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Up until now, scholars have not analysed the destructive role that expectations play in Tess of the d’Urbervilles. This article will therefore attend to this subject by exploring a series of relationships depicted in Thomas Hardy’s novel. To do so, this study will begin with the “fatal love” of Tess Durbeyfield and Angel Clare (Garson 130). Both individuals share confessions upon their wedding night that challenge the very foundations upon which their relationship was built. Having both held idealised perceptions of the other, Tess and Angel are forced to either adjust to these new parameters or see their relationship destroyed. Where Angel adopts a rigid inflexibility of conviction, Tess adapts her opinions and expectations, extending this behaviour to her relationship with Alec d’Urberville. In doing so, Tess is able to accommodate the changing and sometimes contradictory elements of the other characters’ identities. However, Tess fails to extend this courtesy to herself when presented with situations that she cannot control. Instead, Tess internalises perceptions of her behaviour that result in unjust opinions and unreasonable expectations of herself. Therefore, through critically examining these events and characters, this article will demonstrate how the perpetuation of rigid expectations can be detrimental to individuals and relationships alike. Simple Tess Durbeyfield stood at gaze, in half-alarmed attitude, on the edge of the gravel sweep. Her feet had brought her onward to this point before she had quite realized where she was; and now all was contrary to her expectation. (Hardy 44) In describing Tess Durbeyfield’s movements here, Thomas Hardy metaphorically represents the unconscious process through expectations are formed and abruptly challenged by reality. This figurative interpretation of this quotation epitomises a central tenet of Tess of the d’Urbervilles that has previously been ignored by scholars, the role of expectations in the novel. With this in mind, this article shall attend to this gap in the scholarship by arguing that the role is predominantly a destructive one. This can be seen in the ways that preconceptions influence (and in some instances govern) the characters’ relationships, through the imposition and enforcement of expectations. When these expectations are challenged, so then are often the very foundations of the relationship. Therefore, to successfully maintain healthy and mutually-beneficial relationships, the participants need to be able to adapt to change. Not least because the individuals involved are themselves changeable and fluid in their identities. In Hardy’s novel, the most obvious example of this necessity is exposed in Tess Durbeyfield’s relationship with Angel Clare. Angel perceives Tess to be “a fresh and virginal daughter of Nature” (Hardy 136). However, this is suddenly disproved when Tess confesses to her illegitimate pregnancy on the night of their wedding (Hardy 136). Upon receiving this information, Angel leaves Tess and travels to Brazil. Thus, Tess becomes one of many women who are fatally “accused of betraying the form in which men love them” (Childers 331). On the same night of Tess’s confession, her idealised perception of Angel is also challenged. Volume 10 Issue 1 (2021) ISSN: 2167-1907 www.JSR.org 1 As such, these events serve to represent marriage as “no longer the goal toward which everything inevitably tends; it is, instead an object of the text's ethical scrutiny” (Larson 44). Simultaneously, love is portrayed as “a condition to be illustrated, scrutinized, anatomized” and further scrutiny of Tess’s love for Angel reveals that she, unlike him, is open-minded and flexible in her opinions and expectations should the situation require it (Irwin 194). Tess also exercises this with respect to her relationship with Alec d’Urberville, whom she initially idealises and then becomes cautious of. In doing so, Tess is able to accommodate the changing and sometimes contradictory elements of the other characters. This quality appears to be valued in Hardy’s work given that the literature is grounded in the notion “that people cannot be construed as stable, unitary selves” but rather are multiple selves in a single being (Mitchell 277). With such a flexible model of identity, self-definitions might be considered the most accurate in instances of conflict and contradiction. This argument is implicit in Marjorie Garson’s interpretation that will be both explored and subsequently contested below. To do so, Tess’s intrapersonal relationship will be analysed, revealing that her interpretations of herself are just as fallible and flawed as those that her peers have of her (if not even more so). From this investigation, the benefits of disregarding the pursuit of singular and fixed notions of identity will be demonstrated, with particular reference to the establishment of expectations. Tess accomplishes this, except when being presented with behaviour outside of her control. Here Tess fails to adapt her expectations of herself to that which is fair and reasonable given the circumstances. As such, this article will analyse the characters and events outlined above to exhibit the problematic nature of expectations in Tess of the d’Urbervilles. Upon engaging in all types of relationships, it is only a natural and expected practice to form opinions and expectations of each other based upon one’s preconceived notions and prejudices. In Angel’s case, for example, he “falls in love with Tess [...] because for him she epitomizes the innocence and beauty of the natural way of life that he has chosen in turning from religion to agriculture” (Irwin 200). This is evident in Angel’s perception of Tess as “a woman who possessed every qualification to be the helpmate of an agriculture”, “a visionary essence of woman – a whole sex condensed into one typical form. He called her Artemis, Demeter, and other fanciful names” (Hardy 180; 146). Tess attempts to reject Angel’s characterisation, replying “Call me Tess”, “[r]epudiating pseudonymity, she quietly asserts her own identity when Angel would condense her to a type” (Hardy 146; Morgan, “Passive Victim?” 73-74). Rosemarie Morgan argues that Tess therefore “seeks at once to ‘cleanse’ him of his illusive vision of her and to resist his appropriation, by renaming, of her person” (“Passive Victim?” 74). Unfortunately, Tess is not successful and Angel continues to expect Tess to be “honest-hearted, receptive, intelligent, graceful to a degree, chaste as a vestal and in personal appearance exceptionally beautiful” (Hardy 181). The severe extent to which Angel holds onto these views is revealed when they are fundamentally challenged during his wedding night. Having disclosed his “fortyeight-hour dissipation with a stranger” to Tess, she responds in kind, telling him about her illegitimate pregnancy (Huang 150). Tess asks for forgiveness, having “forgiven [him] for the same”, however Angel is quick to state that “forgiveness does not apply to the case! You were one person; now you are another” (Hardy 248). Angel’s behaviour here might seem somewhat unreasonable, particularly in a modern context. Nevertheless, it is important to recognise that Angel “is speaking [his] truth” (Irwin 201). The chastity and honesty with which Angel classifies Tess is unquestionably destroyed by these revelations. Whilst of course his attachment to his opinions (and the opinions themselves) can be seen as fundamentally flawed, the idealised version that Angel has “been loving is not” the Tess she is revealed to be (Hardy 248). Through Angel, the readers are therefore encouraged to understand “that most of us are born with, or proceed to acquire, romantic predilections of a certain cast, and that our longing to satisfy them can lead us to project that preferred image onto some unsuitable object” (Irwin 201). As exemplified by Angel, this means that infatuation with “a subjective image [...] is doomed to die once the image is confuted and effaced by the real personality of the individual in question” (Irwin 206). In other words, Angel typifies the potential dangers and damages that the strict adherence to idealised perceptions (and by extension expectations) can have upon relationships. This night also provides the setting for the destruction of Tess’s idealised perception of Angel. Much like Angel’s idolisation of Tess, she adores him like a “godlike deity” (Shakury 93). This is evident when Tess reflects upon her pre-confession self as someone who was “amazed and enraptured” by Angel, tending towards an “excess of honour for Clare” (Hardy 211). Given the reference to “excess”, readers are led to see not only the vast depths of Volume 10 Issue 1 (2021) ISSN: 2167-1907 www.JSR.org 2 Tess’s love, but also its potential to be(come) disproportionate and overpowering. This intense and ultimately “fatal love for Angel” prevents Tess from being able (or even willing) to see the more unpleasant elements of Angel’s character (Garson 130). Consequently, Angel’s harsh reaction to Tess’s confession is unexpected for Tess. This is illustrated in her exclamation “I thought, Angel, that you loved me – me, my very self! If it is I you do love, O how can it be that you look and speak so? It frightens me! Having begun to love you, I love you for ever – in all changes, in all my disgraces, because you are yourself. I ask no more. Then how can you, O my own husband, stop loving me?” (Hardy 248) Yongliang Huang highlights how naïve this is of Tess given that Angel’s actions are consistent with his characteristically “dogmatic and obstinate” outlook (150). This is apparent in Angel’s “[e]arly association with country solitudes [that] had bred in him unconquerable, and almost unreasonable, aversion to modern town-life” (Hardy 132). Whilst Tess may not have been privy to the entire extent of his aversions, Angel unmistakably makes clear his expectations of Tess in his openly-stated judg

“Now All Was Contrary to Her Expectation”: Destructive Expectations in Tess of the d’Urbervilles