THE TYRANNY OF MARRIAGE: PATRIARCHAL CONFINEMENT AND FEMALE RESISTANCE IN VICTORIAN FICTION AND THE NOVELS OF THOMAS HARDY
THE TYRANNY OF MARRIAGE: PATRIARCHAL CONFINEMENT AND FEMALE RESISTANCE IN VICTORIAN FICTION AND THE NOVELS OF THOMAS HARDY

Summary/Abstract: The present paper examines the intricate relashionship between family, marriage, and social values in Victorian society, with a specific emphasis on Thomas Hardy’s Tess of the d’Urbervilles and Jude the Obscure. Marriage functioned as a central institution in the Victrian era being reinforced by religious authority and patriarchal convention. Hardy brought down prevalent narratives by depicting heroines who defy, contest, or refuse to adhere to these inflexible structures. Through Tess and Sue, Hardy put into light the contradictions of a society which idealizes and oppresses women, introducing marriage both as a source of stability and as a mechanism of confinement. By including Hardy’s novels within broader marital patterns of the nineteenth century, the paper underlines Hardy’s fiction relationship with themes of love, tragedy, resistance, and fatalism, anticipating the feminist discourses of the twentieth century. Hardy’s tragic consciousness influenced by social transformation, natural imagery, and personal sensitivity, transforms marriage from a symbol of social order into a battleground of ideological conflict, where the individual’s pursuit for emotional authenticity clashes with the moral limitations of Victorian norms.

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