Judit Kovács

The Clash of the Pagan and the Christian in Hardy's Tess of the D`urbervilles Judit Kovács

This thesis is about the tragical fate of a pure-hearted young girl, Tess who longed for true love but failed to reach her dreams as the cruel Victorian society did not have any compassion on a woman who became guilty" according to the laws of this inhuman world. Tess represent the "contrast": the laws of nature. She was full of humane natural instincts she was vital and sensuous the "child" of nature. Her insinctive self contrasts sharply with the rigid merciless laws of society that sentence her and finally takes her life away without getting to know the background of her deeds. In her short life she struggled hard and the reasons for her worries originated from the society around her which was stiff and refused women's natural sensual sexual self and drives. They were closed among the walls of men-made hypocritical ideas. Tess wanted to break out of these walls and sacrificed her precious life for a short period of joyful existence on the side of her love Angel..."