Analysis of major character —Tess

Tess is the central character of the novel, Tess of the D’Urbervilles, who is intelligent, strikingly attractive, and possesses deep moral sensitivity and passionate intensity. The subtitle of the novel is A Pure Woman. According to the traditional moral standards, Tess is undoubtedly bad woman who has been a mistress of Alec and also a murderer of him. However, in Hardy’s mind of eye, she is kind-hearted, sincere and simple, who absolutely is “A Pure Woman”. She is not only a distinctive individual, but also is shaped by Hardy into somewhat a divine heroine. Other characters also refer to Tess in mythical terms. As we can see, Angel calls her a “daughter of nature”, and latter refers to her “Artemis”and “Demeter”. Hardy descibes Tess as more than an individual woman, but as a person closer to a mythical incarnation of womanhood. We can perceive it from his descriptions, when he says that her eyes are “neither black nor blue nor grey nor violet; rather all these shades together,” like “an almost standard woman ”. Thus Tess’s story may be a typical story, representing a deeper and broader experience than that of a single individual.

In Tess of the D’Urbervilles, life develops through a series of unexpected incidents. Born poverty, harboring pure and sincere yearn for love, Tess attempts to change her destiny. However, unfairness dominates the lives of Tess and her family. Finally, her life ended in tragedy. At the end of the novel, after Tess’s execution, the author said:“Justice was done, and the President of the immortals had ended his sport with Tess.” The so-called “the President of the immortals” by Hardy can be interpreted as the adverse and severe living conditions Tess was trapped in.

But Tess also has strong will. She stands up for herself and refuses to crumble under pressure. She punishes herself for her weakness after her sexual escapade with Alec. At the burial of her child, Sorrow, she weeps but collects herself and moves on strongly. Overall, her determined attempts to escape her past primarily reflect her strength.

To some extent, Tess represents the changing role of the agriculture workers in England in the late 19th century. Her parents do not have any schooling and are lacking of education, while Tess possesses education, thus she seems quite unfit into the country culture of her predecessors. But financial constrains keep her from rising to a higher position in life. She belongs to that upper class, as we can discover at the beginning of the novel that the Durbeyfields are the surviving members of the noble and ancient family of the D’Urbervilles. There is aristocracy in Tess’s blood,

visible in her graceful beauty. Yet she is forced to work as a farmhand and milkmaid. We observe from the novel that she tried to express her joy by singing low-class folk songs, but they fails to express her fully and makes her feel quite uncomfortable. On the other hand, her diction, while more polished than her mother’s, is not quite up to the level of Alec’s and Angel’s. She is in between, both socially and culturally. Thus, Tess is a symbol of unclear and unstable notion of class in 19th century Britain. At that time old family lines retained their earlier glamour, but cold economic realities made sheer wealth more important than inner nobility.

Apart from her social symbolism, Tess represents fallen humanity in religious sense, as the frequent biblical allusions in the novel remind us. Just as Tess’s clan was once glorious and powerful, but now is sadly fallen, the early glory of the first humans, Adam and Eve, fade with their expulsion from Eden. Thus Tess represents the original sin in Christian that human are becoming more and more degraded. Even humans are not wholly or directly responsible for the crimes for which they are punished, just like the torments Tess suffered. This torment represents the most universal side of Tess: she is the myth of the human who suffers for crimes that are not her own and thus lives a life more degraded than she deserves.

第二篇：动物农场的英文读书报告animal farm

SoEReading Book Report Crystal Animal Farm student number: 1120113509 By: George Orwell December 3,2012 The story happened in Mr. Jones’s Manor farm. The animals worked for the farm day and night. One night, a pig Old Major told the animals what he had dreamed. Then the animals realize that they were leading a miserable life and they were exploited by human being. Old Major encouraged them to get rid of man and the produce of their labor would be their own. Later, the battle really happened and Mr. Jones run away. They established “Animal Farm” and put forward “Seven Commandments”. At the beginning of “Animal Farm”, all animals were equal. It was a new life .Every animal bore hardship and work hard for a better life. However, the leaders--pigs took advantage of new system to benefit themselves. They slept on the bed and drunk milk. The two leaders-Snowball and Napoleon wanted to be the only leader. Snowball was driven out because Napoleon let some fierce dog to chase him. And then Napoleon declared Snowball was spy and the enemy of Animal Farm. In the past, Snowball put forward to build windmill and Napoleon push others to build it since Snowball’s departure. Though it was wrecked twice but it finally was accomplished through years of hard work. As time went by, pigs 1

became the privileged stratum. They even revised “Seven Commandments” to satisfy their own desire. If animals complained about the ruling of Napoleon, they would be killed cruelly. Animals had no freedom and kept working much laborious work. They had less food but pigs always had feast. Animal’s miserable life was just like that in Manor Farm. At last, pigs even walked by two legs and had negotiation with people. Animal’s life did not change at all or maybe more miserable than before.

Combined with my knowledge of history, I can sense this book reflect the situation in the Soviet Union. Every animal has its own reflection. Napoleon was just Stalin. He was in charge of the whole country in an autocratic way. He killed those who were not willing to obey his ruling. Snowball was just like Trostsky. When people didn't need him, no one cared about his life though he dedicated his whole life to the country. What's worse, people blamed all evil things and bad results to him. He was the victim of politics. Boxer are those who lived at the bottom of society. They work the most laborious work and eat least. They were exploited everyday until death. Their lives were poor. Old Benjamin reflected those who wanted to save their lives and avoided being killed by not commenting on politics. They were not satisfied about 2

the situation but they were reluctant to criticize. I am sure that everyone can see the totalitarianism among pigs. Why is there totalitarianism? I think first it's because of lacking supervision. Without supervision, no matter how heroic and wise he is,he will abuse the power, because complete power is bound to lead to complete corruption. Secondly, people are lazy. They think that there will be heroes leading them to a better life no matter he is Snowball or Napoleon, Stalin or others. They don’t want to take pains and to worry about the future. They all depend on heroes but not rely on themselves. That's totally wrong. Everyone must take responsibility for himself. People can't be so lazy to put all the responsibility and rights to the leader. When you overthrow a leader and uphold another leader, that's not democracy. Depending on leaders would not obtain democracy. The so-called "democracy" rulers give you is autocracy with the skin of democracy.

Then I want to say people's patience to tyranny and misrule. This story reflected situation in the Soviet Union. However,we all know, history is always similar. I can also find miniature of China and Chine people at that time. Chinese people have a bad character of tolerating more autocracy, misrule than any Western people. No matter in the ancient time or during Chairman Mao's ruling, people can always tolerate corruption, tyranny and other evil 3

things. Why can we tolerate so much? Why didn't we criticize politics? Because we lacked legal protection and gurantee for our life. To avoid being killed, we close our mouth just like Benjamin.

There is another thing worth mentioning--people's quality. Rulers want the citizen to be foolish. That's Obscurantism. There are some evidence. Boxer only knew some of alphabet and those animals born later even knew none of them. Squealer always said that “you were stupid so that you won't understand how great our plans were.” And then, animals thought they were not clever and they must follow Napoleon. Napoleon destroyed the school built for animals so that they could always stay foolish. Animals doubted that someone had changed "Seven Commandments". When Squealer said it remained without any change, animals thought their memory were not clear. They didn't have their own thoughts and judgement. Rulers hope citizen are ignorant so they won't have advanced ideas to fight against their rule. No matter in China or in western countries, there were always rulers killing intellectual because they didn't want to see any potential threatening. Though rulers don’t want citizen to be well-educated, people must improve themselves or they can’t protect their own rights.

Last I want to say something about Snowball. I suppose he was a good leader. At least he put forward to build windmill and he 4

got hurt during the battle against human being. It's just like Trostsky put forward to develop industry to enter modernization in Soviet Union. He devoted his whole life to the country but had a bad result. People blame all evil things to him. I think it's unfair. People must take responsibility for themselves and should not put all the rights and obligation to the leader. Faced with the results of the World War II, German did not only blame on Hitler. All the Germen rethought profoundly for their evil behaviors. As for the Iraq war, we can't only blame on President Bush. At least citizen voted and chose him!. So it's unfair to criticize Snowball. We don't know how he would rule the farm if he did not leave. Maybe he was democratic but without supervision he might also became autocratic.

This book is sarcasm to the socialism of Soviet Union, especially those words "every animal is equal but some animals are more equal." The author criticized autocracy in the Soviet Union. I agree that there are still many shortcomings of current socialistic society in China. There is some corruption but no autocracy. However, I am sure it will make progress because our government attaches great importance to people's education and people have their independent thoughts to analyze and have human rights to comment on politics. I am sure tomorrow will be better.

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I think if there is one more person to read Orwell’s book, there will be one more guarantee of freedom.

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