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The Ending

1) Tess is working as a farm laborer to support her family financially after her husband Angel leaves her due to her past. 2) Alec, who previously corrupted Tess, reappears as a preacher claiming to be reformed, but Tess does not believe he has changed. 3) After various hardships, Tess reluctantly agrees to marry Alec to support her family, just as Angel decides to return to her. However, when Angel finds Tess, she tells him it is too late and she is now married to Alec.

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Sana Suhail
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303 views11 pages

The Ending

1) Tess is working as a farm laborer to support her family financially after her husband Angel leaves her due to her past. 2) Alec, who previously corrupted Tess, reappears as a preacher claiming to be reformed, but Tess does not believe he has changed. 3) After various hardships, Tess reluctantly agrees to marry Alec to support her family, just as Angel decides to return to her. However, when Angel finds Tess, she tells him it is too late and she is now married to Alec.

Uploaded by

Sana Suhail
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
Available Formats
Download as DOCX, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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Alec: The convert

(The last phase)


Part 1
Tess is now employed at farmer Groby’s farm in the Flint
Comb Ash. There she works along with her old fellows
Marian and Izz from Talbothy farm.
Farmer Groby makes them work hard day and night. Tess
is going through worst financial crisis. She works hard
enough to support her family but yet their financial
conditions are getting worse day by day.
During this stage of her life where she is not only
suffering financially but is also suffering as wife ditched
by her husband due to her wretched past of which she
was a victim.
The past repeats itself when Alec shows up again, not as
an ill-mannered young man but as wandering preacher
converted by Reverend Clare. When he witnesses the
worst conditions of Tess life, he blames himself for
corrupting Tess’s innocent life, but also her parents for
not warning her of men like him.
Alec tells Tess that he is now a different man, he is
religious and not a sinner anymore. He preaches and is
trying to save the souls of others, the way his soul was
saved by Reverend Clare.
But Tess does not believe him. Because she is now
skeptical in her way of thinking and she doubts him.
She accuses him that his religious fervor has no
foundation. And according to her, how could a person
like Alec be free from his sins while she who was the
victim of his sins and was suffering for it.
Alec learns of her marriage when she tells him that she
does not believe him because of the change in her way of
thinking which someone whom she loves had taught her.
And now she no more believe in Christian doctrines.
By hearing this, we see that Alec’s new form of
conviction is now taken away because he somehow has
become convinced by the rational views of Tess.
Here we get a glimpse of Alec’s past character which
shows itself again because it appears that he is again
become smitten by Tess.
But yet the phase of conversion has done him some good
and now he only wishes to help Tess and her family
because he blames himself for the miserable conditions
of Tess and consider himself fully responsible for the
calamity which he has brought upon her.

Part 2
After losing his new formed conviction, Alec visits
Tess again now clean shaven and asks her to marry
him. But she refuses him. During this conversation
Alec tries to convince her that Angel has left her and
that she is waiting in vain.
On the next day Lisa-Lou, Tess’s sister visits her and
breaks the news oh her father’s death. Her sister
tells her that they needed her because they are now
homeless as their father was the lease-holder and
now they have to vacate the house.
She lefts the farm and go to Marlott to support her
family. She decides to go to Kingsbere along with
her family. When Alec learns of it he offers his help
and tells her that they could stay at his estate and
again offers her a marriage proposal and promises
to support her family. Tess is upset and helpless but
yet she again refuses his help.
Tess makes one last attempt to save her marriage
by writing a letter to Angel Clare. As she does not
know where he is staying, she posts that letter at
his father’s address.
In this letter she asks him to return to her and have
mercy on her. She tells him of her miserable
conditions and confesses that she love him and that
she is the same woman whom he loved. She warns
him that something terrible is threatening her and
she fears that her present worst conditions might
cost her to lose him forever.
Angel Clare parents receives the letter and hope for
his return. The keep wondering that what has went
wrong with their marriage.

Part 3
Angel who is residing now in Brazil. A
considerable time has passed and it had left
him changed. As now he values his liberal views
rather than the stereotypic views of the society
about chastity of a woman.
And so realizes that despite of Tess’s impure
past she is still the ideal of purity and so his
feelings begin to return.
On one of his journey he meets an old man and
he tells him his story. The old man tells him that
his judgement has been clouded and that he
should have judged Tess by will not by deed.
The next day the old man dies leaving a strong
impact on Angel’s mind and he decides to go
back to Tess.
At one side we see that Angel realizes his
mistake but it takes him too long. Because his
constant indifference towards Tess has taken
away every speck of hope of his return to her.
Tess now feels the injustice of her situation and
realizes that how harsh and in an unjustified
way Angel has treated and left her.
She who was a victim of someone else’s
mistakes and yet was treated like a sinner. She
was made to pay for someone else’s sins.
Tess writes her last letter to Angel, lamenting
the way he has treated her and telling him that
she will not be able to forgive him but will try to
forget him.

Part 4
When Angel reaches home, he reads the
letters of Tess. He tells his parents the
whole scenario of his marriage and the
reason of his parting away from his wife. His
parents somehow show sympathy towards
Tess and tells their son to find Tess and
bring her back.
Angel sets-off to Marlott but there he finds
someone else in Tess parent’s home. He is
told that they no more live here and
happens to be somewhere in kingsbere.
He go to Kingsbere and when he meets
Tess’s mother she tells him that Tess does
not live with them. Angel ask for her
address but her mother refuses then after
insisting so much she tells him that she is at
Sandbourne.
Angel immediately takes train to
Sandbourne and after reaching there he
keeps asking for someone by the name
Tess. He is told that there is D’Urbervilles
staying at a place called Herons.
When he goes to Herons and reaches the
lodgings of D’Urbervilles, the landlady asks
him to wait for a while.
After sometime Tess appears all dressed in
an expensive clothes looking charming and
beautiful. But her eyes lack the spark which
used to be there whenever she saw Angel
Clare.
Tess tells him that it’s too late and now she
is married to Alec. She tells him that she
waited long enough for his return but her
miserable conditions swallowed her single
speck of hope and so she was left with no
choice other than to marry Alec. She tells
him that when she needed him the most, at
that time he was battling with his
conscience like a coward who was held
prisoner by the views of stereotypic society
and it led him to leave his wife to the stings
of this cruel world. She accuses him that his
love was not pure and real because if it was
then it would have not taken him so long to
come back to her.
Angel repents for his doings and asks her
forgiveness but she rejects his apology and
asks him to leave because she cannot
betray the man who held her hand when
she was afflicted by the worst conditions.
Angel is left with nothing but regret for the
rest of his life and he considers himself
deserving for it.

Angels conscience and ego blinded him so


much that he held Tess responsible for a sin
which she never has committed.
Epilogue
In the end Tess and Alec begins their new
phase of life. Tess forgives Alec for his past
mistake and they continue to live happily.
Although Tess confesses to Alec that she
might not be able to love him but will try
her best to keep their marriage fine and she
will remain faithful and true to him.
On the other hand Angel mistake has
haunted him in such a way that it has left
him with such a fate that’s far worse than
death for him. He accepts the fact that he
has lost Tess forever.
Sometimes the man has to pay too………

Written by Sana Gul.

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