COMPARATIVE ANALYSIS OF TRAGIC ELEMENTS IN THOMAS HARDY’S TESS OF THE D’URBERVILLES AND ROMAN POLANSKI’S TESS
COMPARATIVE ANALYSIS OF TRAGIC ELEMENTS IN THOMAS HARDY’S TESS OF THE D’URBERVILLES AND ROMAN POLANSKI’S TESS

Summary/Abstract: Starting from the evident interest that Thomas Hardy’s novel Tess of the d’Urbervilles has inspired in the film and TV industry throughout the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, this paper centers on the comparison between Hardy’s novel and its film adaptation in 1979 by Roman Polanski; more specifically on the aspects of tragedy found in Hardy’s nineteenth-century novel and the manner in which they are included in the structure of Polanski’s film. The paper tackles the functional features of the elements of tragedy such as the strict logical and structural organization of plot, the heroine’s hybris and fatal flaw, as well as Hardy’s view of Tess as “a perfect specimen of a womankind”, and examines the ways in which the film, which can be seen as generally truthful to the original, conveys a subtly different understanding of Tess’s character and fate.

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