2。2 The Critical Realist Writer - Hardy

Thomas Hardy was born in June 1840。 There was no churches, schools, post offices or boulevards in the village。 The country life was always quiet, only when it was festival, it would be busy。 In Hardy’s childhood, he always went into the forests to play alone。 He liked to listen to rivers and winds and see how animals struggle for their lives。 Both the nature’s beauty and cruelty left a deep impression on his mind。 Hardy appreciated the honest country life, his early works had a high realistic achievement。 

Since the capitalist industry and culture’s development needed personal freedom, and at the same time the conflict with the patriarchal ethics of agricultural civilization had reached the top, thousands of years’ farmers’ experience was destroyed, made some farmers corrupted。 And the contradictions and conflicts made Hardy had a further understanding of British society。 He turned to observe the society, nature, and people’s destiny seriously and earnestly, and this made his works had obvious differences to his early works, like the Return of the Native。 These novels marked Hardy’s changes of thought。 Under his pen, the more people struggle with fate, the more it hurts。 The more it hurts, the more people struggle with fate, but people will finally be failed。 And this kind of disastrous outcome looked like it was caused by disharmony between people and nature, but actually it was the aggravation of rural poverty, the deepening of social contradictions and the destruction of capitalism against civilization and people。 Hardy found the root of tragedy from the social point of view, and made his novels had profound meanings。His last two novels were the best that reflected the real world: Tess of the D’Urbervilles and Jude the Obscure。 来*自-优=尔,论:文+网www.youerw.com

3 Tess D’Urbervilles

Tess D’Urbervilles is the heroine of Tess of the D’Urbervilles。 The storywas about her transient and miserable life。 She is kind, beautiful, and haspassion to life。 But under bourgeois morality, she turns into an immoral woman, and is persecuted。 Her wrecked life aroused sympathy among the readers at that time, especially women and peasants。