Abstract
Female subjectivity is an awareness to create an identity of her own while contesting with patriarchal norms of the society. In Victorian era, Thomas Hardy in his novel Tess of the d’Urbervilles (1891) manifested the same through the portrayal of his protagonist, ‘Tess’. In a society which is judgmental of women’s character and values it around her virginity and sexual choices, ‘purity’ or ‘fallen’ become a tool to emboss patriarchal hypocrisy. However, Hardy builds his narrative in such a way that it reaches beyond this duality of pure-impure and projects Tess not only as pure but also relevant to the contemporary narrative wherein one intends to discuss her survivor in every sense of the term. Within such Victorian debate between women’s ‘purity’ and ‘fallenness’, Hardy characterizes Tess not only as a mere object before patriarchal authority, rather find ways to construction her subjectivity which this article intends to explore through the theoretical framework of Chris Weedon’s vision of female subjectivity as reflected in her book Feminist Practice and Poststructuralist Theory (1987) which bears immense relevance even in 21st century regarding women’s predicament.
Keywords: ‘Subjectivity’, ‘Purity’, ‘Virginity’, ‘Patriarchy’, ‘Victorian’
Introduction
Thomas Hardy is one of the most renowned authors from Victorian age who often highlights the bleak and dark aspects of human existence with special adherence to women. He represents the society which has not just pessimistic undertone but an unfateful and sad layering to it of which novels like Far from the Madding Crowd (1874), The Mayor of Caster Bridge (1886), Jude the Obscure (1895) and most prominently in Tess of the d’Urbervilles (1891) can be best suited examples. On a surface scale it may appear that his vision is only to reflect on Victorian moral codes and conducts in a woman’s life but close analysis of the novel Tess of the d’Urbervilles unfolds the layered significance of his imaginative world through which he brings forth a woman’s life who is very much an outsider in her own society on so-called moral basis of her sexuality or so for her ‘impurity’.
Within such Victorian debate between women’s ‘purity’ and ‘fallenness’, Hardy not only projects Tess’s character as a mere object or victim before patriarchal authority, rather find ample ways for the construction of female subjectivity through his protagonist’s life which this article intends to explore within the framework of Chris Weedon’s vision of female subjectivity as discussed in her book Feminist Practice and Poststructuralist Theory (1987). This theoretical model is relevant beyond the Spatio-temporal Victorian society of Wessex as till date women are ‘other’ in dominant social discourse which often aligns their ‘virginity’ with ‘purity’ and thereby, subversion of such outlook through ‘subjectivity’ construction is a worthy debate.
Considering ‘sexuality’, Jeffery Weeks in his book Sexuality defines it as a social construction that “does demand distinctions, and creates boundaries” between “masculinity and femininity” and also adds that “male sexuality as culturally defined provides the norm and, not surprisingly, female sexuality continues to be the problem. Males, in becoming men, take up positions in power relations in which they acquire the ability to define women” (p. 54-55). As far as Victorian society is concerned, it often visualized women as domestic, submissive, motherly and idealizes them as ‘Angel in the House’. The most stringent attribute of women’s ‘purity’ in Victorian society was her virginity. As Jessica Valenti poses pertinent questions in The Purity Myth, “for women especially, virginity has become the easy answer—the morality quick fix. You can be vapid, stupid, and unethical, but so long as you’ve never had sex, you’re a ‘good’ (i.e., ‘moral’) girl and therefore worthy of praise” (p. 24). If a woman wasn’t a virgin or couldn’t prove herself one, particularly within the institution of family or more specifically in marriage, she was considered as a ‘fallen woman’.
In such society, superficially coded with moral value system that judges individuals, especially women, Thomas Hardy goes to the extent of using a subtitle like ‘A Pure Woman’ in his novel Tess of the d’Urbervilles for a woman who was raped and as a consequence of that becomes a mother before marriage. Here, Hardy’s point of emphasis is to claim the innate purity of Tess for her affinity with Nature as well as for her innocent and responsible ‘self’.
As far as subjectivity is concerned it is a conscious choice of ‘self’ within “the tension between choice and illusion, between imposed definitions and individual interrogations of them, between old formulae and new responsibilities” (p. 2) as explained by Donald E. Hall in the book Subjectivity.
Tess as Subject: The Construction of Female Subjectivity
From the very onset of the novel Tess of the d’Urbervilles, Hardy’s approach towards Tess as a subject becomes evident contrary to the parallel representation of the other country girls in the May Day celebration only as part of ‘white dressed exhibition’ under the anonymous gaze. Where these village girls have undergone ‘crisis in representation’ only as mere objects of exhibition, Tess is the first one in the text who has been projected as an individual:
“The Lord-a-Lord! Why, Tess Durbeyfield, if there isn’t thy father riding hwome in a carriage!” A young member of the band turned her head at the exclamation. She was a fine and handsome girl— not handsomer than some others, possibly— but her mobile peony mouth and large innocent eyes added eloquence to colour and shape. She wore a red ribbon in her hair, and was the only one of the white company who could boast of such a pronounced adornment (Hardy, 20)
Chris Weeden in her book Feminist Practice and Poststructuralist Theory outlines female subjectivity as “the product of the society and culture in which we live… (that) changes with shifts in the wide range of discursive fields which constitutes them” (p. 33). Before Victorian society’s prime demand of superficial ‘purity’ solely based on ‘body’ or virginity of women, Tess exemplifies alternative shifts for ‘purity’ concept in psychological as well as ethical terms through her innocence and sheer sense of responsibility which in turn exhilarates her subjectivity construction. Tess’s intense sense of responsibility becomes evident in her journey with horse Prince and her ethical purity becomes explicit as she considers herself responsible for Prince’s death: “Tis all my doing— all mine!… No excuse for me— none” (p. 39).
Surprisingly enough such ethical purity had hardly any scope within Victorian morality, rather sexual virginity was the sole criterion for women’s purity. When Tess has been sexually assaulted by Alec, society attempts to justify male action as a result of female seduction. However, in reality rape is what Rosemarie Morgan describes as “an act of theft, a dishonest appropriation of another’s property with the intent to deprive her of it permanently. The term suffices to denote the moral nature of the act, which passes beyond sexual assault to take account of violation of rightful ownership” (p. 94). Hardy’s details about this incident provide scope for Alec’s fault and Tess’s innocence: “He (Alec) knelt, and bent lower, till her breath warmed his face, and in a moment his cheek was in contact with hers. She was sleeping soundly, and upon her eyelashes there lingered tears” (Hardy, 82).
Nature, Identity, and the Field-Woman
Chris Weedon asserts one of the ways of constructing female subjectivity by “reflect(ing) upon the discursive relations which constitute her (woman) and the society in which she lives, and able to choose from the options available” (p. 125). Post ‘fallen woman’ episode, the supposedly ‘best option available’ to Tess was anchoring her innocence with intense closeness of Nature, which she did avail both in Marlott and by shifting in Talbothays Dairy. By joining harvesting and farming, she becomes “part and parcel of outdoor nature, and is not merely an object set down therein as at ordinary times” (Hardy, 100). With farming she not only manages her economic self-sustainability but also acquires her identity as a ‘field-woman’.
Tess’s association with Nature through harvesting also make ways for her towards a margin-less existence: “a field-man is a personality afield; a field-woman is a portion of the field; she has somehow lost her own margin, imbibed the essence of her surrounding, and assimilated herself with it” (p. 100). While Victorian society’s crude codes marginalize Tess’s existence as a ‘fallen woman’, her decision of harvesting in the lap of nature extends her existence beyond all stringent societal norms of women’s sexuality.
Such intense innocence of Tess within and beyond natural landscape also drew attention of Angel Clare who immediately fell in love with her. Here Angel also endorses the Victorian obsession of women’s virginity and rustic purity, which becomes obvious from his own words, “what a fresh and virginal daughter of Nature that milkmaid is” (Hardy, 136) and thereafter, Angel goes for mythicizing Tess as per his own imagination: “she was no longer the milkmaid, but a visionary essence of woman— a whole sex condensed into one typical form. He called her Artemis, Demeter, and other fanciful names” (Hardy, 146). Contrarily enough Hardy portrays Tess not simply as a passive ‘angel in the house’ kind of figure, rather as a woman who is very much conscious about her subjectivity and that is why she can boldly assert, “call me Tess” (Hardy, 146) when her husband fantasizes her as mythic being.
Resistance and Ethics
The dual façade of patriarchal conceptualization of women comes forth as soon as Tess has confessed to Clare her past mishap. The moment she declares her loss of virginity, she doesn’t remain pure, innocent figure in his perception. He said that “you (Tess) were one person: now you are another” and also added that “the woman I have been loving is not you” (Hardy, 248). Significantly enough Tess is not a passive one to listen all these silently, rather she reasonably voices before such duplicitous tone of patriarchy:
I thought, Angel, that you loved me— me, my very self! If it is I you do love, O how can it be that you look and speak so? It frightens me! Having begun to love you, I love you forever— in all changes, in all disgraces, because you are yourself. I ask no more. Then how can you, O my own husband, stop loving me? (Hardy, 248)
In the process of subjectivity construction as per Weedon, woman also “exists as a thinking, feeling subject and social agent, capable of resistance and innovations produced out of the clash between contradictory subject positions and practices” (p. 125). The same was also the position of Tess as society demanded her physical virginity, passive existence as a woman whereas, her entire life revolves around ethical purity, reason and her subjective beliefs.
Conclusion
After such detailed analysis of Tess’s life in the novel Tess of the d’Urbervilles, both from her subjective and social scale, there remains no grain to consider her a victim or for so a ‘fallen woman’. From the very beginning she is hardworking and never relies upon the handouts of others. It is always the interplaying of chance and coincidences that causes tragic consequences in Tess’s life but with self-willingness she even rebuttals her destiny all over again within the ‘limited options available’ which marks her strengthened sense of subjectivity. Moreover, in all her actions Tess never deviates from her sense of responsibility and core ethics and thereby, sustains her ‘purity’ throughout generating a counter discourse towards ‘Victorian purity’ beyond the margins of female sexuality or virginity for that matter. She remains as pure towards the end as she was in the beginning of the novel and therefore, she is ‘a pure woman’ in Hardy’s conviction also which the Victorian critics failed to understand.
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