Tess’s freedom in Thomas Hardy’s Tess of the d’Urbervilles

Tess of the d’Urbervilles is traditionally read as a reflection of Thomas Hardy’s deterministic view of the world, and freedom seems to be a mere fantasy for Tess. However, in view of Jean-Paul Sartre’s philosophical concepts on freedom, Tess is free despite the inevitability of the processes of biological nature and of circumstances in life, and the whole novel delineates how Tess, conscious of her position in life, strives against the natural flow of things through constant choices. This essay, employing Sartre’s relevant theory, attempts to offer an adequate account of Tess’s freedom which is manifested in consciousness of nothingness, alienation, dread, free choice and death to open up a new channel to interpret Tess of the d’Urbervilles and to draw readers’ attention to the optimistic and the inspiring in Hardy’s novels.