Tess vs Jane Eyre Essay Example

Tess vs Jane Eyre Essay The Comparison between Jane Eyre and Tess Jane Eyre and Tess, two famous literary characters in the Victorian Period, there are many similarities and diversities between them. It is very helpful to do the paper work through studying theirs similarities and diversities. 4. 1 The Comparison of theirs Background In Charlotte Bronte’s Jane Eyre, the heroine’s family was very poor, and she lost both of her parents when she is very young, then she became an orphan girl and had to living rely on her aunt Mrs. Reed.Jane Eyre’s life was destitute, but she never lost her dignity, although her social background was very inferior in that snobbish capitalist community. She was come from the inferior classes of people, and it predestined that she will live through all sorts of unimaginable misery, but she was never conquered by the bitterness. Obviously she is very strong. Let’s see Thomas Hardy’s Tess of the D’Urbervilles. Tess, the novel’s heroine , was an absolute tragic character. She was also comes from the lower classes of people, like Jane Eyre.Under the author’s writing, Tess is a beautiful, innocent peasant girl, but her family was very poor. John Durbeyfield, her father and a guzzler, and her mother Joan was much attenuated. The poverty of the family forced Tess to claim kinship with the sham but rich D’Urbervilles. Alec, the young master of the D’Urbervilles, a dandy, pretended to be a kind man and had Tess in his care due to her beauty. At first, he made Tess to feed chickens in his house and treated her very well, but he seduced Tess and impregnated her only three months later.Then Tess’s horrible tragedies started. It is very simple to find several similarities and diversities between Jane Eyre and Tess’s background, these factors is very important to the research. In the first place, they have similar family situation, both of them was born in a poor family and had to live on re latives. They were all come from the lower classes and it determines that they were unavoidable to be oppressed by the rich men. However, Jane Eyre was ever studying in the school and then became a governess, but Tess was never had these experiences.As a well educated woman, Jane Eyre expressed a strong revolted spirit and pursued freedom, finally she won. On the contrary, Tess was weak and obedient in her character, she didn’t have any educational backgrounds, this factor determines which she could did nothing to the cruel fate but to bear; it is one important root of her later nightmare. In a word, Jane Eyre and Tess’s similar family condition decides their alike destiny, and their different cultural level determines their entirely different character, then causes their opposite ending. 4. The Comparison of theirs Character Jane Eyre is a poor but aspiring, small in body but huge in soul, obscure but self-respected girl. However, the girl who was small and fragile in physical struggled for her happiness, and longed for spirit free without hesitation. She is very kind and punctilious, in everybody’s eyes; Jane should be gratitude to her aunt for her kindness. However, Jane chose another way. These a series of matters embodies that Jane Eyre is a kind, rugged, punctilious and ambitious woman. By comparison to Jane Eyre, Tess is a weak woman in some sort.She is a pure, pretty and diligent peasant girl, she was struck by hypocrisy and evil while her dream of life’s truth and kindness. In Thomas Hardy’s ideal world, Tess is the symbol of beauty and the embodiment of love; she stands for all the good characters of the Wessex people: beautiful, pure, kind, plain, benevolent and tolerant. But these good characters cannot changes her dark destiny, she is very weak when her suffering of secular public opinion and traditional moral’s persecution. So after all, she is destroyed by the cruel capitalist world like a fragile flower .There are several obvious similarities and diversities between Jane Eyre and Tess’s character. Firstly, both of them are very kind and attractive, and these factors are theirs gifted wealth. But on the contrary, theirs difference in character is also very evident, Jane Eyre has a strong and punctilious heart, and she is never stop pursuing the true love and spiritual freedom. In her eyes, everybody on world is equal; she is even dared to love her male master and loudly claimed to him. â€Å"Do you think, because I am poor, obscure, plain, and little, I am soulless and heartless? —You think wrong! I have as much soul as you—and full as much heart! ——it is my spirit that addresses your spirit, just as if both had passed through the grave, and we stood at God’s feet, equal—as we are! † (Bronte 308). The sharp shout expressed Jane Eyre’s inner voice, and made her getting her happiness in the end. However, it is very difficu lt to find these characters on Tess. She always cannot defeats the weakness of her self’s character, unlike Jane Eyre, Tess cannot dares to seek the beautiful dream and sweet love, she is even hesitant to accept Angel’s sincere love, all of these derives the source of her dark fate.In brief, Jane Eyre and Tess’s similar characters bring them true love, but their opposite characters make them to face the utterly different ending. 4. 3 The Comparison of theirs Life As a little girl, Jane Eyre had been a disobedient girl that her aunt disliked her fixedly and thoroughly. Jane should have had a happy family, but the disaster came without prophesy. Both her parents died of typhus fever when Jane was just a little child, so she was are sent to her aunt’s. At there, her cousins beat her, her aunt treated her hard. No one cared about her except a servant called Bessie.Jane wished for equal, but all of them told her that she was under obligations to her aunt and c ousins. At the age of ten, Jane Eyre had a chance to go to school; she was so happy that she could leave her aunt’s. But she soon found out that, the school was not as good as she thought it should be, but even worse than she could imagine. The girls worked for more than ten hours each day while bearing coldness and hunger, for the owner of the school didn’t offer enough food or clothes. Many of them died, and Jane lived on, stayed there for ten years, she was really tenacious of life.When she graduated, she refused the suggestion of becoming a teacher in her school, but intended to go into the world. She soon found a job in Thornfield as a governess; at there she met Mr. Rochester, her master. They got on well, and Jane helped Mr. Rochester a lot, then Jane found that she had fallen in love with him. When Mr. Rochester announced that he was going to be married with another young lady, Jane felt hurt; she packed her things in silence, and refused to remain when Mr. Roc hester asked her not to leave.She didn’t consider herself as servant, but she thought she and Mr. Rochester was equal, that’s why Mr. Rochester respected her. Living at moor house was another turning point in Jane’s life. At there she found her sisters and brother, which was the most treasure thing to her. But things were always changeable, to be the wife of Mr. River tortured her so much, what she knew was that Mr. River did not love her and would never love her, she was just a tool to him. At the same time, she still could not forget Mr. Rochester. As a result, leaving became the best way.It seemed that God liked to play tricks on her, for when she at last made it possible to return to Thornfield, she found that it was burnt and Mr. Rochester was blind. At last, after much suffering, Jane became Mr. Rochester’s bride, and they had a child—the fruit of their love. Overlooking some important passage of Jane’s life, she never forgot her faith —spirit free, which molded her a plain but glorious woman. Tess Durbeyfield is the peasant daughter of haggler John. She is partaking in a local dance with other girls when three young brothers wander along—Angel, Felix, and Cuthbert Clare.Angel wants to join in the dance, but his older brothers are basically a bit snobby about dancing with country girls, so Angel dances with all of the girls save for the pretty Tess, which he regrets, while she feels snubbed by him. When a local parson tells the rather vain John that he is actually the descendant of the D’Urbervilles, an old rich family, John goes to get drunk in celebration and ends up so hammered that he’s too ill to take some stuff which he has to sell in the horse and cart. He gets Tess and her little brother to do it instead.Tess falls asleep and the horse ends up in an accident and is killed. As a result, the overly sensitive Tess feels guilty not realizing it is really John’s fault. Meanwhi le her mother Joan has learned that a Lady D’Urberville lives in a neighboring village, she wants to send Tess to claim kin and learning that there is a master D’Urberville, has notions that Tess, being a beautiful girl, will marry him. Tess really doesn’t want to go but does out of guilt of the death of the horse. Alec, the young D’Urberville, is, to put it politely, a nasty sleazy git who needs to be castrated and lusts after Tess.Eventually he rapes Tess and she ends up pregnant. She goes home after Alec tries to buy her off. Not long after, Tess gets work at Talbothays, a large dairy farm a good way away from her home town, and she heads off there. This marks a happy spell in Tess’s life. She meets Angel Clare who had been at the spring dance. His father is a parson but Angel does not want to be involved in the church and is learning the ways of farming instead. They fall in love with each other, but Tess’s horrible experience and weak h aracter makes her cannot expresses anything to Angel’s love. â€Å"She was angry with herself afterwards, thinking that he, unaware of her grave reasons for liking this seclusion, might have mistaken her meaning. She had spoken so earnestly to him, as if his presence were somehow a factor in her wish† (Hardy 301). The above description reflects Tess’s hesitant idea. On their wedding night, Tess confesses to Angel the affair of Alec. Angel, himself a sinner who has had some affair with another woman, casts her off. Soon he leaves for Brazil.Tess in the meantime ends up working with some of her old dairymaid friends for a horrible farmer. She runs into Alec who accuses her of tempting him and guilt trips Tess into living with him, because her family is on the verge of homelessness and need the money. Having given up on Angel and realizing his hypocrisy, she agrees. Angel comes home from Brazil having realized the error of his ways and tracks Tess. On finding her, he learns that she thinks it’s too late for them. He takes off and Tess gets into a fight with Alec, which ends in her stabbing him.She runs after Angel, and they spend time together in an old mansion. After wandering the countryside for a while, Tess finds they are at Stonehenge, and feels at home, having been described as a heathen in her home village. She tells Angel that should she be caught she wants him to marry her sister Liza-Lu. The police catch up to her, and shortly after Tess is hanged. Jane Eyre and Tess’s life misfortune is very analogous, both of them are live in poverty, and they are all oppressed by the upper classes. However, theirs reaction to the dark life is different.Jane Eyre definitely chooses to strive against the unfair destiny and gets finally victory, but Tess is always conforms to the fate and bears the inhuman torture, at last, she is destroyed by the cruel capitalist society. 4. 4 The Comparison of theirs Ending Jane Eyre and Tess are two most famous characters in English literature, theirs life misfortune is very similar but the ending is utterly different. The social discrimination Jane experiences first as a dependent at her aunt’s house and later as a governess at Thornfield, and the false social convention as concerning love and marriage. At the same time, it is an intense moral fable.Jane, like Mr. Rochester, has to undergo a series of physical and moral tests to grow up and achieve her final happiness. But Tess, as a pure woman brought up with the traditional idea of womanly virtues, is abused and destroyed by both Alec and Angel, agents of the destructive force of the society. And the misery, the poverty and the heartfelt pain she suffers and her final tragedy give rise to a most bitter cry of protest and denunciation of the society. In a way, Tess seems to be led to her final destruction step by step by fate. Chapter 5 Conclusion After all the study, it’s time to get the conclusion in this pap er.First of all, Jane Eyre and Tess’s similarity is they’re all lived through a great deal of suffering, and the cause of these is the dark capitalist society, theirs misfortune is various of reflection of the capitalist society, it’s unavoidable. Secondly, Jane Eyre has defeated the fate and won her happiness but Tess was ruined by Alec and Angel, theirs different ending is concerned with the social background and the heroine’s character. It’s obvious to see that Jane Eyre’s rigidity on the seeking of happiness and freedom, she is such a stout woman and all of these could be due to her good educated experience.But beautiful Tess, she had not any good education but a weak character, her weak points and even her noble qualities bring her disaster. In some times, Tess was brave, and she has ever revolt to the traditional moral in some sort. However, she cannot entirely casted off the yoke of traditional moral; this point reflects her weak side of characters. When she was persecuted by secular public opinion and traditional moral, it’s very deplorable that she used this same moral standard to judge herself, and these things makes her tragedy more thick and more profound.Lastly, Jane Eyre’s love of freedom and equality, her belief and behavior on her defense of human dignity, reflects rising bourgeoisie’s request after the Industrial Revolution. The causes of Tess’s tragedy is due to her character, other person’s influence and social environment, and these factors are the reflection of Hardy’s thoughts on human nature, society and convention.