Suggestions
Use up and down arrows to review and enter to select.Please wait while we process your payment
If you don't see it, please check your spam folder. Sometimes it can end up there.
If you don't see it, please check your spam folder. Sometimes it can end up there.
Please wait while we process your payment
By signing up you agree to our terms and privacy policy.
Don’t have an account? Subscribe now
Create Your Account
Sign up for your FREE 7-day trial
Already have an account? Log in
Your Email
Choose Your Plan
Individual
Group Discount
Save over 50% with a SparkNotes PLUS Annual Plan!
Purchasing SparkNotes PLUS for a group?
Get Annual Plans at a discount when you buy 2 or more!
Price
$24.99 $18.74 /subscription + tax
Subtotal $37.48 + tax
Save 25% on 2-49 accounts
Save 30% on 50-99 accounts
Want 100 or more? Contact us for a customized plan.
Your Plan
Payment Details
Payment Summary
SparkNotes Plus
You'll be billed after your free trial ends.
7-Day Free Trial
Not Applicable
Renews September 29, 2023 September 22, 2023
Discounts (applied to next billing)
DUE NOW
US $0.00
SNPLUSROCKS20 | 20% Discount
This is not a valid promo code.
Discount Code (one code per order)
SparkNotes PLUS Annual Plan - Group Discount
Qty: 00
SparkNotes Plus subscription is $4.99/month or $24.99/year as selected above. The free trial period is the first 7 days of your subscription. TO CANCEL YOUR SUBSCRIPTION AND AVOID BEING CHARGED, YOU MUST CANCEL BEFORE THE END OF THE FREE TRIAL PERIOD. You may cancel your subscription on your Subscription and Billing page or contact Customer Support at custserv@bn.com. Your subscription will continue automatically once the free trial period is over. Free trial is available to new customers only.
Choose Your Plan
For the next 7 days, you'll have access to awesome PLUS stuff like AP English test prep, No Fear Shakespeare translations and audio, a note-taking tool, personalized dashboard, & much more!
You’ve successfully purchased a group discount. Your group members can use the joining link below to redeem their group membership. You'll also receive an email with the link.
Members will be prompted to log in or create an account to redeem their group membership.
Thanks for creating a SparkNotes account! Continue to start your free trial.
Please wait while we process your payment
Your PLUS subscription has expired
Please wait while we process your payment
Please wait while we process your payment
He had an almost swarthy complexion, with full lips, badly moulded, though red and smooth, above which was a well-groomed black moustache with curled points, though his age could not be more than three- or four-and-twenty. Despite the touches of barbarism in his contours, there was a singular force in the gentleman’s face, and in his bold rolling eye.
When Tess meets Alec d’Urberville for the first time, the narrator takes note of his physical appearance and what that might say about his character. Alec seem like a cartoonish villain, with a curled mustache and a dark look. In contrast to Tess’s purity and innocence, from the beginning Alec looms as a corrupting influence in her life.
He had, in fact, ridden quite at random for over an hour, taking any turning that came to hand in order to prolong companionship with her, and giving far more attention to Tess’s moonlit person than to any wayside object.
While Alec and Tess ride home from a fair, Alec lets the horse lead them astray. Alec first takes advantage of Tess while on this isolated carriage ride in the middle of the woods. He had been trying to convince her to be his lover and now has decided to disregard how Tess feels. His premeditation of the rape reveals an evil nature.
But the loss of my mother hit me most; and by degrees I was brought to see daylight. Since then my one desire has been to hand on the true view to others, and that is what I was trying to do today; though it is only lately that I have preached hereabout.
Here, Alec explains to Tess his conversion to Christianity. He says that the death of his mother served as the main reason for his conversion, but readers know from earlier in the novel that Alec and his mother did not have a strong relationship. The fact that he so easily changed his religion reveals his opportunistic nature, with no fixed values or beliefs.
But you have been the means—the innocent means—of my backsliding, as they call it. I ask myself, am I, indeed, one of those ‘servants of corruption’ who, ‘after they have escaped the pollutions of the world, are again entangled therein and overcome’—whose latter end is worse than their beginning?
When Alec and Tess meet again after his conversion to Christianity, he blames her for his slipping away from his faith. According to him, his nature is to sin when he is exposed to anything tempting. Alec’s casting of blame on Tess and not taking any responsibility for his actions shows how he sees himself as the victim and not the other way around.
“I waited and waited for you,” she went on, her tones suddenly resuming their old fluty pathos. “But you did not come! And I wrote to you, and you did not come! He kept on saying you would never come any more, and that I was a foolish woman. He was very kind to me, and to mother, and to all of us after father’s death.”
When Angel finds Tess in Sandbourne, she explains that she wanted to wait for him to come back but Alec convinced her Angel would never return. Alec manipulated her into being with him by belittling her while at the same time taking care of her family. Alec’s actions right up until the end of his life show his complete disregard for other people’s feelings.
Please wait while we process your payment