She can flirt, she can listen, she can sympathize, she can work with her hands.
The above line from Hardy’s Tess of the d’Urbervilles demonstrates a great deal about the themes of the novel as well as the character of Tess. The line reprinted above is supposed to reveal the versatility of Tess’ character. However, it also reveals a good deal that helps us understand Hardy’s central theme of the book. This is because the versatility of Tess’ persona is what makes her unique. However, she is purity, fortitude, woman and suffering personified. Nonetheless, she is herself and no other person, unlike any other woman. This contrast of her universal qualities but her individual differences is significant to understanding one of Hardy’s core themes if not the core theme in the novel: Tess is a symbol of the common predicament of all mankind-we are meant to suffer, love and endure. However, despite this universality Tess’ pain is made to seem unique by Hardy’s skill. In her unique vitality and versatility we understand the universality and unique phenomena of tragedy.
The character of Tess is one that symbolizes the positive aspects of life, but she represents the unrealized potential that is within all human beings as much as she comes to symbolize how so very often we end up differently than we might. Of course, her universality is also embodied within the Christian community wherein she exists, but she also represents as do others in the novel the pagan nature of mankind underneath the surface of social appearances. Like the line reprinted at the outset, Tess’ unique nature despite being an example of common mankind is also evidenced when she rejects the vicar and his church. The vicar refuses to give her child a Christian burial and Tess replies, “’Then I don’t like you!’, she burst out, ‘and I’ll never come to your church again’” (Har
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