Essays in criticism transcend merely recommending or exclaiming distaste for Hardy's novel. They instead strive to provide useful insight into the depth of the literature. The first essay I read for this selection was "Hardy's Moments of Vision" by Virginia Woolf. Woolf, herself, is a profound writer and is respected for her beliefs and views. She praises the novel for its blatant beauty and Hardy's talent which is "magnificent in achievement" (401). Her essay focuses on Hardy's skills and that although his writing appears to have short comings, it is actually a blessing. She is enthralled with his natural beauty "which are to be found in every book that he wrote" (401). The next essay I read which breaks completely away from Woolf's close reading is "Neo-Dawrinian Fate in Tess of the D'Ubervilles" by Peter R. Morton. It offers a useful reading though the inheritance theory after establishing that Hardy was a large fan of Darwinism. Morton builds his argument through assurance that Hardy liked the theory then demonstrating evidence for those beliefs in the novel. His theory states that there is intention behind his writing and plot. Morton states that Hardy's moves which appear to be mere effects of "bad luck" are instead representations of Darwinism. Morton specifically claims "accidents in Tess are raraly if ever a product of the random... but rather... outcome of the immediate narrative context of their own personalities as conditioned and limited by the forces of heredity and environment" (444). This claim that Hardy completely fashioned his novel around this theory offers a much different reading than Woolf offers who reads the piece from a complete place of artistic wonder.
In my analysis I would like to examine Virginia Woolf opinion on the topic that our class discussed this Wednesday the 13th of November. We circled around and questioned why Hardy seems to leave questions unanswered and conversations undeveloped. The most pivotal moments are often marked by a brief glossing, like the confession of Tess to Angel about her previous affair and child. The way it is written states " ... she entered on her story of her acquaintance with Alec D'Uberville and its results..." (177). Here the reader understands what is at stake for Tess as she must tell her new husband all about her past. But instead of detailing her conversation so we know who to blame how to react the text cuts to a new chapter. In addition to this circumstance, we also never really understand the murder of Alec and what her motives or triggers were. All the reader has to go off of is the brief information offered by Hardy as to how those moments occurred, leaving much to inference up to the readers themselves. Woolf see's this tactic of Hardy's as part of the beauty of the piece "We do not remember how they talked and changed and got to know each other, finely, gradually from step to step" (403). She see's it as Hardy not spending much time on character development because the beauty of the story lies elsewhere. The tragedy is in the unknown and helplessness of the reader to intervene.
I am glad you wrote about this because it was hard to read these parts of the novel--essentially the most climatic and intense parts--where you are left to infer the situations for yourself. I wanted to know more, be in the moment of the book, but for some reason Hardy leaves us out. Clearly it was an intent, but like you say, it leaves us with unanswered questions about why he may have done this. What was his motive? It is definitely a very different writing technique/style that I don't feel like is even common in modern texts, so it is even more interesting that he chose to do that back then. I feel as if this may relate a lot to Hardy's "out of the box" choices. He wanted to be different and he wanted to write differently, which I think becomes clear in the "Interview with Thomas Hardy". This whole idea that you address in your blog is so interesting to me because we may never really know or understand why he wrote those events in the book the way that he did.
ReplyDeleteNice blog Ariel! :) I read the Woolf piece too. I like what you said about Hardy leaving it up to the reader to make inferences about what's happening during those sections instead of explicitly describing the events. It's so true! But frustrating for us because there are so many different interpretations that someone could have regarding those instances. It's like we were saying in class, the story changes depending on (for example) if Alec and Tess were fighting and she murdered him in a heat of passion, or if she merely stabbed him in his sleep.
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