Hardy`s view on christianity revealed in the characters and plot of tess of the d`urbervilles - USD Repository
HARDY’S VIEW ON CHRISTIANITY REVEALED IN THE
CHARACTERS AND PLOT OF TESS OF THE D’URBERVILLESAN UNDERGRADUATE THESIS
Presented as Partial Fulfilment of the Requirements for the Degree of Sarjana Sastra in English Letters
By
KUSHARYANTO ADISUPUTRO
STUDENT NUMBER: 004214084
ENGLISH LETTERS STUDY PROGAMME
DEPARTMENT OF ENGLISH LETTERS
FACULTY OF LETTERS
SANATA DHARMA UNIVERSITY
YOGYAKARTA
2007
Smile is the best thing in the world For each time you smile Other people will smile Another one will smile Until everybody smile through the world With peace and love to each other So, always smile (Anonymous)
This undergraduate thesis is dedicated to
My beloved parents, Adiarto Harry Purwanto and Kustiningrum My brother and sister, Kusuma Ramadhan and Tyas Adiningrum My entire dearest friend from my hometown and from English Letters also from Ceria Kindergarten Also my dearest one who fill my world with joy and happiness
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
I would like to express many thanks to the lord for giving me the strength to thesis is useful for everyone that reads it and for everyone that uses it. I thank everybody for trying to encourage me in completing this thesis for the past few years.
This thesis is dedicated to everyone that knows and cares about me. First of all I thank Mr. Tatang Iskarna for always being so patient in giving me many guidance in completing this thesis. Second, I would like to thank my beloved parents, who support me mentally. I want to thank you to all my friend Dina, Hanna, Lala, Tiwuk, Desy, Kris, Nuri, Rose, Novi, Willy, Cumi, Betty, Rini, Sari and all friends from Ceria kindergarten, and also all the friend that fill my life all these years and I can’t mention one by one. I will never forget all of you; I always keep everything that happens in my heart. Last but not the least I am always grateful that during the time I was working on this thesis I got a lot of encouragement from Shinta who was always there and try to help me in every way she can, thank you
It has been a very exciting years and full of hope, love and memory. I hope that I can use this memory to create another one that can be as beautiful as this.
KUSHARYANTO ADISUPUTRO
TABLE OF CONTENTS
TITLE PAGE………………………………………………………………….i APPROVAL PAGE…………………………………………………………...ii MOTTO PAGE…………..……………………………………………………iv DEDICATION PAGE…..……………………………………………………..v ACKNOWLEDGEMENT…………………………………………………….vi TABLE OF CONTENTS………………………………………………………vii ABSTRACT………………………………………………………………….....ix ABSTRAK………………………………………………………………………xChapter I: Introduction………………………………………………………1 A. Background of Study……………………………………………....1 B. Problem Formulation…………………………………………….. .5 C. Objective of the study……………………………………………. .5 Chapter II: Theoretical Review…………………………………………….. 6 A. Review of Related Study…………………………………………..6 B. Review of Related Theories………………………………………..7
1. Theory of Character and Characterization………………………7
2. Theory of Plot…………………………………………………..11 C. Thomas Hardy’s Background………………………………………12
1. Thomas Hardy’s Social Background……………………………12
2. Thomas Hardy’s Educational Background……………………..18
3. Thomas Hardy’s View on Christianity…………………………19
D. Theoretical Framework……………………………………………..26
Chapter III: Methodology……………………………………………………27 A. Objective of The Study…………………………………………….27 C. Method of The Study……………………………………………….29 Chapter IV: Analysis………………………………………………………….30 A. Characters and Plot…………………………………..………………30
1. The Characters in Tess of The D’urbervilles………….…………….30
a. Tess…………………………………………………………30
b. Angel Clare…………………………………………………33
c. Alec d’Urberville……………………………………………34
2. The plot in Tess of D’urbervilles…………………………………...36
B. Hardy’s view on Christianity Revealed in character…………………39
a. Tess…………………………………………………………..39
b. Angel Clare…………………………………………………..44
c. Alec…………………………………………………………..46
C. Hardy’s View on Christianity Revealed on the Plot………………...47
Chapter V: Conclusion…………………………………………………………52 BIBLIOGRAPHY……………………………………………………………..54
ABSTRACT
KUSHARYANTO ADISUPUTRO (2006). Hardy’s View on Christianity Revealed In
The Characters and Plot Of Tess of D’urbervilles. Yogyakarta: Department of English
Letters, Sanata Dhrma University.The literary work discussed in this thesis is a novel entitled Tess of The
D’urbervilles
, written by Thomas Hardy’s. The novel focuses on Tess’ life. How she meets all different people that soon entered her life and make her life become one huge tragic and novelic story. The development of her life and how she meets other people that affect her life become the conflict and main issue of this story.
This thesis is aimed at revealing what the author want to show in the novel. In this novel the author shows us many different things. How the author try to reveal the character life during Victorian era, and how the life at that time gives his perspective in author wants to express and reveals what he feels about certain religion.
To analyze the problems, the writer uses biographical approach. The method of the study is library research and also some online references. It means that the writer used books and references of data from the library as the source of data, also from the internet as references. Theory of character and characterization are used to identify the character in this novel. The theory is used to get a better aspect and view in the author view in Christianity. The theory of plot is also used to explain the line of the story in trying to develop the connections of the author view in Christianity. The connections between the characters and the plot of the story give perspective in revealing the author view in Christianity.
The analysis in this thesis provide with the information on how the author gives his perspectives on Christianity. Many of the characters reveal what Hardy wanted to say about Christianity. How his life is full of question on how this religious doctrine work. So many doubts about Christianity are presented in this analysis. The writer presents his answer through the three characters and the plot of the novel.
ABSTRAK
KUSHARYANTO ADISUPUTRO (2006). Hardy’s View on Christianity Revealed in
the Characters and Plot of Tess of the D’urbervilles. Yogyakarta: Department of
English Letters, Faculty of Letters, Sanata Dharma University.Karya sastra yang dibahas di dalam skripsi ini adalah sebuah novel berjudul Tess of The D’urbervilles, yang ditulis oleh Thomas Hardy’s. Novel ini berfokus pada kehidupan Tess. Bagaimana Tess bertemu dengan banyak orang, yang kemudian memasuki kehidupannya dan menjadikan kehidupannya satu kehidupan tragis dan penuh dengan cerita. Perkembangan kehidupan Tess dan bagaimana kehidupannya akhirnya berkangsung, menjadikonflik dan isu utama dari cerita ini.
Skripsi ini bertujuan untuk menjelaskan apa yang mau dijelaskan oleh pengarang melalui novel ini. Didalam novel ini si pengarang mencoba memperlihatkan banyak hal. kehidupan di zaman Victorian, dan juga mencoba menjelaskan kehidupan saat itu yang memberikan inspirasi untuk membuat novel. Penulis mencoba untuk mengungkapakan hal yang berbeda. Penulis mau memerlihatkan bagaiman pengarang mau mengungkapkan apa yang dia rasakan terhadap agama pada saat itu.
Unruk menganalisa masalah yang ada penulis menggunakan pendekatan secara biography. Metode penelitian yang diterapkan pada skripsi ini adalah metode study pustaka dan beberapa referensi secara online atau menggunakan internet, artinya penulis menggunakan buku-buku dan referensi sebagai sumber data dan juga beberapa data dari internet. Teori tokoh dan pentokohan digunakan unruk mengidentifikasi karakter di novel tersebut, untul memberikan gambaran yang lebih jelas terhadap pandangan pengarang. Teori plot juga digunakan untuk memberikan alur dan gamabaran cerita, sehingga dapat menjelakan pandangan pengarang terhadap Kekristenan. Hubungan antara tokoh dan plot memberikan gambaran yang jelas tentang pandangan pengarang terhadap Kekristenan.
Analisa dari novel tersebut menunjukan beberapa aspek yang penting dalam menunjuka pandangan terhadap Kekristenan. Beberapa karakter dalam novel ini mengungkapkan pandangan Hardy terhadap Kekristenan. Kehidupan Hardy pada saat itu dipenuhi banyak tanda tanya tentang doktrin keagamaan saat itu. Banyaknya keraguan tentang Kekristenan, terpampang di analisis ini. Pengarang mengungkapkan itu semua melalui tiga karakter dan plot dari novel tersebut.
CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION A. Background of The Study In the history of English literature there is one remarkable period that is the Victorian era, a period when England was under the reign of Queen Victoria. M.H. Abrams (1970 : 178) in his a glossary of literary terms says that some critics state the
year 1832 as the beginning of the Victorian period, the time of the passage of the first reform bill. This period is divided into two parts. The first one is the early Victorian from 1832 until 1870s. The second is the late Victorian that take part in the late 1870s.
Ford (1958 : 61) in his, The Pelican Guide in English literature from Dickens to Hardy says : Not so long ago Victorian period was considered one of the literary decline, derivativeness, and disintegration, its literature was heavily penalized for its sentimentality and sanctimoniousness, it seemed a period of cultural provinciality. Now it is being acclaimed, in some quarters, as time of great achievement in literature, even as the greatest in English literary history.
Literature in this period is rich in the range and variety of its purely personal interest. The artist often potrayed the condition of the society and the people’s way of life. The term Victorian itself was formerly associated with hypocritical, oppressive, olf- fashioned, obfuscating, religious, pietistic, and un-modern era. However, of recent year, it has been assumed that great days of the british empire at its height, sustained by Victorian value of self reliance, free enterprise, and moral severity.
Among many artist, some great writers of the Victorian period such as Charles Dickens, Thackeray, George Elliot, George Meredith, Trollope, Oscar Wilde, Thomas Hardy, and Samuel Butler, the writer choose Hardy’s work as the main point of this thesis. Hardy’s work had some point of characteristic that differentiate him from other, which make the writer choose his work as the main point of his thesis. Ford (1958 : 104) says that he represents a writer with a more inward or more philosophic analysis of the implications of situation and more careful and poetic rendering of grows from his skepticism. But no account of Hardys outlook would be appropriate which did not recognize the inherited and timeless quality of his skepticism. It deepened into pessimism under the stress of personal experience and the spirit of the age. Fundamentally, he was a normal skepticism which subsists peaceably besides local pietes and tradition (Ford, 1958 : 409).
There are some definitions of skepticism, those definitions give us a clearer view about skepticism. According to Runes (1963 : 278) in his Philosophy skepticism are a proposition about values, that morality is entirely a matter of individual preference, or that there are no fixed and eternal values or that all value are relative to time, place, or any other circumstan ce. A proportions expressing lack of confidence in the worth of hope of success of any one or all men enterprises or moroseness, surliness, or pessimism growing out of cynicism or any of the foresaid attitudes, beliefs.
People that hold the skepticism philosophy are skeptics ( Peter A. Angeles. 1981 : 257-258) defines a skeptic as one whose attitudes is critical and inquiring; a disbeliever. One who has a doubt about or does not believe in a doctrine. So it explain Hardy’s disbeliever in the world religion but yet his work give another view on how the expression of religion was revealed in a novel.
Hardy’s skepticism in religion doctrine made him an atheist, and it brought a great influence on his work, like in the way he expressed his attitude toward the religion and social values. As Mastury (1991 : 91) says, a skeptic has atendency of becoming an atheist, because skepticism is derivered from denial and doubt on a certain object of knowledge. Hardy is a product of the philosophic and scientific rebellion of the is sensitive and intellectual. Hardy speaks contemptuously of “nature holy plan” and stresses a view of really in which first cause of the universe is unconscious of man suffering and desires, some other critics also say that Hardy was agnositic, since he was also interested in agniticism that is introduced by Thomas Henry Huxley.
The above statements lead to the second point differing Hardy from others, where he “reflects the pessimistc atheism of the time” (Wellek, 1977 : 112). “His vision is almost wholly tragic” (Drew, 1963 : 141). Critics of his period regard him a pessimistic for his sad ending novel, such as Tess of d’urbevilles, the mayor of casterbridges, and a pair of blue eyes. The poem he concentrated on making in the last time of his life are also the reflection of his pessimism.
Hardy’s third special characteristic is said by James (1956 : 193), that “no free will or moral decision could save Hardy’s doomed characters, he saw them in a grip of their inevitable fate, subject to the blind injustice of the gods. The human flaw was there and irredeemable”. Hardy mostly present the characters who are defeated by the unknown power, and they see no way to set themselves free. This is influences by Aeschylus, a greek writer who believed in fate to be the one determines someone’s life.
The interesting thing in exploring Hardy’s novel Tess of d’urbervilles is his point of view in Christianity, his old religion he believed in before realizing that there are many things he could no accept in its doctrine. The presentation of the characters and the plot in
Tess of d’urbervilles
show his mockery at the Christianity, his disagreement to its doctrine and the social values. To mockmeans “to laugh at somebody or something in an 748-749).
Eventhough some graduating papers have discussed this novel, none of them has paid a specific attention to this matter. The writer greatly impressed on how Hardy put his skepticism into Tess of d’urbervilles. So the writer feel that is useful to discuss about Hardy’s point of view on Christianity in this novel as a subject of this thesis, as a reference to enrich knowledge in reading this novel.
B. Problem Formulation
The guiding question in this thesis are : 1. How are the main characters and plot in Hardy’s Tess of d’urbervilles revealed?
2. How does the main characters and plot of this novel reveal Hardy’s view on Christianity?
C. Objective of the Study
The purpose of this graduating paper are to see Thomas Hardy’s character and plot in his novel. Through hardy’s characters and plot, hopefully the writer can reveal his point of view on Christianity and how he sees Christianity through his novel.
CHAPTER II THEORITICAL REVIEW A. Review of Related Studies Chris Williams does one study in Thomas Hardy’s Tess of d’urbervilles in
www.Todayinliterature.com. It says that the readers and the critic who adhered a strong believe in tradi-tional values exposed Hardy in his work. They said that Tess of
d’urbervilles
gives of Hardy’s skepticism in Christian. The readers believe that Hardy somehow try to give more perspective but gives to much skepticism.
“It suprising yet so ridicullious” that left the reader of Hardy’s Tess of
d’urbervilles
(Williams at www.todayinliterature.com accessed on 11/08 2005). The study done by Chris Williams above merely gives people opinion about how they like or dislike Hardy’s novel Tess of d’urbervilles how his vision about the religion and how his skepticism gives the novel its point of view. Steve King does a study also about Thomas Hardy’s Tess of d’urbervilles in www.todayinliterature.com. It discussed how the novel gives the readers who still believe in traditional values, at that time, great astonishment. Hardy seems to try to give a different aspect in seeing women. He describes the main character as a strong woman and yet he is also trying to give the readers a reality in live. That everything in life needs a struggle eventhough sometime it will against the norms that the people believe. My study will somewhat different from that. I will try to reveal and gives the reader what point in the novel that become his point of view on Christianity. How each character had their role in trying to reveal Hardy’s point of view, and also how the plot take place in revealing that too.
B. Review of Related Theories
1. Theory of Character and Characterization
Van der Laar states that the two sources upon which a novelist can and must draw for his work are his own creative imagination and actual life. Actual life provides the novelist with his material, but himself has to refashion, to create character unless they fix their imagination on a living person (Laar : 165). Besides inspiration, and intuition he has. He has to give and make interesting characters. Many people we meet in daily life are not very interesting and they do not many interesting things, but in a novel, character should be good and they should do interesting thing because novelist have a wider imagination to create it.
On the other hand, Henkle gives explanation about characters that can be categorized as such through the complexity of their characterization, the attention given to them (by the author and by other characters), and the personal intensity that they seem to transmit. On the basis of importance characters can be categorized into major and secondary character. The major characters are they center of the story. They are important character in the story. These characters deserve our fullest attention because they perform a key structural function : upon them we build expectation and desire, which in modification shift or establish our values. The secondary characters are characters that perform more limited function. They are limited in ways that major characters are not (Henkle, 1977 : 87-97).
M.J. Murphy in his book, Understanding Unseen, explains clearly the way in author conveys to the reader, the character and the personalities of the people he writes about. In conveying the character to the readers, the author himself can interverne authoritatively in order to describe and often evaluate the motives and dispositions qualities of his characters. Murphy’s mention nine ways of how the characters are presented to the readers.
a. Personal Description clothes of readers.
b. Other Characters
As a reflected image of certain character will be caught by the other character’s eyes. The author uses the eyes of other character to judge a certain character.
c. Speech
The personality of a character can be notified through his or her speech. He describes his character through what he says.
d. Past life
Since a person is often influenced by his past experience, that life can give at hint to guess the personality of a character.
e. Conversation of Others
In a play there are dialogues spoken by some characters about a character in the story and therefore the readers may refer to this conversation to know about a character in the story.
f. Reaction
The author may also mention the personality of a character by letting the readers know how that person reacts to various events or situations.
g. Thought
When reading the description of what the character is thinking about, we will find a character’s personality. In reality we cannot guess what other people think but in a literary work we can know better about the character.
h. Mannerism
The author may describe a person’s mannerism or habits that may also tell the readers something about the characters.
i. Direct Comment
In describing the character, the author gives a direct comment. The author describes or gives a comment on a person’s character directly. (Murphy, 1972 : 161-173) In the novel the author must choose not only the kind of characters he or she will present, but also in what method she or he will present them. There are number of methods are available to the author. William Kenney in How to Analyze Fiction divides these into three methods, namely, the discursive method, the dramatic method, and the contextual method. In the discursive method, the author simply tells about his character by enumerating their qualities and may even express approval or disapproval of them.
Using this method, I only mention the weakness as well as the strength of the characters directly. This method issues simple and economical and I can quickly finish the job of characterization and go on the other things.
In dramatic method, the author allows his character to reveal themselves to us through their own words and action. This, of course, is how character is revealed to us in drama (Kenney, 1996 : 35). In this method, it does not merely tell us about the weakness or the strength of the charaters but it show us the actions. This kind of method is more lifelike and invites the reader’s active participation in the story. combination with other methods because this method is more obscure than the discursive or the dramatic one. By the contextual method, we mean the device of suggesting character by the verbal context, a character is constantly described in term appropriate to a beast of prey, and the reader may well conclude that the author is trying to tell him directly (1966 : 36).
2. Theory of Plot
This theory is needed in order to answer the question that is guided to write this thesis. Plot enables readers to figure out what the story is about and what has happened in the novel. It consists of cause and effect relationships. There is a linked event that may include not only physical occurrence like in speech or action, but also a character’s change of attitudes a flash of insight and decision (Stanton, 1965 : 14).
Stanton defines plot in the broadest sense; the plot of a story is its centre sequence of events. We usually limits the term, however, to include only casually linked events, that is, events that directly cause or result from other events, and cannot be ommited without breaking the line of action. These events may also include not only physical occurances, like in speech or action, but also the character’s change of attitude, a flsh of insight, a decision-anything that alters the course of affairs.
The plot is the backbone of a story. Because it more self-evident than some of the story’s other elements, we may say little about it in the analysis; but without a clear knowledge of its link cause and effects, its degree is inevitability, we cannot hope to must arouse plausible and logical, and yet it should occasionally surprise us it most arouse and satisfy suspense.
Beside mentioning the definition of plot, Stanton also states about the laws of plot. He says that plot was divided into three sections, which are: beginning, middle, and the end. And then plot is reasonable and logical. Also sometimes plot gives the reader a shock. The last one plot makes the reader curious and can fulfill the reader curiosity.
If the reader want to know about the development of plot, there are some question need to come to the reader’s mind. The question must involve the reader’s “curiosity,
hope and fear
” (Stanton, 1965: 15). He believes that the question will be much more impressive if it seems difficult to find the satisfactory answer. The reader’s awareness of this difficulty will give “the more unexpected and satisfying a convincing solution” (Stanton, 1965: 15).
Two importants elements of plot are conflict and climax. Every work of fiction contains obvious internal conflicts between two desires within a character or external conflicts between two desires within a charcter, or external conflict between characters or between a charcter and his environment. The climax of the story is the moment at which the conflict is most intense and at which its outcome becomes inevitable (Stanton, 1965: 14-16).
. Thomas Hardy’s Background C 1. Thomas Hardy’s Social Background.
Thomas Hardy was one of the greatest novelists in the Victorian period. His “Wessex tales”, the stories of the Wessex people, even make him the foremost English regional novelist. He was one of the late Victorian novelists of the disintegration, rebels, and critics, against the sanctities and ethics of the Victorian bourgeois world.
Born in Upper Bockhampton, two and a half miles from Dorchester on June 2, 1840, Hardy knew well the peasant life of the people in the countryside, which then inspired the stories in his novels. His novels treat country people with respect and humor, and they comment the human lot with a kind of religious feeling modified by agnostic reasoning. The people’s belief in mysterious things and folk tales existed in Hardy’s novels.
Hardy was the eldest of four children of a builder and master mason. His father, an orthodox Christian who was also named Thomas Hardy, taught him to play violin when he was four, and took him throught out his boyhood to play violin for country- dances. The folk songs and music stayed deeply in his memory and revealed as he wrote his poems and novels later. Due to his delicateness, he was not able to go to school until he was eight. Hardy was a solitary and thoughtful boy. He enjoyed taking a daily walk by daylight or in darkness, which left him a lot of memories, and grew deeply his attachment to his native surroundings. His regular attendance in the church aroused his interest to become a clergyman.
At the age of fifteen, he began teaching a Sunday school. In 1862, Hardy went to London as an assistant to an architect named Arthur Blomfield, a “Gothic” draftsman who was good at designing and restoring churches and rectories. His essay entitled “The Application of Coloured Bricks and Terra Cotta to Modern Architecture” won a medal in 1863. His fictional “How I Built Myself a House”, which was his first publication, was
However, the industrial life and manners in London discomforted him, and made work with less ambition in his profession. He enjoyed his time more in the evening that he spent by reading the Elizabeth and romantic poets. He was also interested in and acquainted with the modern works of Herbet Spencer, John Stuart Mill, Thomas Henry Huxley, and Charles Darwin.
In 1867 Hardy was ill and had to return home to regain his health. Then he worked for Hicks again. His becoming engaged to his cousin, Tryphena Sparks, inspired him to write his first novel entitled The Poor Man and The Lady. Unfortunately, the two publishers he came to rejected it, saying that it was too satirical and socialistic. George Meredith, the reader for Chapman and Hall, advised him to write a novel with a purely artistic purpose and a more complicated plot, and avoid social satire, recommending the study of Wilkie Collins. Hardy followed what Meredith said and succeeded in writing
Desperate Remedies
, a novel of love and crime, with sensational incidents and complex circumstances that made it a striking novel. It was published by Tinsley’s company anonymously in 1871 at his own expense. When he worked for a Weymouth architect, he was sent to St. Juliot near Boscastle in Cornwall to examine a church. He met the rector’s sister-in-law, Emma Lavinia Gifford, and fell in love with her.
As Desperate Remedies had been published, Hardy wrote his second novel,
Under the Greenwood Tree
, which was published in May 1872, again by Tinsley. It connected Wessex with the industrial England’s time of doubts and fear. This novel was the first of his “Wessex Novels”. After this he was confused whether to choose
Hardy’s third novel, A Pair of Blue Eyes, was published serially in Tinsley
Magazine
during 1872-1873, and after that appeared as a novel. It was his most Victorian novel, which combined sensational intrique and coincidences in the swiftly moving narrative of a romantic tragedy. Its success brought an invitation from Leslie Stephen of
Cornhill magazine, where the serial of Far from the Madding Crowd appeared in 1874.
Far from the Madding Crowd
tells a vain, capricious but intelligent and warmhearted woman who inherits a farm and has to deal with three men who love her. It was Hardy’s first popular success, which enabled him to marry Emma and assured him to devote himself entirely in writing. About this time he gave up working as an architect and concentrated on his work as an author. It is said that Far from the
Madding Crowd
“was also the first of ‘typical’ Hardy’s novel, for, although it has humour – not only in the treatment of the rustic characters – and what may pass for a happy ending, its scheme and general tone belong more to tragedy than comedy. There lays the influence of classical writers and Greek dramas in Hardy’s work. Hardy’s novel after the success of Far from the Madding Crowd was The Hand of Ethelberta
(1876), which was Wholly different from the previous one and was neglected by his readers. All this time Hardy’s friendship with Moule still went on, until one day Moule committed suicide in his room at Queens’ University. The memory of this man was believed to appear in the character of Jude Fawley in Jude the Obscure.
From 1878 to 1895 was his period of great achievement in writing the novels. His following novel, The Return of the Native (1878), was written in Sturminster Newton. It expressed his feeling of the nothingness of human life in the presence of the ever lasting
Major
(1880), the most genial of his Wessex novels and his first sign of interest in Napoleonic tradition, he went back to London in illness and began A Laodicean, which he dictated mostly from his bed. It was firstly published serially before appearing as a novel in 1881. Then he moved to Wimborne, and his Two on a Tower was published in the following year. It has a fragile theme and an almost dream-like tone but was memorable for its projection of human passion against the background of starry distance. Until the next four years, his only work was a pretty novelette entitled The Romantic
Adventure of a Milkmaid , which was published in 1883.
In 1885 Hardy bought land on the outskirts of Dorchester for building Max Gate, his home for the rest of his life. There he completed The Mayor of Casterbridge (1886), where the main character’s fault was used by the Immanent Will to bring him to destruction. The tone was almost brutal, lacking of charm and sweetness of poetry. The next novel, The Woodlanders (1887), was Hardy’s tenderest story, which thrilled in its narrative power and had the memorable nobility of its two central figures and its nice observed scenes and customs of the woodland folk. In the same year, he took his wife for an extended trip to Italy.
Returning home, Hardy published a collection of stories in Wessex Tales in 1888. Still in the same year, he published an article entitled “The Profitable Reading for Fiction”. Another article came up in 1890, “Candor in English Fiction”. In both articles “he asked for the novelist the right to treat controversial topics with the same sincerity as permitted in private intercourse, to discuss candidly the sexual relation, the problems of
Hardy’s first shocking novel was Tess of The d’urbervilles (1891), which was at first published serially, starting his conflict with the conventions of Victorian morality.
Certain scenes were omitted from the serial publication, and others were altered; the subtitle, A Pure Woman Faithfully Presented, aroused resentment. That a girl who had an illegitimate baby and who was eventually hanged for the murder of the man she was living with should be treated with compassion and understanding seemed an affront to accepted moral standards in the Victorian era.
It was the two-fold polemic in the novel – against social prejudice and against “the President of Immortal” – that aroused a storm of protest. However, “Tess took Hardy to the forefront of living novelist” (Brown, 1954 : 18).
2. Thomas Hardy’s Educational Background In his early teenage year, Thomas Hardy’s entering the new academy in town.
Hardy’s love of Latin and classical writers arouse because of his talented Latinist headmaster. One classical writer who had a great influence in Hardy’s writing was
Aeschylus, the Greek founder of tragedy. Aeschylus believed in Fate as the primary cause of tragedy. The critics see that in his stories, even Zeus cannot prevent what the Fates have ordained. The Ruler governs by and through Justice. This idea dominates all the tragedies of Aeschylus. Hardy was also fond of the story of Napoleonic era his grandmother told him about. This is reflected later in his drama, The Dynast.
From the period of 1840 to 1860, the Oxford Movement, a spiritual movement involving extremely devout thinking and actions, began to spread to Dorset. The the natural order of things. This movement helped to reinforce Hardy’s faith.
In 1856, Hardy left his school to study architecture from his father’s friend, John Hicks, an architect and church-restorer. It did not stop him from learning Latin and, later, Greek. As Hicks’ office was next to a school of a linguist named William Barnet, Hardy could consult his problems in Latin to that schoolmaster. Intending to become a clergyman, young Hardy read much on Christian theology. This was his happy year, which combined the professional, scholar, and rustic life in him.
From 1857, Hardy studied more on Classics from Horace Moule, eight years his senior, who was then a scholar in Classics at Cambridge. Moule gave a great influence in developing Hardy’s mind and spirit. He served as an educator for Hardy, guided his reading and study, not only on Greek literature but also on contemporary issues of thought and faith. He also served a role in the deterioration of Hardy’s faith. Previously, Hardy had only been surrounded by the rural ideas of Dorset.
About this time, Hardy bought a Greek New Testament. In 1860, Moule introduced him to Essay and Reviews, a collection of essays on religious subject, a critical doctrine, and other writings that challenged orthodox religious concept. At that time, “the presence of a fermenting element of pure religious denial in the collective thought of the nation is plainly recognizable. It explains at once the bitter tone of certain fears” (Legouis, 1948 : 111).
“Hardy began to grapple earnestly with the difficulty of reconciling religious belief with the modern outlook” (Brown, 1954 : 4), as the Victorian period that lasted from 1832 to the end of the nineteenth century was marked by inventions of new things 3. Thomas Hardy’s View on Christianity.
Early 1860s were the time when the open profession of absolute freethinking began, a time when philosophers showed up to answer their questions on many things.
Herbert Spencer, one of them, was a champion of evolutionism, laissez faire – the objection to interference by the government on the economy, and the conception of philosophy as the unification of all sciences. “The key to his system of unified science,
First Principles
(1862), maintains in its opening chapters that nothing can be known of ultimate reality. He also says that “every man is free to do what he wills, as long as he does not infringe the equal freedom of any other man”. Spencer’s First Principles put Hardy into a deep thought of the unknown First Cause and the incalculable element of “Casualty”, the unfortunate accident he personifies as the one who determines human destiny. As a whole, he felt the universe to be animated as The Immanent Will. In Tess of
The d’urbervilles
, he uses Nature, the unsympathetic First Cause, Providence, and the President of Immortals, which mean the same as The Immanent Will. The whole period was marked by interest in religious questions and was deeply influenced by seriousness of thought and self discipline of characters, an outcome of the puritan ethos. Evangelism, which later on became Evangelicalism, the religion of the middle class, failed to glorify God and enjoy Him. The word Evangelical is derived from the Greek evangelion or euaggelion, which means “message of salvation through the atoning sacrifice of Christ” (Bloesch, 1982 : 9).
Evangelism tried to apply the Christian doctrine in the society, which is imparting of knowledge and in the passive sense of what is thought” (New Catholic Encyclopedia, 1967 : 649). According to “Doctrinal Statement of Evangelical Outreach” at http://come.to/the.gospel, the doctrine consists of some points, which are :
1. The Bible is the inspired and inerrant Word of the Living God, which contains everything we need to know regarding salvation and how to behave in order to please God. It is final authority and is completely sufficient in itself for all matters dealing with doctrine and practice. His Word is foreves standing. All correction and teaching must, therefore, be backed by the Bible to be valid.
2. In the holy trinity there is only one true God, yet the Father is shown to be God, the Son is shown to be God and the Holy Spirit is shown to be God. Furthermore, the Father is NOT the Son or the Holy Spirit and the Son is NOT the Holy Spirit. They are three separate and distinct persons. So the Trinity is Scripturally verified.
3. Jesus Christ eternally existed before coming to earth as God and became man when born of a virgin. He lived a sinless life, shed His blood on the cross for our sins, died there and was bodily raised on the third day. He afterwards ascended into Heaven and will return to earth again. The Lord’s work on the cross, where He obtained our complete redemption, was both infinite and final and was for every single person who ever lived.
4. Mankind is sinful and in desperate need of salvation. Without personal salvation, one is dead in his sins, spiritually blinded, under the control of his sinful nature and on his way to eternal fire and eternal punishment.
5. Salvation is by grace and not by works. In other words, we are saved by grace alone through faith alone in Christ alone. Repentance is necessary for forgiveness and one’s evil ways. At the point of instant salvation one is declared righteous, given the gift of eternal life and is made a child of God, as said in the Bible, “And those who are Christ’s have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires” (Galatians 5 : 24). True grace teaches us to live self-controlled, upright and godly livs in contrast, there exists a false and dangerous “grace” message which gives a license for immorality and breeds arrogance through a false security.
6. There will be a bodily resurrection for all mankind – one for the saved and one for the wicked. “And come forth – those who have done good resurrection of life, and those who have done evil to the resurrection of condemnation” (John 5 : 29). While those who endure to the end will be saved, reign with Him and enter the kingdom of God, the wicked (comprising the vast majority of mankind) will in the end be cast into the lake of fire where they will experience conscious torment forever.
7. The believer’s security is conditional. We have come to share in Christ if we hold firmly till the end the confidence we had at first. We have eternal life only if we have Jesus Christ. If we disown Jesus, He will likewise disown us before the Father and the angels.
We can become an enemy of God again after initial salvation and raging fire will consume the enemies of God. We are to keep ourselves pure, from the spiritual pollutants of this world and from idols.