Q3 Essay: Tess's Ending

UnJi Nam

Mrs. Elliott

AP English Literature

19 March 2009

Q3 Essay: Tess’s Ending

In Tess of the D’Urbervilles, Hardy ends the novel on the somber note of Tess’s death. It concludes the tragedy of Tess’s life on a distant, alienating way, jarring from the novel’s passionate characters and motives by not depicting the actual scene of her death. Instead, the finale focuses on two living characters directly affected by Tess, Liza-Lu and Angel Clare. While some may argue that this ending detracts from Tess’s importance in the novel and ultimately cheapens her life, the ending is actually very appropriate for the message of Tess’s tale, and how it affects others in society. Imagery is used predominantly in the ending chapter to emphasize the solemnity and tragedy of the scene, as seen in the description of the two characters. It is also used when describing the setting, a cheery morning belonging to a universe that doesn’t care about the unjust death of Tess, the sorrow of men, the death of mankind’s pretty ideals. This emphasizes even more the tragic quality of the execution, delineating the world not as the fair and beautiful world of Victorian society’s creation but an apathetic and self-serving one not guided by a kind divinity or moral human beings. Symbolism is also used to craft the mood and message of the final ending, such as thee two people walking away from Tess. All this is bound together by Hardy to make his point on his readers—Tess’s life proves that the world is not the just and happy place that people would have it to be. The question is, what will one do about it? By leaving the future actions of the characters who know this message ambiguous, Hardy leaves this question for the reader and society to answer.
The use of imagery is predominant in setting the mood of tragedy and apathy in the ending. The tragedy is woven in by the presence of Angel Clare and Liza-Lu, the two characters who arguably were the ones who loved Tess best, fleeing from her death. “Their pale faces seemed to have shrunk to half their natural size. They moved on hand in hand and never spoke a word, the drooping of their heads being that of Giotto’s Two Apostles.” The apathy of the world they live in to their pain is obvious by the cheeriness of the day, “amidst its convex and concave downlands in all the brightness and warmth of a July morning” However, the actions of the characters, by walking away from the bright and orderly city that sacrifices Tess, gives the novel ending it most vital hope, the quality that had always pervaded the whole novel. First it was the girlish hopes for happiness, justice; then when hope faded, actions were taken to secure these things. Actions that may not have accorded well with a hypocritical society that could not stomach the death of a vile man, but could easily ignore the downfall of a young girl with only blame to heap on her head. With Tess’s death, the characters that loved her best are galvanized into taking action again, against unfairness and striking for happiness that all men have a right to, those basic ideals that Tess died for, even against an unjust society’s mandates. They abandon the city, which stands for all the things that converged to ruin Tess’s life: wealth overriding even justice; pretensions to morality that demonize those who do not follow the rules and anglicize those who do; deliberate ignorance of the base and ugly in life in an attempt to make life more idealized than it truly is to the point of blotting out those who stand for such things. And with this action lies hope for the characters, that perhaps with this newfound knowledge the two can strike out for a better world. However, the ending is, just as life is, tempered with doubt as well. Is it folly to hope that men can change the world and society to a better place? Or the redeeming quality of mankind, that it can do so, painfully, stumblingly, but surely?
Symbolism is also present in the ending, adding a layer of depth to the tale. With the mention “the drooping of their heads being that of Giotto’s Two Apostles” Hardy emphasizes the divine quality of Tess again. Only this time, she acts as the Jesus figure in the novel, sacrificed so that the world can know of the truth in life—that the universe is cold; humans are not enlightened beings but often pretentious figures pretending they are superior to others; and that nature and its impulses, while often decried, is often the most truest and most honest things of human life. Not God, not philosophies, not social responsibilities, but our fleshy selves with its unruly desires and actions—birth, life, and death. Hardy is very pointedly comparing Angel and Liza-Lu to disciples—they will have to be the main purveyors of Tess’s message. With the death of their divinity, it is up to frail mankind to hold a new fire to society—questioning what humans really are. Not enlightened, not always good, not always bad, pretentious, and striving to establish their own uniqueness and importance as in the case of Angel and Alec. With the existence of a man and a woman who walks away with this knowledge, one can find similarities to Adam and Eve. Does Hardy see the birth of a new society starting with this couple? Or is it another mark for failure by mankind, to sin again and suffer another slow fall from grace—to let Tess’s message go for naught?
In the end, Hardy tempers his ending with much ambiguosity. The reader never discovers what route Angel and Liza-Lu takes to purvey Tess’s message in the world. The reader is left unsure whether to feel hope for the couple and a happy closure that at least Tess’s death wasn’t for naught. Such an ending would emphasize the redemptive qualities of mankind despite its evils and faulty systems. Or Angel and Liza-Lu could have simply abandoned society completely to its vices, emphasizing the decline of mankind into further hypocrisy and pretensions while individuals can only survive by fleeing altogether. This would delineate the inability of mankind to escape its circumstances, that humans are mired in their flawed human natures that would continue to trample on others to maintain its pretensions of religion, morality and enlightenment. But by leaving the ending fairly open-ended, Hardy made his point that it is up to the reader as well to purvey Tess’s message as well. There are three disciples of Tess’s ministry that leave the book at the ending. How the reader reacts to this, what one’s actions are determines whether Tess’s ending is truly the tragedy or not. As the author, Hardy is charging others to take responsibility for the truth of man’s dual nature of base and enlightened. Will one accept it, or fight against its evils, intended or not?