Literary works comment on society Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 250 words

Literary works comment on society - Essay Example These all show her vacillation between tradition and modernization, comfort and progress, and that Tess is unable to decide which is right for her. The new order seems to ignore emotion, but the idea of condemning the baby Sorrow to eternity in purgatory for the sake of her anti-Christian beliefs makes â€Å"her nightgown damp with perspiration† (Chapter XIV). Tess becomes the unsure frontrunner of the new, twentieth-century combination of Christian doubt and personal spirituality. Tess is personified as a â€Å"daughter of Nature† (Chapter XVIII), with religion as a function of civilization, and as such she cannot quite choose which authority to be persuaded by: tradition deems that she should follow Christian law closely, although certain allowances are made in her hometown. For example, near the start of the novel, Tess participates in Cerealia, a festival for the Goddess of the Harvest (Chapter II).