The word “pure”, when used for a person, may mean “free from guilt or defilement”. And, as a legal term it means “free from ritual uncleanness”. Clearly, there is much room for controversy in the former definition. For, both guilt and defilement lie as much in the subject as in the eye of the beholder. This is the point raised by Hardy in the novel “Tess of the D'Urbervilles”.
There is a measure of defiance in his gesture of using the sub-title “A Pure Woman”. This leaves no doubt as to his stand on the matter. Moreover, he evinces a clear emotional commitment by following the sub-title with a quotation from Shakespeare :
“…Poor wounded name!
My bosom as a bed shall lodge thee.”
Tess is first shown participating in an ancient pagan ritual at Marlott. The writer describes her in a manner calculated to set her apart from the others :
“She wore a red ribbon in her hair, and was the only one of the white company who could boast of such pronounced adornment.”
This flash of red colour is quite out of place in the pallor of the white dresses, white flowers and peeled willow wands. It distinctly suggests the presence of flesh and blood against an otherwise sterile background. The colour is mentioned again when Alec crosses her path as :
“one who stood fair to be the blood-red ray in the spectrum of her young life.”
This device makes it clear that the writer wants to show Tess as being both a physical and a spiritual entity. By doing so, he establishes the pure innocence of her soul and the vulnerability of her body to defilement. Nature's role in this precarious balance is shown thus :
“It was a luxuriance of aspect, a fulness of growth, which made her appear more of a woman than she really was.”
This reckless extravagance of Nature on the one hand and a poverty of means on the other place Tess in the dangerous proximity of Alec D'Urberville. He, on his part, is impelled by the same forces which make the strawberries luscious, the roses sweet-scented and Tess a woman much before her time. Still, she remains quite above his ardent advance. Significantly, this has nothing to do with any studied modesty on her part. Rather, it is an angelic purity of mind which lets her get no inkling of his thoughts.
This innocence combines with fatigue to lull her to sleep in the forest on the way back from Chaseborough. And, Alec comes to her groping through the tangled thickets of desire grown wild. This is the point from where onwards Tess is regarded as being guilty of “ritual uncleanness”. We may grant that she was a partner in-if not a party to-her own violation. We may even agree with those who see much more in Tess' staying on at The Slopes after this. But, when she does leave, her exchange with Alec tilts the balance the other way. Her self-evaluation is amazingly clear and candid when she tells him :
“My eyes were dazed by you for a little, and that was all.”
Alec dismisses her explanation with an extremely cynical retort. But, Tess' rejoinder is both passionate and eloquent :
“Did it ever strike your mind that what every woman says some women may feel.”
This remark is enough to show that physical violation has not destroyed her inner purity. But, tragically, this very inner purity ravages her with guilt at her condition. One wonders who is the purer-she who mortifies herself again and again or her mother who closes the chapter with a thick-skinned acceptance of the bitter fact.
Tess' large heartedness is quite unexpected in one so immature. Throughout the ordeal of the birth and death of her child, she manages to confine her pain within herself. Even her solitary complaint has the sweetness of a prayer about it :
“But perhaps I don't quite know the Lord as yet.”
Such patience can only be regarded as saintly. And, this is only the beginning of her tribulation. She is destined to be abandoned by the only man she ever loves and then to be yet again at the mercy of her seducer. Her torturous soul-searching about which of the two must be her husband is heartrending.
It is true that her act of murdering Alec is gruesome and shocking. In fact, it appears to be motivated purely by a desire for revenge. But, at this stage in the novel, Alec has come to symbolise the cruelty of all human desires. And, Tess symbolises the human yearning to rise above the dust and ashes of this sad state of affairs. Her death by hanging shows that purity can only be attained by killing at least half of all that is human in us.
