Open Wounds
...t letter personified. Sorrow’s imminent death furthers the pain as he serves a sort of memento mori, foreshadowing the fate of the damned. Socially, Tess is ostracized from society upon her return, transforming her amiable and social personality into that of a recluse for a year, until her rare stroke of luck in landing at Talbothay Dairy and meeting Angel. But even then, she is psychologically burdened with the albatross of her dark secret, which prevents her from ever fully enjoying herself guiltlessly, as she should. This debilitating self-effacement, coupled with her strong conscience, ultimately destroys any hope of reconciliation and lasting happiness she has with Angel. Angel truly loves Tess and, up until Tess’s revelation of her dark past, treats her as something of a deity. His true flaw is not inherent malevolence and disregard for others—as is the case with Alec—but rather, the same limitations of the Victorian society around him: his reactionary values and double standards. As cowardly as this flaw comes to be, it is of utmost importance to note that it would not have emerged had Alec not disgraced Tess from the very outset. Furthermore, while Angel may leave Tess and shamefully shirk his duties as a husband, he does leave her ample money so that she can provide for herself physically, if not mentally. Angel’s neglect ultimately causes her major harm indirectly—through intervention of fate, when Tess chances upon his brothers and Mercy Chant and, due to the context of the external situation and her innate pride, chooses not to ask his parents for further funds. Nonetheless, Angel did not consciously and directly refuse care for Tess and cast her out onto the street, and soon feels great concern and guilt when he realizes she has not touched the money. Alec, on the other hand, is solely guilty of this sort of direct harm, in which no additional outside forces are necessary. Alec later returns to his selfish ways in persistently chasing Tess down and persuading her to join him, utilizing a mixture of lying, manipulating, deriding, and playing on her desperation and duty as a daughter to fend for her family. Eventually, he cruelly taunts her and Angel after Angel has returned from Brazil for Tess, and it is this taunting at such an unstable and emotional point in Tess’s life that incites her to commit the one act that...