Tess of the d'Urbervilles: The Scarlet Alphabet

"You are mighty sensitive for a cottage girl!"
-Alec d'Urberville

How many times in literature have we seen a women experience the trifecta of feminine woe: pregnant, deserted by the father, and then rejected by the community. Two examples that come strikingly to mind are Fantine in Victor Hugo's Les Misérables and Hester Prynne from Hawthorne's The Scarlet Letter. Now add to that list Tess Durbeyfield. Now, in Tess's case, she didn't willingly subject to this treatment but experienced it just the same, victimized by Alec who so bluntly stated, "You are mighty sensitive for a cottage girl," (p. 45).

And thus, Tess was thrown to the other side of an "immeasurable social chasm," (63). Not only does she don the proverbial scarlet letter, she is also forced to witness, helplessly, the death of her child. Yet, although she acknowledges that she faced "a long and stony highway which she had to tread, without aid, and with little sympathy," (71), Tess faces this with dignity and strength, and makes a robust recovery. In truth, by the time she leaves to become a milkmaid at Talbothays Dairy a year later, Tess is essentially free of the stigma and shame of her past and is all the more wise for her experience.

In the eyes of Tess's 19th-century society, however, Tess can never truly shake off the mantle of her misfortune. Tess is fully aware of the fact that she "could never conscientiously allow any man to marry her now," (117). This reminds me of one scene in the documentary Half the Sky. The story follows a young woman in Sierra Leone who is raped by her uncle. Rape is horrifically common in Sierra Leone, where 26% of victims are under age 12, and only 1% of perpetrators are prosecuted. This young woman is seen by her community as being in the wrong. Her father is ashamed, and she is blamed for having provoked the rape. Journalist Nicholas Kristof helps the victim seek justice, but in most cases the victim is kicked out of the house and receives no more education.

How is it that in Sierra Leone, it's ok to rape, but not ok to be raped? Why do the Alec d'Urbervilles of the world get off unscathed while the Tess Durbeyfields are forced to pay the consequences alone?

Tess is able to build a future for herself; a different one, perhaps, from the one she expected, but a future nonetheless. It is imperative that we seek to ensure futures for people like Tess, and to change a society that can so callously throw aside its women.