Thomas Hardy’s book Tess of the d’Urbervilles has to be one of the worst pieces of anti-woman “literature” in the last 100 or so years. Basically:
Tess’s family is poor and her mom thinks they have a distant cousin who is wealthy, so Tess is sent to his estate to ask for help. He helps all right – helps himself to sex with her against her wishes. Of course, this ruins Tess’s reputation and she goes back to her parents surrounded by malicious gossip. When she has a rape baby, it of course dies immediately to punish Tess for being a whore. Then Tess moves to get work on a diary farm. The hot farm guy falls in love with her and vice versa, and the get married. On their wedding night, he confesses that he once fucked some other chick. She then tells him she was raped. He tells her his image of her purity is ruined and he can’t be with her since she is not pure. She pines away from him, then goes back to live with her rapist so that he will support her now widowed mother. Then he admits he lied to her about various shit, and she stabs and kills him. After that, her husband takes her back, but she is arrested for killing the fucking asshole and I think is hanged.
I say that I think she gets hanged because I would never read such a vile piece of trash. However, last night one of my extremely talented college roommates premiered 50 minutes of amazing music and songs from the musical she has written based on the book. (My other extremely talented college roommate is a muralist.) The performances were fantastic and while I am not a huge fan of musicals (the fact that Coed Prison Sluts is my all time favorite musical should indicate my level of taste in these matters), I do think she could eventually wind up with this thing on Broadway.
Still, what the fuck is with the book? Husband and Brother-in-Law got rather annoyed with me as I muttered about how fucked up the storyline is and rolled my eyes dramatically. I think she should modernize the plot a bit first. Little girls should not go around dreaming about being with a judgmental hypocrite fuck for a husband, nor should they be afraid to take action against rapists.
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I think you have to consider the time in which it was written. It may have more historical basis than you think. A poor woman whose "reputation" was destroyed didn't have much of a chance...In fundamentalist Islamic countries, the same story could be absolutely true today.
ReplyDeleteYes, I agree with you completely that it is a product of its times. And, I hate its times. If it is going to be done today as a musical, I think it should be updated.
ReplyDeleteYes, I totally hated Tess. I watched the film and that was enough. I was screaming at the film I was so annoyed.
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