The Fall of the "Pure Woman"

The subtitle of Thomas Hardy's novel, Tess of the d'Urbervilles, "A Pure Woman," fits in the novel title perfectly because her tragic story is almost indeed a direct parallel of Eve's downfall into sin. The serpent tempted, the woman ate of the forbidden fruit, and was therefore cast out of her "Garden of Eden" respectively. It was God that then said that "in pain [she] shall give childbirth. From manual labor, [she] shall strive to make a living. I have made [her] from dust, and [she] shall surely return to dust." God created Tess and Eve alike with different kinds of purity. Tess's, in the end, was her eternal sense of diligence and duty to support her family, and a relentless attitude that refused to give in to the burdens of the world. However, she gave way to the serpent's temptation, thus beginning her tragedy, and her eventual fall into death. Just as Eve was "outcasted" from Eden, Tess was ridiculed in Victorian society, thereby ostracizing her from the pleasures she once knew, all given up to flee her past.

Tess's title of "A Pure Woman" might not have lasted throughout the novel, but the very idea that her heart was pure to begin with is practically the main foundation of Hardy's novel. It became her character, her resourcefulness, her naivety to the serpent, her reason to flee her past, her tragic separation from her "Adam," and then finally (and inevitably), her death.