Study Questions
1. Discuss the character of Tess. To what extent is she a helpless victim? When is she strong and when is she weak?
2. Discuss the role of landscape in the novel. How do descriptions of place match the development of the story? Does the passing of the seasons play any symbolic role?
3. Hardy rarely questions public morality openly in Tess of the d’Urbervilles. Nevertheless, the novel has been taken as a powerful critique of the social principles that were dominant in Tess’s time. How does Hardy achieve this effect? Why might we infer a level of social criticism beneath Tess’s story?
