Summary of 'Tess of the D'Urbervilles' - A Level English Literature
Tess of the D'urbervilles revision booklet AQA A Level English Lit B
KEY EVENTS notes for TESS OF THE D'URBERVILLES
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English Literature B
Aspects of Tragedy
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2020 ‘In tragic literature when characters die,
their deaths are always met with sadness'
2020
‘In tragic literature when characters die, their deaths are always met with sadness.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 Death – being a generational tragedy. Liza-Lu becoming the spiritualised version of
her and Angel replacing her immediately. Sadness is felt in the reader due to the
injustice which has occurred.
Willy Lomanʼs death being its own generational tragedy – Happy/Biff and Lindaʼs
responses.
In Aristotleʼs Poetics, Aristotle stated that a tragedy sets about to evoke the feelings of “pity
and fear” within audiences, however different interpretations believe the combination of pity
and fear experienced in audiences and readers to be a sense of sadness. Sadness at the
suffering of the tragic hero, the tragic heroes death, or even other characters deaths within the
tragic literature. However, different interpretation lead to different emotions therefore in ‘Death
of a Salesmanʼ and ‘Tess of DʼUrbervilleʼsʼ where the narrative fulfils circular tragic decorum it
can therefore be argued to what extent the deaths of the characters are met with just sadness.
As Tessʼs dies and the “black flag” is raised by the prison staff we cannot help but feel a sense
of injustice alongside within the “justice (which) was done”. Tessʼs death seems like the putting
out of a flame whose light we have followed throughout the entire novel experiencing her
losses, own personal tragedies, and suffering alongside her. Therefore, as she dies and it is as
though she never existed with Hardyʼs zooming out to the “landscape beyond landscape”
through his birds eye view perspective, the uncaring nature of fate and the natural world stands
in stark contrast to the reader. A pragmatic and largely neglecting stance taking over the
narrators voice suggests that her death is simply like “thousands and thousands”, echoing
Tessʼs own words from the Rally to Angel. Additionally, this sense of neglect is furthered
through Tessʼs own position in the novel which appears to have been replaced by her sister –
Liza-Lu. Liza-Lu is described as being the “spiritualised image of Tess” standing next to Angel
“hand in hand”, and through this we feel further injustice by acknowledging Angelʼs actions
further in the novel where he abandons Tess after reverting back to Puritanical codes of purity
after discovering her rape by Alec. He does not seem to deserve Tessʼs sister who is depicted
as an even more idealised version of her, reminding the reader that it was this idealisation of
Tess which led to Angel abandoning his desire to find freedom of sexuality in the pastoral and
forsaking the previous egalitarian love he had created with her. Some critics believe that the
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