When will you wake up, O Mother, wake up and seeSay no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on “Why Violent Video Games Should Not Be Banned”? Get the original essay As one who, kept in trance, has labored long By vacant heart and strong pre-possession The coils you have involuntarily wrought; Where do they take place, not realized by you, Beautiful growths, disgusting cankers, good mixed with evil, Strange orchestras of cries and songs of victims, And curious mixtures of pain and ecstasy? (Hardy, "The Sleep-Worker") Inherent in the ruthless progress of society is, paradoxically, a growing moral deterioration. In Tess of the d'Urbervilles, Thomas Hardy "faithfully presents" Tess as a model of virtue, using her as an instrument of criticism against a society too debauched to support the existence of "its best individuals" (Wickens 104). Unwilling to compromise her strict adherence to personal morals, Tess suffers greatly; his ultimate inability to exist on this “devastated” star (21) exposes the regression of a hypocritically moralistic society, whose degraded values ​​catalyze its destruction. Innocently ignoring the “cruel law of nature[,]” (115), Tess is violated by the response. that his sexuality arouses in Alec. Yet even though it is nature that pushes Tess to lose her virginity, it is society that makes this loss a sin. Tess's passage from a "mere vessel of emotion untainted by experience" (8) to a being stained by a "corporeal scourge" (98) provokes severe social condemnation. Ironically, in its attempt to deny humanity's natural instincts, social selection assumes the ethical absence characteristic of natural selection, "ensuring that social relations between individuals will continue the natural relations between species" (Wickens 98). . By “failing to distinguish itself ethically from an emerging [N]ature” (Wickens 97), society thus neglects to fulfill its condition as a conscious entity. Furthermore, by abandoning the responsibility to examine the moral ramifications of Tess's rape, society fundamentally ignores the underlying intent of the doctrine on which it bases its denunciation. Behind the social law that condemns Tess, lies a deeply rooted and extremely debased patriarchal interpretation of Christianity. Wanting to embody ideal Christianity without the responsibility to realize Christian ideals, society ignores the compassion and forgiveness that this creed originally dictated. Rationalizing that it must conform to the spirit of Christianity because it disguises itself in the name of Christianity, society equates virtue and righteousness with those who survive best within the context of its corrupt standards. A tainted ideology is engendered, effectively excommunicating Tess and preventing her acceptance by society. Bypassing ethical considerations, society smugly justifies and insidiously defends the survival of the strongest and the exploitation of the weakest, thus perpetuating the law, “once a victim, always a victim” (261). Having removed all moral considerations, he inaccurately judges morality based on the physical outcome of circumstances. These depraved standards of judgment render society incapable of seeing that “[t]he beauty or ugliness of a character lies not only in his accomplishments, but in his goals and impulses; its true history lies not in things done, but among things willed” (267). Society, with its perverse sense of justice, ostracizes Tess for her loss of physical purity, although her moral purity is absolute. His conception of justice promotes an attitude that is both stifling anddegrading towards those who are physically weaker, including women; society “worships the false idol of chastity[, remaining blindly]. . . committed to a set of attitudes toward the “fallen”[,] woman” (Hazen 780). This state of mind creates fertile ground for the development of double standards, which decree that those who function best within the perverse framework of society are entitled to greater leniency in all respects, whether on the social, moral or sexual level; Tess's unjust and undeserved victimization is juxtaposed with Angel's arrogant hypocrisy, who is tolerated for "all the same" (177) action. Furthermore, Alec, the true violator of a moral law, goes unpunished. Hardy satirically exposes the gross injustice of double standards and society in general by describing the intense ridicule of Alec's attempt, albeit temporary, to achieve salvation through ideological conversion. Only in an extremely sick society, Hardy suggests, could a rapist become a priest. “[Sick of evil[,]” (Hazen 780), a society demands conformity to its degraded ideology. It suppresses individual moral values, thereby denying “the possibilities of human existence” (Howe 421). Rejecting meliorism, Hardy pessimistically states: “We may wonder whether, at the peak and pinnacle of human progress, these anachronisms will be corrected by a finer intuition, a closer interaction of the social machinery which now buffets us; but such completeness must not be prophesied, nor even conceived as possible” (31). Society undoes its adaptation to new moral conditions brought about by the choices of its individual members. With this moral paralysis, she effectively ceases to confront the choice of judgment and attempts to renounce her responsibility. With active loss of consciousness there is loss of meaning. Faced with the ethical void of the world around her and the schism of the world within, Tess chooses to create meaning by making conscious decisions. In essence, his actions constitute a “…fundamental effort to create a meaningful place for man in a world unconscious of his presence.” "Even without a sense of cosmic purpose, [Tess] maintains her desire for human order and ethical consciousness" (Wickens 96). Tess responds to the moral void around her by formulating her own beliefs. When confronted with words condemning the unclean woman, Tess responds, “I don’t believe God said such things!” (63). She forms a personal interpretation of religion as well as a personal value system and therefore rejects the social order that opposes her very being. Faced with ostracization, uprooting, and demoralization to a dehumanizing extent, Tess mobilizes and resists becoming determined to “taste sweet independence again at all costs” (71). However, “Tess demands nothing that could be considered the consequence of rootlessness or overworked willpower…she spontaneously commits to meeting the most basic needs of human existence.” Indeed, it provides a standard of what is right and essential for human beings. demand from life” (Howe 409). Despite her suffering, Tess behaves with immense dignity, consciously remaining true to her ideals. Actively challenging society's morals by standing up for her own values, Tess possesses the courage and faith that allows her to achieve "purity of spirit even if she fails to meet the world's standards" (Howe, 408). . success contrasts sharply with the apparent insignificance of his being. "She was an existence, an experience, a passion, a structure of sensations, to no one but herself. To all humanity, except Tess, she was only a passing thought"(71). Although she spiritually transcends society's decadence, Tess does not have the power to change its values. His relationships with Alec and Angel, “mediators of current attitudes, habits and values ​​in their society[,]” (Hazen 780) illustrate this. Like the society they represent, Angel and Alec “share an inability to value the splendor of the feelings that emanate from Tess. Each represents a distortion of masculinity, one high and the other low; they cannot appreciate, they cannot even see the richness of life which Tess embodies” (Howe 415). “[F]inding no adequate response to his needs either in heaven or on earth, in the social or natural world. . . [Tess] does not have the support necessary to carry on" (Hyman 118). Physically exhausted and psychologically exhausted from the incessant struggle to maintain her purity in a corrupt world, Tess realizes that the only way to achieve wholeness is to descend to the level of society and escape physically in order to “taste sweet independence again[,]” (71), Tess must sacrifice her life and thus free herself from her “devastated” world (21). . a feeling of existential despair as it clearly exposes the decadence of a society that offers death as the only means of maintaining personal purity Moreover, this "society [that] denies [Tess] the circumstances to fully be." human[,]” (Wickens 102) is corrupted to the extent that it not only erases her existence, but even denies the significance of her self-sacrifice Therefore, although “Tess’s suffering produces a[n] . immediate regeneration” (Hazen 780) by its liberating influence on Angel, this regeneration is limited to the rectification of Angel’s current point of view; the “hard logical deposit [that] had blocked his acceptance of the Church. . . [as well as] his acceptance of Tess” (189) remains intact. In essence, the system on which he bases his designs (logos) does not change, because, as Hardy says, “Angel. . . would have inevitably thrown [Tess’s] fall in the face” (388). Thus, despite Tess's great sacrifice, neither Angel nor society manages to "recognize the need to move beyond logical attitudes and metaphysical responses toward a more conscious awareness of objective reality." . . [What] [Hardy] reveals is that although such a necessity can be grasped intellectually, it cannot be realized by the intellect alone. Nor can this be achieved by a single individual, [but rather by. . .] mutuality and interdependence: only another human being can meet needs that are no longer satisfied by belief in Divine Providence or in the beneficence of nature. What Hardy does best, he does here with Tess; it creates the feeling of a meaningless universe and of the human desire for an answer that does not arrive” (Hyman, 118). On a cosmic level, Tess fades away like “a fleeting, half-forgotten impression” (31). simply justifies Tess's death with the same criteria used to denounce her. Angel's union with Liza-Lu does not compensate for Tess' extirpation by society, because Liza Lu is only "a spiritualized image of Tess" (313), sharing her blood but devoid of substance. Fertility becomes for Hardy part of a further plot, malignant and trap, because it is conceived without regard to the needs of individual life” (Beer 453). With the destruction of the individual, the evolution of humanity seems to be reduced to simple propagation, indicating an immense regression that belies the supposed development of society. Spiritually actualizing herself against a backdrop of societal regression, “[Tess] appears…the potential for what life could be, just as what happens to her signifies what life too often becomes” (Howe 421). With Tess's death, the momentum and.."