tess and hardy
Thomas Hardy was considered a fatalist. ... The use of fatalism for furthering the plot was a technique used by many Victorian authors, but with Thomas Hardy it became something more than a mere device. Due to his fatalistic outlook of life, Hardy presents the character of Tess as having a variety of forces working against her efforts to control her destiny. Fate approaches Tess in a great variety of forms. ... The fundamental basis of Thomas Hardy’s fatalism is seen embodied in his youthful actions and the very first works he wrote, and there is evidently a gradual development up to the day of his death. ... When Hardy was born, the attending surgeon pronounced him dead. He was thrown aside until Fate stepped in and summoned a nurse to realize that Hardy was in fact alive. Probably stemming from this, never in Hardy’s whole life did he look upon existence as being much worth while. ... Hardy incorporates these feelings into the novel Tess of the d’Urbervilles. ... Hardy’s tender sympathy with nature and his belief in her as an instrument of Fate, is to be explained that his entire childhood was spent close to the soil. ... It is evident that Hardy considered Egdon Heath a personality, and likewise thought of it as an agent of Fate. Hardy lived in an age of transition which added to his natural disposition toward a melancholy view of life. ... Hardy’s early struggle with religious problems was an important factor in shaping his fatalistic nature. As a child, it was Hardy’s dream to become a parson. ... Hardy’s loss of religious belief was very painful and was accompanied by deep struggles, but his new belief of fatalism enabled him to write many great works. Hardy’s fatalistic philosophy is expressed the most in Tess of the d’Urbervilles, than in any of his other publications. Actually there is similarities between Tess’s life and Hardy’s life. The use of chance and coincidence is given mostly a negative effect in Tess. ... A good example of this can be found in the beginning pages of Tess. Angel Clare and his two brothers, passes through Tess’s village and sees her and her companions dancing on the green. ... He “took almost the first that came to hand”, but he didn’t take Tess. ... The reason Hardy probably introduces this episode is to make his readers realize that if Angel had selected Tess for his dancing mate, both of them would have escaped their tragic end. In fact, almost every chance that Tess takes and every coincidence she encounters, brings her sorrow in the long run.