Tess Of D'Urbervilles, The Characters' Names

792 Words4 Pages
In novels, the names of the characters are generally chosen with a literary purpose in mind, and often offer insight into the character. One of the themes present in Thomas Hardy’s Tess of the d’Urbervilles is the social class structure of England of 19th century and problems in identifying oneself in a particular social class. This idea is well presented in the names of characters. The names of the characters also represent the contrasting identity within each character. To begin with, Tess’s two names allow the reader to see that she belongs to two separate social classes. While she is of d’Urbervilles descent, one instantly realizes that her family members are simple peasants and with no sign of being an upper class. The name Durbeyfield can be seen as a typical name of the poor, uneducated lower-class. One soon realizes however, that her name is actually debased version of the high-class name d’Urbervilles. The readers can also notice qualities of the higher-class in Tess. She is attractive and educated to a sixth grade level, which was a significant accomplishment back then. Angel describes her as being intelligent and her beauty is described as being ethereal by Angel at one point. Although she has these elements of the high-class, she is really also lower class, and will not be able to fit in among the higher society. She is a good worker at dairy and fields, something not associated with noblewomen. These conflicting elements make Tess into being an outsider in either class, as is reinforced by the two names. These two names show the difficulties in identifying oneself in a particular social class. She is also referred to as Mrs Clare few times. She is only called Mrs Clare by the narrator when she so wishes to be with Angel. On page 367 it says, “‘Izz and Marian,’ said Mrs Angel Clare, with dignity which was extremely touching, seeing how very little of a
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