term I taught *Tess* as my "practice text" in our literary theory course, using the Bedford edition with its various readings of the novel (feminist, new historicist, deconstructionist, etc.). Since this was an upper-year honours seminar, I was more than a little discouraged to discover the group's inability to see beyond their position that Tess "should have done something" about her predicament, by which they meant she should have acted more like they would have and told both Alec and Angel where to get off (the class was predominantly female). Given the type of course involved, I reverted to the jargon and tried to make them see that Tess had "internalized the dominant discourse," and that as Carol argues this is a crucial element of Hardy's rhetoric. I'm sure many on the list who have been involved in academics are familiar with the response I received: "Well, yes, I see your point, but..." followed by a restatement of the students' original position. So it goes. I'm currently teaching an intersession/spring course in Victorian lit., and *Tess* is looming once again. Guess I'll see how it goes this time around. Richard Nemesvari Department of English St. Francis Xavier University rnemesva@stfx.ca ========== From: "Alan Shelston" Subject: Re: Character of Tess Date: Sun, 20 May 2001 12:00:00 +0100 I have come back from a week away to find my mail folders full of The Tess debate - could I add my fourpennorth. I too have had students who take the 'Tess is a wimp' line - it seems to me that they read the text with all the wrong assumptions - Tess, thank heavens, is not Bridget Jones - indeed the latter is rather more of a wimp, I suspect, if all that I hear about her is true. But (1) yes, of course Tess is of her times and not ours. And (2) of course she is resilient rather than reactive - as in the great swede-hacking chapter, which is one of the few desriptions in the C19 novel I know of real work, and real weather. And isn't the great point about her the fact that she quietly and and powerfully stands against all the constructions that patriarchy wants to place on her - 'Call me Tess' she says, when Angel wants to give her all those fancy names - and not 'Tessie' incidentally, as Alec would have it - and incidentally not 'Tess of the D'Urbervilles' as her creator would have it. All this leads to her comment at Stonehenge - 'one of my mother's people was a shepherd hereabouts' - at last the Tess who has been defined by her patriarchal name -(in either of its versions) appeals to the other side of her family inheritance. This written in haste, and without access to a text, but I thought it might be of interest. Alan Shelston, University of Manchester ========== From: "Michael Barry" Subject: Re: Character of Tess Date: Sun, 20 May 2001 21:16:11 +0100 Status: I am delighted to have generated such a wonderful resource to draw on! Thank you all for your responses. It is a little galling to find I've fallen into the standard trap for students - but have to own up that my formal study of Eng. Lit. ended at the age of 14 (and that was several decades ago!). However the responses have been tackled seriously, so as a basic student I don't feel too guilty! I shall indeed hunt out Rosemarie Morgan's *Women and Sexuality in the Novels of Thomas Hardy* and have a look at Chapter 4, "Passive Victim? - *Tess of the d'Urbervilles*". It would seem to be tailor-made for my query. 1) I certainly accept resilience, endurance, what we used to call "Divine resignation" - but I still think there is a case for calling them passive. Or at the least, bridging a question of semantics: turning the other cheek is passive in one sense and a positive statement of moral position on the other. So maybe my assumptions concerning the desirable qualities of a central character in drama are flawed. However my desk dictionary describes protagonist with the inclusion of the words "someone who champions a cause". Tess (forgive my lack of perception if I'm wrong) does not champion a cause - she responds to stimuli. She is a victim, however strong in her suffering - and to my eyes at least, that much less successful as a central character for an acted drama. Great for a novel though. 2) No one commented on any possible political agenda, and it may be I'm barking up the wrong tree on that one. I'm sure Rosemarie's book will be helpful there. However I note that Tess was published in 1891, and that The Women's Social and Political Union was formed by Emmeline Pankhurst in 1903, boosting the effectiveness of the Suffragette movement considerably. 3) Concerning rape - you (Richard) may well be correct. However your quoted phrases "temporarily blinded by his ardent manners," she "had been "stirred to confused surrender awhile" might, it seems to me, apply to the following three months of being Alec's mistress rather than the act which causes her downfall in the first place. They do not come from the end of Phase the First where first intercourse occurs. There the reference is to "she was sleeping soundly" - and by at least today's definition, that surely constitutes rape. Tess' fatalism (in my reading) causes her to "slump into" (sorry - dreadful word) or submit to being Alec's mistress for the next 3 months - maybe seduced by Alec's eroticism as you suggest - until moral indignation at last causes her to escape from him. I must admit I prefer the idea of the end of Phase the First being rape: it heightens the ridiculousness of Society's condemnation of her - and it causes much more outrage at Angel's decision to part from her. He wasn't raped! And he considers his crime so much less than hers! 4) I know Hardy's audience is very different from our audience. He wrote a modern novel. We read a period piece, a historical novel - and we do so (unless tutored otherwise) from our own database of observations and knowledge of the world. Many who come to see our production will not have read the book. Hopefully we'll entice along some very poorly educated people to see our tragic/ romantic entertainment, who might go on to read the book and enjoy it. But - terms of reference aren't available in a stage production - unless put in the programme. So social and moral context may well be incorrectly assumed. I am in fact delighted by your conclusion that Tess is a "strong, resilient, erotically powerful woman" - as that has to be the keynote for her performance - along with the suffering. And will mollify/ counteract anyone who might be tempted into and irritated by the "passive heroine" school of thought. In our 1993 production Tess was played by Jane McKell, an excellent actress from Weymouth (near Dorchester) - who went on to play Edith Harnham in "Love Letters" (On the Western Circuit) (and appeared in the photo I posted earlier). She gave a highly-praised, intensely moving performance that interweaved energy and strength with suffering and even tears. It was often electrifying to watch. For three performances an understudy took over, who gave a down to earth, no-nonsense performance that (aside from being less talented) seemed to me to sit very uncomfortably with the text. It seems to work better on stage if Tess is sensitive and pained. 5) Thank-you Rosemarie for confirming the strength of character. I'll track down your book. The Theatre Upstairs - the only way I know that name is as the Royal Court's second stage - which I've never seen. And 15 years ago I was slaving round the clock over financial presentations for London companies and had no time to see anything cultural! Totally missed the show you mention! Sadly! 6) Nathan raises the question of the role of the protagonist in drama - and I certainly agree I overstated it in my original posting, attempting to posit some extremes of parameter. My description of a proactive central character was perhaps put in terms of mainstream Hollywood. Most of my favourite films ("Wings of a Dove", "Age of Innocence", "Les Enfants du Paradis", "Babette's Feast", "Citizen Kane" etc) probably have central characters with very low-profile agendas - but (without time for serious analysis), I suspect they are there. I saw "Remains of the Day" twice and felt unsatisfied by it. I'm not even sure Hopkins was the main character (was it not perhaps one of the women?). So I do beg to differ, and continue to feel that (in drama) the central character should dictate the action and "do the running". Rosemarie is quite correct in asserting that such a central character can still be victim, or a loser. But we've been following their agenda, their story and not someone else's. You can only root for someone who is making an effort - and I do fully accept that Tess does just that. 7) Carol Farelly's contribution is also fascinating. The class elements in Tess' story are clearly important - not least in that she is brought up as working-class, but the two men in her life are middle-class. Tess' attraction cannot simply be her voluptuous figure. That might work for Alec but not for Angel. He responds (am I right?) to her middle-class morality and sensibilities (and OK her ability to milk a cow!), which are part of her nature not of her upbringing. Anyway - thank-you again. I now have a firmer agenda for directing the production! Michael Barry ========== From: "carolfarrelly" Subject: RE: Character of Tess Date: Mon, 21 May 2001 12:52:00 +0100 I thought Michael Barry might like to know that Hardy wrote two dramatisations of _Tess_ himself which can be found in _Tess in the Theatre_ edited by Marguerite Roberts - not that I would recommend them for a contemporary audience. The play was acutally performed in Dorchester and London in the 1920s to much popular acclaim, although the critics tended to be less enthusiastic as, perhaps inevitably, they thought the play omitted too many events and too much detail and feeling. I found it very interesting when first reading the scripts to discover that the play versions included the confession scene between Angel and Tess which is omitted in the novel. Many critics focused on this scene, finding it full of emotional power. Henry Arthur Jones wrote to Hardy, 'the confession remains one of the most poignant and absorbing scenes in all the range of the drama.' That scene was even dramatised on its own for a BBD radio broadcast. I think that dramatising this omitted scene might help in a stage adaptation to emphasise Tess's strength - her faith that Angel will still love her, her revived optimism after all she has endured and , above all, her own rejection of a crippling morality she herself had previously espoused - a rejection which must have demanded so much inner strength. It is also interesting to note that in the confession scene, written by Hardy, Tess says she was seduced not raped: Angel: You mean me to understand that the man seduced you? Tess: I do... Forgive me... I have forgiven you for the *same* sin... I though, Angel, that you loved me -*me*- my very self. If it is I that you do love, oh how can it be that you speak and look so? Most reviewers of the time also spoke of Tess's seduction or 'fall' rather than rape. Tess's plea that she is still the same woman is a very strong argument. She cannot comprehend that Angel puts so much value on virginity which, rather radically, Tess does not here consider of any real importance. I do think to suggest Tess was raped, moreover, might alienate audiences today. They might not understand her reactions to an Alec who raped her so well as to an Alec with whom she had a regretted and exploitative relationship. Many of Tess's struggles with Alec and Angel and others' perceptions of her are struggles many women still experience today. Women still have to deal with images of how they should be and stereotypes of how they should behave even if they are not quite those of Tess's time. I do think audiences today could sympathise with a Tess who is not forever in control. Sorry for such a long posting! Carol Farrelly University of Sussex email: c.m.farrelly@sussex.ac.uk ========== From: "Michael Barry" Subject: Re: Character of Tess Date: Mon, 21 May 2001 14:52:31 +0100 Thank-you Carol for reminding me of Tess' owning up to seduction. It shows that administration continues to prevent me working on the script - and rehearsals start in a month! (Though is there still a case for saying that Tess is always ready to assume that things are her fault (eg death of Prince) - that the first act of intercourse, even if she resisted, has led her to becoming a fallen woman and beyond the pale of any further normal life - so subsequent acts of seduction are all that she can look forward to, so there's no point in further resistance [hence the 3 month gap before she breaks free]? Maybe not - I seem to be on my own on this one!). Never mind - the play (proper) starts after this event anyway. Yes - we are doing Hardy's own (second dramatisation) - with I must admit some tinkering on my part. The first dramatisation I felt was unplayable when I read it. With the second go Hardy had help from a "professional" dramatist, which clearly made a difference - but as you point out, not quite enough for today's tastes. Our response in 1993 was good, so the dramatisation does appear to play well. Let's hope we can prove our case on our second go! "Tess of the D'Urbervilles": "WOW! Having spoken to the audience as they left and having chatted with other Committee Members over the weekend, that is the best way in which I can describe the performance. I would like to thank you and all involved, it really was a memorable evening" Newton Tony Memorial Hall Management Committee "I was very pleased with the success of the evening and would welcome a further opportunity to work with The Wessex Actors Company" Leisure & Entertainments General Manager, Weymouth & Portland Borough Council "The performance last night attracted a large and attentive audience which thoroughly enjoyed the production by your company. At a rough guess there were over 350 in the School Hall" Festival Director, Wimborne Arts Festival "Jane McKell is fetching and affecting in the title role...Three cheers for Jack Hulland who provides welcome comic relief...This regional company deserve the support of their community, good luck to them for a fine debut" Dorset Evening Echo "The key scene was splendidly handled. The action was carried forward with developing tension, foreboding and a sense of tragedy" The Western Morning News "The Wessex Theatre Company were impressive. A clear cut, sensitive production in every way - the drama and tragedy of Tess's life was delicately portrayed, the powerful emotions never spilling over into melodrama, with Tess and Angel Clare carrying the story to its climax with moving sincerity. The ingenious set carried the action smoothly. It was in all respects an impressive evening's entertainment, with a polish many well established groups might envy. One looks forward to future productions with keen anticipation." The Warminster Journal "Actress Jane McKell is bewitching audiences with her portrayal of Thomas Hardy's most famous heroine, Tess of the D'Urbervilles" Western Daily Press "The audience was treated to one of those rare evenings of theatre magic by a versatile, highly accomplished, self-contained team" Somerset County Gazette "I wish to record my thanks and appreciation for the Company's excellent production, which I enjoyed so much at the Merlin Theatre, Frome" Audience member ========== Date: Mon, 21 May 2001 12:05:43 -0300 From: Richard Nemesvari Organization: St. Francis Xavier University Subject: Re: Character of Tess Just a short response to Michael's third point below. I definitely meant my quoting of Tess' being "stirred to confused surrender" etc. to apply to her subsequent time with Alec, not to what happened to her in the Chase, although it is at least possible to suggest that the two are connected. The whole issue of rape/seduction is more than a little vexed, and has been the topic of an extended discussion on this list, not to mention in various articles and chapters of books. I'd say it's wide open for dramatic interpretation. To return to reasons why the book confuses my students, it is sometimes difficult explaining to them that for a Victorian audience Tess' "purity" remains intact if she is raped (because that suggests a lack of sexual response which prevents her from being completely "fallen"), whereas it is fully compromised if she is seduced (because that suggests an improper expression of female desire). Again, this is the exact *opposite* of the way their values work, and although they "see what I mean" (one more time) it's still difficult for them to understand Tess' situation and reactions. Richard Nemesvari Department of English St. Francis Xavier University rnemesva@stfx.ca ========== From: "schweik" Subject: Re: Re: Character of Tess Date: Mon, 21 May 2001 15:02:18 GMT Michael, I don't think you're at all "on your own" in suggesting that Tess's stay with Alec after her rape/seduction was a consequence of a sense that she was "a fallen woman and beyond the pale of any further normal life - so subsequent acts of seduction are all that she can look forward to, so there's no point in further resistance." That, I think, is precisely what many sympathetic Victorian readers would have thought, and it's certainly consistent with the kinds of assumptions that were widely made about women at the time. Bob Schweik ========== Date: Mon, 21 May 2001 11:25:52 -0400 From: Shannon Rogers Subject: Re: Character of Tess Hello All, I'm entering the debate a little late, and most of the reply I had planned has already been voiced much more eloquently than I could have done. However, Michael's comment below reminds me of a problem I had with the A&E version of _Tess_, which I *finally* saw last weekend, and an explanation for what they were trying to accomplish in that production. Overall, I enjoyed it--it was beautifully filmed, the music was lovely, and Angel was believably someone many women would swoon over helplessly. However, I had the feeling throughout that Tess was being fashioned into a more modern (or should I say, post-modern) heroine--the empowered Tess, if you will, in an effort to make her less victim and more woman with bad luck with men. Case in point, she argues with Angel on the wedding night far more than she did in the novel, and then *she* is the one who decides ultimately that *she* wants them to part. There were other points that made me shake my head, but I didn't take notes, so they are escaping me at the moment. Much less emphasis on her fatalism for one thing, which I think takes away from Hardy's portrayal of her. This Tess is more spirited and smiles a lot more than I imagined she would--again, an attempt to make her more fitting for our modern sensibilities. The worst was the attempt to really press home that Alec *loves* her, in his own way, with his long, sympathy-provoking speech at the end, which does two things. First, it makes the scene in the Chase look more like what my students (at least the males) thought of as "date rape"--the women, by the way, were far more likely to just call it out and out rape. Second, a sympathetic Alec, who is more interested in loving Tess, and less interested in himself, makes her murder look more capricious or even the product of simple insanity, than the actions of a trapped animal that has been hounded and hunted its entire life because of society's strictures and finally defends itself. Then, she has the long bedtime chat with Angel all about her life with Alec and how she knew that he loved her. It spoiled a good thing for me. Cheers! Shannon Rogers Shannon Rogers Visiting Assistant Professor Department of History St. Joseph's University 5600 City Avenue Philadelphia, PA 19131 (610) 660-3353 ========== From: Donnalpha@aol.com Date: Mon, 21 May 2001 22:15:18 EDT Subject: Re: Character of Tess Dear Shannon , Did you see Tess on A&E last week? I have been on the lookout for this BBC adaptation for months and I am so dissappointed I missed it , unless you were able to rent a copy. Let me know where you saw it and perhaps A&E will repeat it in the very near a future. ( or if I can rent it at Blockbuster Video!!) Thanks, Donna @aol.com P.S. I enjoyed reading all the letters about Tess's character. I personally did not like Natasha Kinski's interpretation - she was so wan and vapid. ========== Date: Tue, 22 May 2001 09:36:16 -0400 From: Shannon Rogers Subject: Re: Character of Tess Dear Donna, Actually, I bought the tape, sight unseen based on positive responses to it, from Barnes and Noble---I think it was $29.95. I've never seen it in a video store for rent--not even a smaller, non-chain store. I have to say that for me, Nastassia Kinski was wonderful. She takes a lot of heat as a bad actress, but I really think she did a great job. This may be because it was that version of _Tess_ was what brought me to Hardy as a teenager indirectly--I saw ads for the movie, it looked beautiful, nobody would take me to see it (I couldn't drive yet), so I read the book. When I finally got to rent the movie, it really captured the mood of the novel for me, and I went into it expecting that she couldn't act. Even watching it now, with a lot of readings of the novel behind me, I'm still really fond of it and I don't find her disappointing at all. Just my two cents and I may be in a tiny minority :) Best, Shannon ========== From: Lmpc219@aol.com Date: Fri, 25 May 2001 11:41:15 EDT Subject: Re: Character of Tess Dear Shannon, There are at least two of us in the tiny minority. I also was a teenager at the time that it came out and no one would take me. So taking matters into my own hands I walked to the movie theater. It was at least a good twelve miles round trip. I was surprised that it even came here because I live in a small town. But come it did. To this day I collect anything that has to do with that movie version. One of my favorites is a promo book from Japan with pictures from the film and hanging in my hallway an original movie poster . It was one of the first movies I ever bought when video recorders came out in the early 80's. Sad but true, Lisa ==========