더버빌가의 테스 : 죄의 유전 the sins of the fathers upon the children = Tess of the d'Urbervilles

다국어 초록 (Multilingual Abstract)

We can see how much of Tess's character is determined by the fact that she comes from the decayed family of the d'Urbervilles. Hardy insists throughout the novel in many ways on the way present life is conditioned by the past.
The story of Tess of the d'Urbervilles is a kind of determinism. Her poor, unhappy life was fated by her ancestors long ago. Her d'Urberville ancestors were rich and powerful. There was something very sad in the extinction of the d'Urbervilles of renown. It was fierce, domineering, feudal renown. They had caused to descend the unhappy destiny many a time, severly enough, upon the heads of such landless ones as their children themselves now. So do flux and reflux-the rhythm of change-altemate and persist in everything under the sky.
One may, indeed, admit the possibility of a retribution lurking in the her catastrophe. Doubtless some of her mailed ancestors rollicking home from a fray had dealt the same measure even more ruthlessly towards peasant girls of their time than Alec towards Tess. In fact one of her ancestors abducted some beautiful woman, who tried to escape from the coach he was carrying her off, and in the struggle there was a murder.
Mr. Hardy keeps ever in our view the inherited impulses of Tess : by hints and fanciful suggestions, he turns our minds towards the knightly d'Urbervilles, men of violence and of blood, lawless, passionate, rude. Whether she throw her glove in Alec's face, or stab him with a knife, we are led to look upon her, as an inheritor of ancestral passions.
Upon Hardy's principles, there was no real struggle of the will with adverse circumstance, no conflict of emotions nor battle of passions : all was fated and determined. Hardy reflected on the morality of visting the sins of the fathers on the and children-thus raising directly one of the most important themes of the novel, the relationship of one generation to another. Hardy's determinism is closely related with her ancestors, not with Christian God nor with Darwinism. He called his god 'the President of the Immortals.' Hardy said at the end of his novel that Justice was done, and the President of Immortals, in Aeschylean phrase, had ended his sport with Tess.

목차 (Table of Contents)

• 영문 초록
• Ⅰ. 인과 응보
• Ⅱ. 조상의 죄
• Ⅲ. 후손의 불행
• 참고 문헌