Exploring the use of Language in Thomas Hardy’s Tess of the d’Urbervilles: A Focus on Social Class and Patriarchal Mindset of Victorian England
Journal Title: International Journal of Social Science And Human Research - Year 2024, Vol 7, Issue 10
Abstract
Tess of the d’Urbervilles written by Thomas Hardy explores the complicated social structure and patriarchal injustice existing during the Victorian era. In this novel, Hardy uses refined and colloquial language for characters belonging to different classes in order to portray social differences and highlight power and position.Tess, being a girl from lower class was a subject of exploitation and received physical and mental abuse from Alec, Angel and overall, the society. Alec often abused her verbally using words reflectinghis ownership over Tess while Angel and the society blamed her for her rape. This paper aims to examine the role of language in Tess of the d’Urbervilles that represents the deep-rooted domination based on gender and class. Through Hardy’s narrative style and variation in linguistics pattern themes of male dominance and abuse, possession, control, victim blaming, identity, social class. and the patriarchal mindset of the society has been explored. The findings are basedon the primary and secondary data collected from the text Tess of the d’Urbervilles and other journals, articles, research paper of various scholars respectively. Besides, it also focuses on the sympathetic narrative tone of the writer where he expressed his compassion and presented Tess as a tragic character to the readers, who had gone through all sorts of sufferings due to her gender and class. The paper also presents a connection between Tess and the women of all ages who have similar experience and how language has always been an instrument of oppression and control over women by men. Hardy’s use of language is a reflection of the social and gender oppression during the Victorian era and how words can be a way of humiliating women.
Authors and Affiliations
Chowdhury Adiba Zahin, Md. Faisal Haque
Keywords
Related Articles
- EP ID EP749802
- DOI 10.47191/ijsshr/v7-i10-77
- Views 52
- Downloads 0
Pragmatic Function of Linguistic Units
The article is devoted to the theoretical analysis of a number of works of domestic and foreign linguists in which approaches to language learning in a pragmatic aspect are defined. As a result of generalization of vario...
Overview of Condotel Sale Agreements in Indonesia and Its Relation to Consumer Right Protection
The process of buying and selling condotel is carried out based on PPJB in the form of a standard agreement as an important element in the process of buying and selling Condotel. However, standard agreements often lead t...
Rohingya Crisis, Trans-boundary and Geopolitics: Prospects and Aspects of Bangladesh
Geopolitical importance of both Bangladesh and Myanmar has increased due to the changing international order. These two countries are turning into an arena of middle power rivalry by the influence of the lone superpower...
A Study on the Healthy Behaviors of the Elderly in China and Its Influencing Factors on Healthy Lifestyle
China has the largest group of elderly people in the world. With the deepening of aging in China, having a healthy lifestyle is an indispensable key factor to achieve healthy aging. In order to explore the health status...
Representation of the Concepts “Man/Woman” In the Kazakh and English Proverbs
It is very interesting to study proverbs and sayings describing the image of a man and a woman in-nonnative Kazakh and English languages. Proverbs and sayings that describe the image of a man and a woman which are used i...