A* AQA ENGLISH LITERATURE Specimen - 'Tragedies leave readers and audiences with a final sense of emptiness and disillusion.
Tess of D'Urbervilles and Death of a Salesman
Specimen - 'Tragedies leave readers and
audiences with a final sense of emptiness and
disillusion.ʼ
Specimen
‘Tragedies leave readers and audiences with a final sense of emptiness and disillusion.ʼ To what
extent do you agree with this view in relation to two texts you have studied? Remember to
include in your answer relevant comment on the ways the writers have shaped meanings. [25
marks]
Tessʼs sister taking her position – Tessʼs tragedy seeming to be a tragedy of repeated
events.
Fate seeming to just play games with Tessʼs life.
Happy seeming to repeat Willyʼs tragedy.
Willy Lomanʼs death marking the death of a moral society.
In Aristotleʼs Poetics, Aristotle stated that the full tragic effect is experienced as “pity and fear”
are aroused within the audience being summarised in the definition of “catharsis”. Through this,
the readers and audiences different interpretations of pity and fear may be transformed into
feelings of emptiness and disillusionment at the end of the tragedy. In this essay I will discuss
the extent that this occurs in ‘Death of a Salesmanʼ and ‘Tess of DʼUrbervillesʼ.
As the tragedy of Tess DʼUrberville ends with the “black flag” being raised in the prison to make
her death a lack of ‘Fulfilmentʼ ironic to the title of the phase is felt by readers. Liza Lu who is
described as being the “spiritualised version of Tess” “hand-in-hand” with Angel appears to
have simply replaced Tessʼs position in the novel becoming the idealised version of Tess which
Angel always desired yet does not appear to deserve anymore. Additionally, due to the
ecclesiastical law of the time a man would not have been able to marry his wives sister after her
passing also means that Tessʼs final wish is not granted. Through this the idea of Tessʼs tragedy
being generational just like the “thousands and thousands” before her is evoked through
Hardyʼs use of fate and determinist language and ideology to describe her death. This links to
Tessʼs assault in ‘The Maidenʼ where the intrusive omnipotent narrator states that Alecʼs crime
against her is not different to those committed by the DʼUrbervilleʼs mailed ancestors who had
“dealt the same wrong even more ruthlessly upon peasant girls of their time”. This not only
makes Tessʼs tragedy out to be a generational tragedy, doomed to repeat the actions that
occurred before her, but it introduces the idea of generation punishment – a Puritanical belief
which stated punishments committed by ancestors would be reprimanded in generations to
come. This creates the impression that Tessʼs birth simply occurred for this, presenting a
profound sense of emptiness at the ending which seems to be the beginning of the same cycle
of events for Liza Lu. So, Tessʼs tragedy ends where Liza-Luʼs begins. As the critic Mark Asquith
stated that “Hardy… transforms Tess into a puppet through which her ancestors continue their
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