Tess of the d’Urbervilles · Chapter
XXXVIII explained
Tess returns to her parents' home after Angel Clare abandons her, confessing to her mother that she told him about her past.
What happens
Tess returns to her parents' home after Angel Clare abandons her, confessing to her mother that she told him about her past. Her parents react with disappointment and shame, more concerned with social appearances than her suffering. Tess gives them money from Angel to maintain the illusion of a successful marriage, then leaves again, feeling unwelcome and isolated.
Themes in this chapter
Female Purity and Double Standards
Tess is condemned by her mother for confessing her past to Angel, highlighting the societal expectation that women must conceal their sexual history to secure a marriage, while men face no such scrutiny.
Social Class and Inequality
Jack Durbeyfield's obsession with his noble ancestry and the family's concern over how the failed marriage will be perceived by the community underscore the deep ties between social status and personal worth.
Characters to notice
- Tess Durbeyfield
Returns home in despair after Angel leaves her; confesses to her mother that she told Angel about her past; feels betrayed by her parents' lack of support.
- Joan Durbeyfield
Reacts with anger and disappointment at Tess's confession, calling her a fool; later accepts the situation as a stroke of bad luck and uses Tess's money to celebrate.
- Jack Durbeyfield
Returns home with a hen, boasting about his ancestry; is mortified by the social implications of Tess's failed marriage, worrying about gossip at the inn.
- Angel Clare
Mentioned as having left Tess after learning of her past; sends a short note saying he has gone to the North of England to look at a farm.
Key passages
“I know it—I know—I know! ... But, O my mother, I could not help it! He was so good—and I felt the wickedness of trying to blind him as to what had happened! If—if—it were to be done again—I should do the same. I could not—I dared not—so sin—against him!”
Tess insists she had no choice but to tell Angel the truth, despite knowing it would ruin her marriage, because deceiving him felt like a greater sin.
Tess's moral integrity conflicts with her mother's pragmatic advice, revealing the theme of female purity and double standards.
“To think, now, that this was to be the end o't! ... And I with a family vault under that there church of Kingsbere as big as Squire Jollard's ale-cellar, and my folk lying there in sixes and sevens, as genuine county bones and marrow as any recorded in history. And now to be sure what they fellers at Rolliver's and The Pure Drop will say to me!”
Jack Durbeyfield laments that Tess's failed marriage will bring shame upon his noble lineage, worrying more about public ridicule than his daughter's suffering.
Highlights the theme of social class and inequality, as Jack's pride in ancestry overshadows Tess's emotional crisis.