Throughout the novel Tess of the D’Urbervilles, Thomas Hardy expresses his views on upper class society through the actions of Angel Clare. Angel tries to be the modern man, putting aside the snobbishness of the upper class and existing with less privileged folk, but fails miserably.
At first Angel seems to be the perfect example of one who has moved beyond society’s restrictions of class interaction, living and working on a farm. Considering Angel’s upbringing, this is a very large step forward. His father and brothers are in the church, an upper class position which seems to be the family calling. Angel instead abandons the church in favor of a simpler life. Hardy sums up Angel’s attitude in this passage: “He spent years and years in desultory studies, undertakings, and meditations; he began to evince considerable indifference to social forms and observances. The material distinctions of rank and wealth he increasingly despised. Even the ‘good old family’ … had no aroma for him unless there were good new resolutions in its representatives” (p. 119). After telling his father that he didn’t want to join the church, he begins studying and attempts to become worldlier. As time goes on, Angel begins to dislike those who put too much importance upon their wealth and social status, instead favoring those who worked for what they had. This is what causes Angel to work with Dairyman Crick, surrounding himself with those whom society would deem beneath him. It is at the farm that Angel meets Tess. It is through Tess that Angel most clearly shows his forward thinking, as he proposes to Tess, a mere milkmaid, even though her social status does not match his own. This is a much different reaction to Tess than Alec d’Urberville’s rape of Tess. Angel treats Tess as a person, rather than as something to be used.
However, immediately preceding the wedding, we get our first glimpse at Angel’s true character: “To produce Tess, fresh from the dairy, as a d’Urberville and a lady, he had felt to be temerarious and risky; hence, he had concealed her lineage till such time as, familiarized with worldly ways by a few months’ travel and reading with him, he could take her on a visit to his parents, and impart the knowledge while triumphantly producing her as worthy of such an ancient line” (p. 216-217). Angel’s desire to make Tess “worthy” of her upper class heritage shows how the snobbishness of the upper class is deeply ingrained within him. Even though he has agreed to marry this girl of lesser social standing, he still desires her to become more educated like the upper class. His need for Tess to be worthy of her name goes directly against his supposed hatred for upper class familial names. Where before Angel was perfectly content with Tess, as soon as he has to display her to his upper class family he feels she needs improvement.
After Tess reveals to Angel that she was raped by Alec, Angel leaves her on her own and moves to Brazil for two years. Hardy uses the difficulties Tess faces to show what an uncaring decision Angel made in leaving her to fend for herself. Before Angel leaves he tells Tess: “…until I come to you it will be better that you should not try to come to me” (p. 261). He treats Tess as a possession rather than an equal partner. It is clear that he does not think of her as an equal, essentially giving her orders to not contact him. By abandoning his wife, the woman he has sworn to stay beside for better or for worse, Angel shows that upper class thinking still dominates his mid.
Angel’s role in the novel is clearly a significant one, which lets the reader know that Hardy is sending a message through him. The fact that Angel, the most modern thinking person in the novel, is unable to escape his upper class prejudices shows that Hardy did not think highly of upper class society. Hardy obviously wants the reader to know that Angel abandoning Tess like she is simply an item to be left behind had a detrimental effect and was wrong. Moreover, Angel’s character shows that Hardy felt that these upper class values were so ingrained into people’s psyches that it was almost impossible to leave them behind.
