《德伯家的苔丝》是哈代著称于世的“威塞克斯系列”中的一部力作。小说描述了一位纯洁姑娘的不幸命运。主人公苔丝是一位美丽的农家少女，因受东家少爷诱迫而失身怀孕。从此，这一耻辱的事实剥夺了她接受真正爱情的权利，致使新婚之夜遭丈夫遗弃。后来，万般无奈之中，她重回了少爷的怀抱，不料，就在这时她那有名无实的丈夫拖着病驱千里归来，苦苦寻觅。苔丝为了自己真正的爱，毅然杀死同居的少爷，在与丈夫短暂欢聚后，走上了绞刑台。

TESS is really a tragic figure in the book TESS of the d’Urberwilles.
She was seduced by a so-called gentleman—Alec, and from then on her life totally changed from this loss of innocence. People looked down on her and respected her no more. Actually she did nothing wrong because before she was seduced she knew nothing of men. She was just a girl when she first met that terrible man.
She was forced by the gossips and the church to blame herself for this accident, so she thought she deserved nothing good. In order to get rid of the past she decided to go to a distant dairy farm but was still saying to herself that she was wrong. Maybe God didn’t agree with that, because the Lord gave her someone she loved with her whole heart and life—Angel Chare. Angel popped the question to her but she refused him without saying why. She said she loved him deeply and perhaps no one in the world could love him more than she did but she could not marry him for some unspoken reason. Angel wasn’t satisfied with this vague answer and did his best to win Tess. Somehow she agreed and they soon fixed the wedding day. Soon after their wedding Angel confessed the crime he committed to a woman long time ago and asked for Tess’s forgiveness. Tess was not at all angry and forgave Angel at once; in fact she was rather happy and excited for she also had things to confess.
She sat and told everything to Angel, hoping he would forgive her as he was forgiven but she was wrong. She was not forgiven, not as she thought she was. The woman pays.
Without Angel’s love, nothing meant anything to her. The result wasn’t important now. Tess was arrested for her murder of that so-called gentleman. Why? She still loved Angel and when he finally went back to her and asked for HER forgiveness, after he regretted what he had done unfair to Tess, she was desperate. That was too late—Alec had always told Tess that Angel would never come back so he won Tess’s trust. Unluckily Angel did come back and found Tess.! Everything was too late!
Tess was deceived and she lost Angel for the second time! The strengh of her love was so strong that she had forgotten the difference between right and wrong. Before that she had done nothing wrong but when she killed Alec, everything really changed! She became a criminal! How could it be? She was as pure and innocent as the good wife in the Bible. Her whole character was honest and faithful. Angel figured out at last that a person should be judged not only on what he has done but also on what he wanted to do!
Tess didn’t want to be seduced by man and she had no power to defend herself so she lost her innocence and that’s all! Angel also did the wrong thing and it was even more serious than Tess’s crime but HE was not blamed for it. Why it is always the woman who pays? Why they are always hurt? Why was Tess’s girlish purity lost? Why does the wrong man take the wrong woman? Why do the bad often ruin the good? Why is beauty damaged by ugliness? Women are too weak! Thousands of years of history have shown us that women have always been treated unfairly!
In old China there was a culture, which didn’t think of women as human beings. If you asked one if he was the oldest in his family, he would probably answer “the oldest one” even if he had some elder sisters. If you asked why then he would say, “Ha, they are not included!”
People gave birth to many girls in order to have only one boy to keep the family name going. They thought girls had no use for the family. They would be married and go to live with their husbands’ home and be their wives some day sooner or later. So they were extremely hard on girls.
Girls should be hard working, faithful, loyal, intelligent, and virtuous and the most important thing was she must be a maiden! If her husband was the first man who touched her then she was a good girl, a good wife no matter how she thought. If she wasn’t, then she would gain a very bad reputation and nobody would dare to go near her. What about men? People did not care whether he was an experienced man or not, nor did they care about his character. They thought man equals power and power equals rights…

Tess是悲剧人物，她出众的美貌同时吸引了两个男人，可她的美貌却没有带给她应有的幸福。而她的死，Angel和Alec都负有一定的责任。
Alec狂热的爱和欲望是导致Tess悲剧的根源，他认为他如此爱她，相应地也会得到回报。可他粗野的方式让Tess感到厌烦。
Angel虽然是个思想开明的青年，但还是无法摆脱旧有思想的束缚，即使在他自己曾经也做过不忠的事情的情况下，他并不能体谅妻子当时的无奈和无助，而是选择离去。这对于无助的Tess来说是一个大的打击，这也导致了后来Alec成功的回来。虽然Angel最终悔悟，但一切都已经晚了。
也许，只有死亡，能够让Tess解脱。让这一切对于她的戏弄结束。