Tess of the Dubervilles
Thomas Hardy.
The context. The novel itself.
The wealth of a nation. Social unrest. Spiritual crisis.
Late 19th century. The one major fact to be remembered is that in those days Britain was the richest nation in the world. It was only very recent that this was so. It's been agreed that the birth certificate of this new era is a sad date for the french people, Waterloo in 18 June 1815. Napoleon was defeated and this marked the end of a 20 year long war between the English and the French. This meant also that the naval forces started to be recycled into a commercial and also a scientific fleet. Which strongly contributed to the wealth of the nation. And the wealth of the nation, all the money, the riches that were produced by the expansion of what soon became the largest empire of the whole world (the age of empire), were in turn reinvested into what in those days was called an economy of progress; the major symbol of which soon became the railway. Very important in Hardy's novels. What the railway changed is the Victorian perception of space, which was much shortened in a way, it also strongly affected the perception that Victorians had of time (easier to go to one place from another). As far as the plot of Tess is concerned, what we should remember is that these two factors, the commercial fleet and all the money that was invested into this economy of progress, it resulted in the emergence and also the rapid growth of a new class, a new social class, the small property owners, the shopkeepers, the merchants, and all kinds of other newcomers (the soon demanded equal rights). They demanded political rights which were granted to them but only very reluctantly by the ruling class. Still, there is an important landmark, the passing of a new act in 1832, the 1832 Reform bill, the bill stipulated that a certain category of male property owners were now granted the right to vote (suffrage), the result of that is that England was not only an extremely wealthy
The context. The novel itself.
The wealth of a nation. Social unrest. Spiritual crisis.
Late 19th century. The one major fact to be remembered is that in those days Britain was the richest nation in the world. It was only very recent that this was so. It's been agreed that the birth certificate of this new era is a sad date for the french people, Waterloo in 18 June 1815. Napoleon was defeated and this marked the end of a 20 year long war between the English and the French. This meant also that the naval forces started to be recycled into a commercial and also a scientific fleet. Which strongly contributed to the wealth of the nation. And the wealth of the nation, all the money, the riches that were produced by the expansion of what soon became the largest empire of the whole world (the age of empire), were in turn reinvested into what in those days was called an economy of progress; the major symbol of which soon became the railway. Very important in Hardy's novels. What the railway changed is the Victorian perception of space, which was much shortened in a way, it also strongly affected the perception that Victorians had of time (easier to go to one place from another). As far as the plot of Tess is concerned, what we should remember is that these two factors, the commercial fleet and all the money that was invested into this economy of progress, it resulted in the emergence and also the rapid growth of a new class, a new social class, the small property owners, the shopkeepers, the merchants, and all kinds of other newcomers (the soon demanded equal rights). They demanded political rights which were granted to them but only very reluctantly by the ruling class. Still, there is an important landmark, the passing of a new act in 1832, the 1832 Reform bill, the bill stipulated that a certain category of male property owners were now granted the right to vote (suffrage), the result of that is that England was not only an extremely wealthy