“The Representation of Woman in Thomas Hardy’s Novel “Tess of the d’Urbervilles” in The Victorian Society”

Abstract

The aim of this study is to examine Thomas Hardy’s representation of woman in the Victorian society in his selected novel Tess of the d’Urbervilles. In the majority of Victorian novels, certain norms were imposed on women to be inferior to men. However, when a woman does not follow the Victorian conventions, she would be judged according to these strict laws. Thomas Hardy created a female character as the main character of his novel Tess of the d’Urbervilles. According to his male feminist and ecofeminist perspective, we discovered that Tess is seem to be a pure and innocent girl, but she committed a sinful act and she was named as a fallen woman. Hardy represented her as a victim of bad social norms. Clearly that Thomas hardy’s representation of Tess as a woman in the Victorian community based on his real world, which made himself as a male feminist and an ecofeminist writer in his treatment of woman’s conditions. Hardy’s work revealed his deep sympathy for women and their struggle both inside and outside the home. A well-known fact, that the English society was patriarchal and obliged women to stick to domesticity, they were expected to be pure in order not to be hate by society. By focusing on a feminist approach to hardy’s female character, we found out that as a writer, hardy followed his feminist position towards women since he sympathizes the unfortunate situation of women.