To what extent does Hardy challenge conventional Victorian values in Tess of the D’Urbevilles?

To a notable extent, Hardy does challenge conventional Victorian values concerning class, gender roles and marriage, and, above all, the Victorians’ faith in the merits of “progress”: industrialisation and rationality. However, an alternative view is that Hardy’s presentation of his “heroine” as largely passive and objectified implicates him in the prevailing patriarchal values of the time.
Hardy’s treatment of gender in the novel is not consistent. His protagonist is a woman, in some respects strong-minded and perceptive and more moral than the principal male characters. The other female characters, however, are in the main presented as almost extremely conventional: Mrs Durbeyfield conforms to the stereotype of a lower-class Victorian mother, who wants only for her daughter to marry a rich man, even after the man has raped her; Tess’ fellow milkmaids are stereotyped as foolish, love-sick and largely without individuality; although Mrs Rolliver, the canny landlady, in chapter 4, is the person in control of that situation.
Tess is introduced as the person on whom the family relies, for work, childcare, family pride (she is the one who protests “Oh no, I wouldn’t have it for the world! … and letting everyone know the reason – such a thing to be ashamed of”, when her parents suggest missing the chance to sell the beehives because her father is drunk). Contrary to the expectations of Victorian society, and her mother, Tess refuses to marry Alec, even after he has made her pregnant; demonstrating her independence of character. Then, having first refused Angel’s proposals because of her shameful secret, Tess finally confesses it, ruining her chance of happiness. Tess shows on the one hand how conformist her views are to conventional values, in that she is so oppressed by the secret and so understanding of Angel’s reaction to hearing it; but on the other, her disclosure to Angel results from her commitment to honesty, equality and trust in a relationship (Angel has confessed his wrongdoing; she will confess hers). Hardy’s own view is unambiguous: Tess is the victim of society’s values ‘She was ashamed of herself for her gloom of the night, based on nothing more tangible than a sense of condemnation under an arbitrary law of society which had no foundation in Nature.’ (41.33)
Hardy’s contrasting of the intangible and arbitrary “laws” of Victorian society with what is more truthful and pure in Nature, is perhaps the central philosophical theme of the novel. The most obvious example of which is his treatment of industrialisation. The collision between Tess’ wagon and the mail-cart is a pivotal moment in the plot of the book and also very symbolic. It is the clash between what is modern and fast, “speeding along these lanes like an arrow” destroying what is old-fashioned, “her slow and unlighted equipage”. More overt is his dark portrayal of the threshing engineer in chapter 47, symbolising the detrimental effect of industrialisation on agricultural Wessex: “The isolation of his manner and colour lent him the appearance of a creature from Tophet, who had strayed into the pellucid smokelessness of this region of yellow grain and pale soil …. He was in the agricultural world, but not of it. He served fire and smoke; these denizens of the fields served vegetation, weather, frost, and sun.” The words ‘”fire” and “smoke” are a hellish imagery, one of death and decay, in contrast to the words “frost” and “sun”; which emphasizes the difference between the natural and industrialized worlds. Most scathing of all is the contrast at the very end of the book between the “quaint irregularities of the Gothic” buildings in Wintoncester and the ”formalism” of the “large red-brick building, with level gray roofs, and rows of short barred windows bespeaking captivity … an ugly, flat-topped octagonal tower”. The colours “red” and “grey” are evocative: red has connotations of danger- this could be seen as the danger of the industrialized world and what it brings to nature; while the colour grey has connotations of bleakness and even misery, again emphasizing the blight on pre-industrial Britain. The modern prison is the “one blot on the city’s beauty”. Yet is from this “one blot” that the final tragedy emerges, and “’Justice’ was done”. Hardy’s linking of what is modern, ugly, regular, formalistic, with the tragic injustice done to his heroine, by contrast with what is old, quaint and irregular, stands fittingly as his concluding verdict on the new Victorian values.
A similar contrast between what is abstract and formal and what is ‘natural’, is notable in Hardy’s treatment of religion; but it is not so much Victorian values which Hardy seems to criticise as the dogmas and abstract rationality of the church, as compared with the even older intuitive and pagan religion of the countryside: “[W]omen whose chief companions are the forms and forces of outdoor Nature retain in their souls far more of the Pagan fantasy of their remote forefathers than of the systematized religion taught their race at later date. (16.16)’. Women are connected with old, primeval, Pagan religion, and "outdoor Nature", while men are connected with the "systematized," man-made religion that came later; Hardy points to a shift in religious belief, with men adapting their religion to fit this new period of Industrialization. “But though to visit the sins of the fathers upon the children may be a morality good enough for divinities, it is scorned by average human nature … As Tess’ own people … are never tired of saying among each other in their fatalistic way: ‘It was to be’.” In this quote, Hardy again casts doubt on traditional Judaeo-Christian beliefs, still part of Victorian Religious values, which would attribute Tess’ rape to the sinful actions of her male ancestors; his preference appears once more to be for the more intuitive and older fatalism of common country folk.
Where the modern reader may feel least satisfied with Hardy’s treatment of conventional values is in the passivity of his heroine before her fate. From the first, Tess articulates her fatalistic view that her family is predestined to suffer, in her discussion with Abraham about the stars – man lives on a “blighted” world. She is passive in allowing the rape. Then at the critical moment when Angel is wavering whether to forgive her, Tess stays silent. Tess refuses to approach Angel’s parents for relief. She allows herself to be blackmailed into a relationship with Alec. And in the end, Tess cannot confront the values of her time rationally, or even consciously; instead she commits the most violent act, in a state of “some delirium” (as Angel feels) – even Tess admits “I have done it – I don’t know how”. Does this mean Hardy implicates himself in the very values he has castigated? Or does it demonstrate Hardy’s belief how pernicious a grip those values had on the even the best of people, Tess?
In conclusion, even though it can be said that Hardy’s portrayal of Tess might conform to the traditional Victorian lady, a woman who has control of her own life. Hardy definitely does challenge other aspects of Victorian values; questioning class, gender roles and marriage, and most central to novel, Victorians’ faith in the merits of “progress”: industrialisation and rationality. With all this touched upon, it is clear to me that the extent of Hardy challenging Victorian values is much greater than succumbing to them.