How Tess of the D’Urbervilles drew on Jane Eyre
A documented line of influence: Thomas Hardy demonstrably engaged Charlotte Brontë’s work. The commentary below is Gröblé’s, verbatim from each work’s page.
The source
Jane Eyre
Charlotte Brontë · 1847
The Age of the NovelThe influenced
Tess of the D’Urbervilles
Thomas Hardy · 1891
The Age of the NovelRelevance
6/10
On Tess of the D’Urbervilles’s page
- Tess reads as Hardy's darker answer to Jane Eyre — the same question of what a woman can claim for herself, set against Brontë's more hopeful reply
- Brontë gave Jane hard-won autonomy and even resurrected the saintly, fated Helen Burns into meaning; Hardy revisits both and strips out the mercy
- Read Jane Eyre first and Tess's tragedy sharpens — you can feel exactly which promises of the earlier novel Hardy refuses to keep
On Jane Eyre’s page
- Jane Eyre is the book Tess is arguing with — Hardy rewrites Brontë's vision of female autonomy forty-four years on, and answers it in the dark
- Where Jane wins her independence, Tess is given no such room; Hardy sets her story deliberately against Jane's agency
- The fated, passive Helen Burns flickers behind Tess too — Hardy resurrecting Brontë's figures to show a world that no longer rewards them