Tess and Trials

The world over, there continues to be issues revolving around the revolting incidences of rape and the way it deteriorates a woman's identity to herself as well as to those around her. Individuals such as Thomas Hardy who exposed such truths or doctors like Denis Mukwege who assist rape victims in the healing process are heroes on a battlefield that continues to be fought.
Tess, in all of her goodness, attempts to lead a good life contrary to the poor and slovenly natures exhibited by her parents. She becomes a pawn in their hands and is subjected to not only the embarrassment of "reconciling" two ends of an assumed family relation, but ultimately to the stigmas of a ruined woman.
As the novel continues, the reader is unable to escape from mourning for this young lady subjected to such trials and torments as beset her. No step in her life is easy. She fights for her existence on so many different levels yet no one is there to help her or lift her from her troubles. Even the one who should have been her guiding angel out of a life of scratching out a living and hiding a dark and loathsome past turns away from her and eventually leaves her to the wolf who thrust her into this position in the first place.
Thomas Hardy may have stirred up a nation as he depicted the rape of a woman and the ensuing complications of her life due to this deed, but he also brought to the forefront the dichotomy of sin in regards to both genders. While it was not only acceptable for a man to live a life of debauchery, he also could sire children without any repercussions. A woman, not so. Not only does her body become the bearer of the sin in obvious manners if a child is conceived, but her mind is forever marred by the occurrence. No relief is even possible for Tess as society and a man seeming to overcome social stigma rejects her because of an action she was subjected to and not an active participant.
Rape and abuse continues to pervade societies in every part of the world. Those who expose the wrongs of this are heroes to the afflicted.