ABSTRACT
This chapter describes that the author's responses to Tess underwent another major alteration after he developed a psychological approach to fiction. The author began to formulate this approach in 1964, while he was teaching Vanity Fair. Karen Horney explains behavior synchronically, in terms of its function in the present structure of the psyche, its role in the individual's defenses and inner conflicts. Self-idealization does not ultimately make people feel better about themselves but rather leads to increased self-hatred and additional inner conflict. Thomas Hardy presents Tess's fall as the result of a combination of circumstances over which she has little control. She is the innocent victim of Alec d’Urberville's treachery, of the moral looseness of Tantridge, and of cosmic indifference. Tess reacts to Alec's remark with such rage because she desperately needs to prove that she is not "every woman," that she does not belong to the "whorage" of Car Darch and her ilk.
