Transcription
[Music] Hello everybody. This is the second video on Thomas Hardy. Before I talk about *Tess of the d’Urbervilles* and *Jude the Obscure*, let me give you an overview of the previous novels. Hardy’s writing career started with poetry, actually, but he never published his poems first until the last novel, *Jude the Obscure*, was written. It is after *Jude the Obscure* that Hardy’s poetry got published.
Now, Hardy’s first published novel is *Desperate Remedies*, that came in 1871, and then immediately next year he wrote *Under the Greenwood Tree*. His third novel also came in the next year, 1873; that is *A Pair of Blue Eyes*, and his first mature novel, *Far from the Madding Crowd*, came in 1874. *Far from the Madding Crowd* is important because it shows the values of the Wessex country folk, the rural people. *Far from the Madding Crowd* shows a woman making some mistakes and learning from her mistakes and finally choosing the right man, Gabriel Oak. So, people make mistakes; people are flawed; they are not perfect. This is a very important theme in Hardy, and people are also victims of fate; they can’t control everything in their lives. That is another theme; it is called Hardy’s fatalism.
Now listen to me: after *Far from the Madding Crowd* of 1874 came *The Return of the Native* in 1878, the story of another erring woman, Eustacia Vye, who tries to cross over her class boundaries and comes to a tragic end. The native of the title who is returning home is Clym Yeobright, the husband of Eustacia Vye. You might have already heard the discussions that I have made of these novels in the previous video. Try to watch these videos in the correct order; there is the playlist, every day at 6, Videopedia, in the correct order. If you watch, you will be able to get the chronological development of English literary history.
Now, after *The Return of the Native* of 1878, came in 1880 the historical novel, *The Trumpet-Major*; that is the only historical novel by Hardy. And then came *The Mayor of Casterbridge* in 1886. It is about the erring man, Michael Henchard, but even though he makes mistakes in his life, at the end of his life he emerges as a strong man, a mature man who has learned from his mistakes. That is why the novel is subtitled *The Life and Death of a Man of Character*. And in 1887, the next year—*Mayor of Casterbridge* is 1886—in the next year, 1887, came Hardy’s *The Woodlanders*. *The Woodlanders* is set in a small village called Hintock, and it shows the story of the honest woodsman, Giles Winterborne. Grace Melbury is the protagonist.
Then came two very controversial novels in which Hardy depicted life outside marriage. He explored the conventions of morality in Victorian society and defused it; he exploded it; he critiqued it. And these two novels became so controversial that Hardy had to stop writing novels and turn to poetry. That period of Hardy’s career is the theme of this video. The first controversial novel of Hardy is *Tess of the d’Urbervilles*, 1891, published. *Tess of the d’Urbervilles*, as you might know, was serialized in *The Graphic*, where *The Mayor of Casterbridge* was also serialized. *Tess of the d’Urbervilles* had a subtitle which is very controversial: *A Pure Woman*. I have an antique copy of the book in my library, and in the early editions it was given: *Tess of the d’Urbervilles: A Pure Woman Faithfully Presented by Thomas Hardy*. That is how the early titles of the novel were given. This subtitle became controversial because here is a woman who is having an extra-premarital affair. She had a child, an illegitimate child; that child died; and then she married a man. She did not reveal the story at the beginning early enough before the marriage. After marriage she reveals the story, and he leaves her for being immoral. And then she goes back to her former lover, becomes his mistress, and then she kills him. So this is an adulteress, a murderess, and Hardy calls her a pure woman. Victorian society was aghast; this subtitle became very controversial. Hardy set this novel against the Long Depression of the 1870s. The poor people of the countrysides are suffering from poverty. Hardy’s family lived in that Dorset during this time and witnessed the sufferings of the villagers at this time.
Now, Tess’s father, Derberville—he is Tess’s father—is a Derberville. He learns from a priest, a young priest, that his family could have been related to the d’Urbervilles, which is a medieval family, and a branch of that medieval rich d’Urbervilles is supposed to be the Derberville family that is living on the slopes. The slopes is a hilly side where a rich family, the d’Urberville family, is living. And Tess’s father, once—father and mother both—want Tess to go to that family living on the slope, claim kin; that means go there like a poor relative, claim to be their relative, get married to one of them, get money from them, and then Tess’s siblings will have a better life. This is their plan. Tess, from the beginning, is against this plan. Tess does not want to go there; she knows that this is going to create problems, but her parents force her to do it. In this early part of the novel, Tess rides her cart, and the horse, Prince, gets killed. This is a foreshadowing of what is going to happen to Tess’s own life. She feels so sad that she led to the death of the horse, Prince. This is a foreshadowing of the sins that she is going to commit later in life.
Now she goes to the d’Urberville family. The playboy of the family, Alec, meets her; Alec gets close to her; and one day there is a seduction or rape. It is not revealed completely immediately. After this, Tess does not stay there. Immediately after the rape or seduction, she comes back home, and back home she realizes that she is pregnant. So the early parts of the novel are narrated in detail, the part where she is pregnant; then she delivers a baby called Sorrow; she names it Sorrow. All that is telescoped or narrated quickly. Hardy’s narrative style is amazing; he details or describes where it is necessary and quickly glosses over the narrative; quickly goes over the narrative wherever it is required. Tess is a changed girl now; she’s very quiet; she’s suffering from her own awareness of sinfulness; and her child, Sorrow, is a sickly child, and it dies. And then Tess leaves her home; she goes to work in Talbothays Dairy. In Talbothays Dairy there are other milkmaids also. Tess is different from them because she is quiet; she has had a problem in her life, and she thinks that it doesn’t allow her to enjoy life or be beautiful or be playful. She’s very quiet and mature. Suddenly there is also the description of the Talbothays Dairy and the milking of the cows, the udder of the cows, relating the fertility of the cows with the fertility of the land and the fertility of the woman. The woman is like the land, you know; she gives birth; she gets pregnant and gives birth. It is human; it is natural. Hardy is moving beyond the constraints of Victorian morality here. And after these deep and powerful descriptions of the udders of the cows and fertility, Tess and the other milkmaids meet a man called Angel Clare. He is a clergyman’s son, and he is a very good man, very good in behavior and character. All the milkmaids fall in love with him. There is Marian, Huet, Retty Priddle—Marian is Huet and Retty Priddle—all of them, um, fall in love with Angel, but Angel likes Tess. Tess seems to be very mature, and being a rustic girl, he is sure that Tess should be pure; he thinks that Tess must be pure and angelic. He writes to his family and wants to marry Tess. Tess is so shocked; she’s happy, but she’s shocked. Her mother tells her, “Don’t tell anybody what happened in your life,” but Tess wants to tell Angel the truth of what she is. She doesn’t get herself to tell him. He is also not ready to listen to her, and the marriage gets over. He gives her some family jewelry. Before the marriage she had written a letter detailing everything, and she had slipped it under his door, but it went under the carpet, and he never saw the letter. After marriage, Tess tells Angel that this is what happened in my life. Angel is so shocked; for a couple of days he doesn’t know what to do; he is so much under trauma; he doesn’t talk to her; he doesn’t sleep with her; and one day he sleepwalks and nearly dies, but Tess quietly goes and brings him back to his room. She never reveals to him that she saved his life. And then the third day or so he tells her, “Tess, I’m leaving you; I’m going away; I might come back to you one day if I’m able to accept you, but as of now I can’t,” and he says, “You can always go to my family if you need money; I will also give you some money; you can use it, but I may not write to you; I may not be in touch with you,” and he goes away. He goes away; he goes to Brazil for a long time. She doesn’t hear from him; she writes to him; she tries to reason with him; and she starts living a life of penance and suffering. She goes—she gives her money, whatever money he had given her, to her own mother, her family; she goes to Flintcomb-Ash, where she lives a very harsh life. It was not like Talbothays Dairy; she lives a very harsh life; her work is so difficult; she’s starving, ill-treated; and one day she decides to go and meet Angel’s family. She walks a long, long way, goes there; she’s such a poor woman. Nobody was there when she went there; when she reached there, and then she realizes that the family will not accept her, probably. She changes her mind and goes back. After her father’s death, she tries to fend for her mother and siblings; it is so difficult; she suffers so much; they have been thrown out of their lodgings. That is when she meets with Alec once again. Alec claims to be a changed man. Alec had insulted Angel’s father before. Angel was so shocked to know that Tess had a baby with that Alec, and she goes back to Alec because of desperation; she has no other way to look after her family, her mother and siblings. She becomes a mistress of Alec; she is now given good clothes and good food, everything she has, but she is so dead; she is now immoral. At that time, Angel has had a change of mind, and he comes back. He realizes that life is like that; things happen to people beyond their control, and he comes back; he wants her back in his life; he regrets leaving her; and he searches everywhere for Mrs. Clare, which is not Mrs. Clare now. Finally he finds her, and she opens the door, sees Angel standing there, and she has the shock of her life because she cannot go back to Angel; she is not pure like she was before when she married him. But Angel still wants her. Angel talks to her and goes away. And at this time, Hardy’s narration is amazing. Tess goes upstairs to Alec, and Alec is making fun of her and her former husband. Suddenly there is like a montage in movies, the technique of montage. Suddenly we see the cleaning woman downstairs; she’s cleaning the house; the walls and the roof are all immaculate whites, like the white of the Virgin Mary; and suddenly on that white there is a spot of dirt, and the cleaning woman is shocked, “What is that dirt?” And the dirt grows and grows and grows; it was blood, and it starts dripping, and the woman is so shocked; she runs upstairs to see Alec stabbed to death. Tess had killed him, and she goes after Angel. You know that symbolism of the white and the red is so beautiful. That white is what Tess is; she’s pure; she didn’t do anything on purpose, but she has passions; she has human limitations; that is the red spot on the white; and she killed Alec hoping that that will make her pure. In a way it does. She goes back to Angel, and she tells Angel that, “I killed him.” Angel accepts her. Angel and Tess spend the next few days together, running away from society, walking and walking and walking, trying to save Tess from the sheriff, the police; and one day they are very hungry and tired; they come to an empty house; they climb in through the window and spend the night there; probably they consummate their marriage; they make love; we don’t know. Anyway, they sleep there; they spend a couple of days there; and then one day when the sun comes out, when it is shiny once again, they leave the house. Before that they are discovered; they leave the house, and they go to Stonehenge, where Tess again falls asleep, and Angel also sleeps and wakes up to find that people are coming towards them; the police are coming for her. Tess wakes up and asks him, “Have they come for me?” And he says, “Yes.” Stonehenge is a symbol of primitive man, the primordial nature of man. We are all like that; we have a primitive side; sometimes passions get over—get the better of us; sometimes we make mistakes; sometimes we even kill. Does that make people any less human? What does it mean to be human? What does it mean to be pure? The novel is a very profound discussion of morality, innocence, and guilt. Tess is hanged at the end for the murder, but Hardy is trying to tell us that she died a pure woman, even though she was an adulteress and a murderess. This novel, of course, led to a lot of controversy; there was a lot of discussion over it, but look at the way the novel deals with class, human virtues, passion, marriage—all these concepts are discussed and deconstructed. There is something beyond what the society understands as mainstream values; that is what the novel means. The President of the Immortals finally ends his sport with Tess. She is dead, but she will remain in our lives forever, in our memories forever, as a pure woman.
This discussion of morality and womanhood continues in the next novel, *Jude the Obscure*. Jude is—the protagonist is a small boy at the beginning, leaving—living in the small village of Marygreen, where his greatest desire is to get learning. He wants to learn; he wants to be a gentleman, like Pip in *Great Expectations*. His teacher, Phillotson, helps him to do that. His teacher, Phil Watson, teaches him. This novel, by the way, came in 1895. And then Philotson also leaves Jude. Phillotson goes to the University of Christminster. Jude is unable to get into the University of Christminster; he tries a lot, but you know, poor people have their limitations; they are not getting access everywhere, not only in the 1890s, but even now. Jude’s dreams are crushed. He studies cathedral building and architecture, hoping to study theology and enter into the University of Christminster through cathedral building and medieval church study of medieval churches. At this time, Jude is trapped into a marriage with one Arabella. Arabella is a rustic girl; she is not a very intelligent girl or anything, but she had the cleverness to pretend to be pregnant so that Jude will marry her. That marriage is not happy. Meanwhile, Jude has a cousin, Sue Bridehead. She is an intellectual woman; she is a New Woman; she studies, and she thinks on her own, and she marries Phillotson. But Sue’s marriage with Phillotson also does not work out properly. Both these people, Jude and Sue, leave their respective spouses, and then they get together. Meanwhile, Arabella already has a son by Jude. Little Father Time, he’s called. Jude and Sue start living together without marriage, and Jude and Sue get children of their own. This is very controversial in those days. To live together without marriage is scandalous; it is a height of immorality. They have children also; people ostracize them; they don’t get jobs; they don’t—they can’t make their livelihood; they wander from town to town, and they suffer; they starve. One day, Sue, who is a thinker, who is a liberal woman, she tells Little Father Time, “You children should never have been born because you will never be accepted.” She’s so sad, and hearing this, the eldest child takes it into his head to commit suicide. He kills the other children and commits suicide; all of them die—what society would consider to be the fruits of sin. So tragic; it is so heartbreaking; so terrible. Sue can’t take it; Sue takes it upon herself—this, the guilt; she thinks it is my guilt that led to this terrible tragedy; and she decides to leave Jude and go back to Phillotson, because sometimes you can’t just do whatever you want in life, even though you are right; even if you are right, probably you don’t have the freedom to do what you want; you have to think of so many other things. So Jude is now a drunkard; he had been drinking for a long time; he’s ill; he’s going to die, probably. It is suggested. The famous last scene is when, in the rain, Jude the drunkard is walking to meet Sue one last time; probably they’ll never meet again. So obviously the novel is telling the story from the point of view of Jude and Sue, but it is creating a revolution; it is showing human life and womanhood and human passion, marriage, all from a different perspective, and it shows the consequences of people moving beyond their limits. You have to move beyond your limits sometimes, but it has dire consequences. Hardy is emerging as a world-class writer with these novels, but his society did not understand; they attacked him so much that Hardy had to give up writing novels altogether, and then he turned to poetry. In poetry he published eight collections of poems. He employs a traditional technique mostly, but there are unmistakable strains of modernism. Hardy’s themes are modernist; he explores a fatalist outlook, a pessimistic outlook, depicting the sufferings of people, rejecting Victorian morality and Victorian belief in a benevolent God. His poetry is like a satire and a sardonic comment on the human condition. This is Hardy. He talks about a class-inflected society; he moves beyond the conventional attitudes; he rejects many of the strict dictates of the society. His novels are deeply infused with doubt, pessimism, tragedy, skepticism. He shows people as victims of faith and society and morality, and he uses a mix of different techniques to depict all these issues. That is why Hardy is such a famous writer—the deep insight he had into the human condition, the deep psychological and social discussions that he brings forth in his characterization, in his depiction of incident; that is what makes Hardy a classic, a great novelist.
And I hope you enjoyed this video. I was in a trance; I didn’t remember that I was doing a video; I hope I did not bore you. Please read Hardy. I had the good fortune of visiting Dorset; I was able to travel on a road trip in Dorset. Look at all the farms, the huge fields with grazing cows. I rolled down the window; I smelled the trees and the bushes and the greenery and the cow dung, which is all described in Hardy’s novels, similar to our Indian villages, but the cold air, you know, the unique English countryside. If you have seen videos, if you have gone there, if you have seen pictures, you’ll understand such rich, thick greenery. I lived in one such country house for some days, and I took long walks in the countryside of Dorset. I came upon a shady place with thick trees and bushes; there was a small bench there. I sat down there for hours; I opened my phone; I had *Tess of the d’Urbervilles* in Kindle, and I read Tess; I read entire *Tess* sitting there in that little bench in Dorset. The experience was life-changing, I tell you. I understood the characters, the situations, their choices, their actions, their trauma so much better. You have to live these novels, whether you are in Dorset or not; it doesn’t matter really, but you have to live these novels; you have to read them; you have to go into these characters and situations. That is what literature is; that is when you understand why this is a classic; that is when you become wonderful students, wonderful teachers. My dear students, I don’t know if I’m crossing my limits when I say this, but you won’t believe it—day and night, so many hours, unbelievable hours, I am working every day, reading literature, making encyclopedias, making quizzes, doing videos, teaching—life, not only because I care for you and your careers; that is there, of course; I sincerely care for you; I want you to pass; I want you to love these literary works, but it is more than that, because I love literature, because I love these novels, because I know the value of these classics in our life. Read; fall in love with these novels, with these characters, with these authors. I’m telling you, we are blessed to be students of literature. Please read; please enjoy; please go deep into these works; watch these videos again and again so that you will get that passion from me; it is contagious, my dear friends. I hope you liked this discussion; I hope you understand what I’m telling you, and I hope you benefit from it. I wish you all the best; I hope you will have amazing careers.
Because you passed some exam, not only because you somehow crossed the cut-off limit, but because you deserve it. But because of sheer merit, but because of your hard work, your passion, your knowledge, and your competence in being great teachers.
Our country is a developing country. We need real professionals. We don't need half-knowledge. We don't need half-baked professionals. We need real, powerful teachers and professionals in every front who can improve all these disciplines, who can contribute meaningfully to the society. We need people like that.
I hope you will become amazingly powerful professionals with a lot of value and quality, with a lot that you are giving back to the society. With that prayer and blessing, I end this video. Meet you in more meaningful videos in the coming days. Thank you. You.