It’s difficult to find a more captivating story about human misfortune.
The story of Tess Durbeyfield is the story about pure and sensitive girl under pressure of the society turning into the most regrettable part of this society. And this is not a story about love, or about the undying evil nature of some of us.
This is the story about unfair life. The words Hardy writes at the beginning of his work – “And the past is past. And even if it won’t be totally vanished in some years after everyone forgot the occasion, it will definitely dissolute in the eternity as soon as she is dead and buried.” – turn out to be the bitter truth. Times pass and everything disappears without a trace – human grieves and human happiness.
Everything will be forgotten. Life, people do not forgive, they forget.
It’s hard to decide whether the author is cruel to his heroes or to his readers – so the story heartbreakingly develops. And at the end of it the reader is full of hope for the reward of hers or his sufferings along with the heroes at the end of the story.
The last hope the reader bears (as the heroine does) does not disappear in vain – the longed hope comes true at last. But who will dare to thank the author for this coup de grâce?
In this relation the reader might recall the adventure of Tess’ when she discovered the dying peacocks in the woods (wounded by the hunters) and the best she could do for them was to kill them and stop their hopeless sufferings.
