Abstract

Tess of the D’urbervilles is one of Thomas Hardy ’s excellent work. In this novel, the heroine, Tess, is described with intelligence and beauty. She is warm-heated, kind, brave, responsible. However, such a nice girl cannot escape the destiny’s grip. Tess’ tragedy has social, legal, religious and moral causes. We can see that the main characters have great effects on Tess. Without these persons, Tess should have lived a better life. So this paper will discuss the cause of Tess’ tragedy as well as other main characters that result in this tragedy where she is changing from a pure, beautiful girl to a woman with an exhausted heart, giving herself up. Finally she was executed.This paper is divided into three parts. In the first part, I will introduce this novel. The second part consists of four sections, which respectively introduce Tess’ Parents’ Influence on Tess’ Tragedy, Alec’s Influence on Tess’ Tragedy, Angel’s Influence on Tess’ Tragedy, and the influence of Tess’ character. From the following part, we can see Tess’ parents’ selfishness, Alec destroys Tess’ body, Angel ruins Tess’ spirit and Tess’ mental torment.

Key Words: Tragedy; Causes; Character; Tess

Contents

Abstract

摘要

1  Introduction-1

2  Main Characters' Influence on Tess’ Tragedy-4

2.1 Tess’ Parents’ Influence on Tess’ Tragedy-4

2.2 Alec’s Influence on Tess’ Tragedy-5

2.3 Angel’s Influence on Tess’ Tragedy-6

2.4 The influence of Tess’ character-9

3  The Source of Tess’ Tragedy-12

4  Conclusion-13

Bibliography-14

Acknowledgments-15