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ABSTRACT.
THE AIM OF THE PRESENT STUDY IS AN INTROSPECTION IN THOMAS HARDY'S WELL-KNOWN TESS OF THE D'URBERVILLES, FROM THE PERSPECTIVE OF THE AUTHOR'S LIFE PHILOSOPHY TOWARDS THE UNFAIRNESS OF EXISTENCE. THE DISCOURSE IS SCATTERED WITH ELEMENTS THAT FORETELL TESS'S UNHAPPY ENDING. TESS'S BEAUTY WAS NOT AN ADVANTAGE, BUT ON THE CONTRARY, A DISADVANTAGE: IT BROUGHT MISFORTUNE AND UNHAPPYNESS TO HER. THIS IS THE CONCLUSION, THE READER REACHES AT A FIRST READING. EXAMINED THROUGH THE EYES OF THE 21TH CENTURY READER, MORE PSYCHOLOGICAL ANGLES ARE REVEALED.
KEY WORDS: PHILOSOPHY, EXISTENCE, FATE, MISFORTUNE, DISCOURSE, PSYCHOLOGICAL ANALYSIS
1. Introduction
The motto in the title is a fragment from William Shakespeare's King Lear and pertain to Gloucester, a noble man, loyal to king Lear. This philosophical thought, similar to a rhetorical question, represents the man's incapacity in front of implacable fate and of Divine judgement. In a similar way, Hardy ends his novel, Tess of the D'Urbervilles, A Pure Woman: "Justice was done, and the President of the Immortals (in Aeschylean phrase) has ended his sport with Tess. As a parenthesis, Prometheus Bound was attributed to Aeschylus who lived between 525 and 456 BC in Eleusis; his birthplace is known for rituals of worship to Demeter, Earth Goddess. Some historiographers credited him with inventing drama, other scholars found that there were differences between Prometheus Bound and other Aeschylus's plays. The protagonist of the play is Prometheus and scholars have seen the play as an act of rebellion against an unjust god." Hardy's philosophical thought on the one hand and on the other, the authorial discourse of an omniscient author represents the conclusion of the novel and the overall theme of the novel - The Injustice of Existence.
The motto has been used by Hardy himself in the Preface to the Fifth and Later Editions, written in July 1892. In fact, the novel is punctuated with many replicas from Shakespeare's plays, making the reader aware of the contemporary predicaments that the English playwright utilizes. The authorial Preface appears to have been written in response to those reviewers, "by far the majority" who enjoyed reading the novel "who have so generously welcomed the tale". Nonetheless, there were voices who disagreed with the Hardy's novel, "there have been objectors...