Abstract

Tess of the D’Urbervilles, the representative novel of the famous British writer Thomas Hardy, describes the tragedy of a pure and beautiful peasant girl Tess. The paper aims to analyze the influence of the three important male characters—John, Alec and Clare—on Tess’s tragedy. The three men play different roles in pushing Tess to her road of destruction: Tess’s father John, an indolent and vain man, serves as the initiator of her tragedy; Alec, the mean and greedy man ,the promoter; Clare, the selfish and hypocritical man, the executioner. The paper ends with the conclusion that Tess’s tragedy just reflects Hardy’s fierce attacks on the hypocritical morality of the bourgeois society and the capitalist invasion into the country.

Key words: Tess, tragedy, John Durbeyfield, Alec D’Urbervilles, Angel Clare

摘要

《德伯家的苔丝》是英国著名作家托姆斯•哈代的代表之作，它描述的是一个纯洁美丽的农村姑娘苔丝的悲剧故事。本文旨在对影响苔丝命运的三个重要男性约翰、阿历克和克莱尔进行分析。这三个男性在推动苔丝走向毁灭的道路上起着不同的作用。苔丝的父亲懒惰且虚荣，是造成苔丝悲剧的引发剂；阿历克卑鄙且贪婪，是苔丝悲剧的推动者；克莱尔自私且虚伪，是造成苔丝悲剧的刽子手。本文最后得出的结论是：苔丝的悲剧，反映了哈代对资本主义社会虚伪的道德观的猛烈抨击和资本主义对当时农村经济的入侵。

关键词：苔丝；悲剧； 约翰•德伯； 阿历克•德伯；安吉尔•克莱尔

1. Introduction
Thomas Hardy(1840－1928)，a famous English novelist and poet，is a literary giant spanning the last two centuries. In his whole life he published fourteen accomplished novels，forty-seven short stories，more than nine hundred poems and his epic drama Dynasts.
 Hardy is an outstanding realist in English literature. He himself classified his novels into three types: romances and fantasies, novels of ingenuity, and novels of character and environment. Of the three the last one is the most outstanding, and most of his better-known novels belong to it, including The Return of the Native (1878), The Mayor of Casterbridge (1886), Tess of the D’Urbervilles (1891), and Jude the Obscure (1895). The last two novels should be regarded as the summit of his realism.
There is no doubt that Tess of the D’Urbervilles is the most popular among readers home and aboard. This is about the tragic story of a beautiful country girl, Tess Durbeyfield. It is the truthful portrayal of the tragic lot of a poor girl, a pure woman, ruined by the bourgeois society. As the eldest daughter of the family, Tess bears much responsibility, never feeling ashamed of her own poor origin. However, to support the family, she has to follow her parents’ advice and visit the so-called distant relative--wealthy D'Urbervilles. On one weekend evening, the son of D’Urbervilles, Alec, stains the helpless young girl. From then on her destiny changes greatly. She has an illegitimate child, but loses the baby finally.