SOURCE: Carpenter, Richard. “Tess of the d'Urbervilles.” In Thomas Hardy, pp. 124-38. New York: Twayne Publishers, 1964.

In the following essay, Carpenter offers an overview of Tess of the d'Urbervilles, calling it a story of a peasant girl transformed into universal tragedy.

The basic myth of The Woodlanders is reiterated, with some differences, in Tess of the d'Urbervilles (1891), which was published four years later: an essentially good and natural character is destroyed by the combined powers of society and circumstance. The differences are that the primitivistic, anthropological ambience of Tess is more concentrated on the protagonist and is made more a matter of analogy than allusion. Giles Winterborne is only one of the principal figures in The Woodlanders, whereas Tess Durbeyfield is undeniably the central character in the novel named after her. We are saddened when Giles dies, but there are others to carry on; when Tess is executed...