The apprehensive and suppressed soul of the fallen woman in Thomas Hardy's Tess of the D'Urbervilles

Abstract

In Tess of the D'Urbervilles, Hardy brings to picture a helpless innocent country girl who is the victim of Victorian patriarchal society and the injustice of social law. The study makes an attempt to bring to light the injustice of social law, the hypocrisy of social prejudice and the inequality of male-dominance in the Victorian Patriarchal society and shows Hardy's heartfelt commiseration towards Tess, the protagonist, who is the symbolic of rural women who were ruthlessly crushed in male-dominated world. This study further aims at scrutinizing the biased social norms, the unjust laws the rotten ethics and the malicious morality standards, which contribute to Tess's innocent crush. © 2011 ACADEMY PUBLISHER Manufactured in Finland.