ABSTRACT
Thomas Hardy insisted in his preface to the Fifth and later editions that Tess is fiction, not philosophy, "not an argument," but "an impression". "Poetical representations" should be judged only in terms of their inner necessity and Truth. Tess is pure because she never meant to do wrong; and, Hardy argues, we should judge people by their intentions rather than by their acts. Hardy seems to feel that there is an overemphasis on sexual behavior in forming moral judgments, especially of women. Even though she has had illicit relations with Alec d’Urberville, Tess has many good qualities that make her a valuable person; she is not suddenly transformed into a worthless creature. There is one element of consistency in Hardy's arguments so far: in all of them Tess's experience with Alec is regarded as an evil. In defending Tess's purity, Hardy has employed a "confusion of many standards," and the result has been self-contradiction.
