Thomas Hardy is on of the brightest representatives of English realism at the end of 19th and the beginning of 20th century. At that time, a new stage in the development of the English literature began, characterized with the conflict between the supporters of realism and the new modernist artistic directions.
He learned from his predecessors to raise important and interesting problems, to tell interesting stories , to portray interesting characters and to describe the environment. Hardy is defined as classic of English literature as well as regional novelist, master of personalities and circumstances, the first real artist of Nature and human nature. The general features of his novels are pessimism, tragedy and fatalism . These characteristics also define Hardy as the first creator of tragic novels in the English literature . The roots of this worldview go back in to his homeland full with remains of ancient times and also in his inability to understand the social changes occurring in England. The disappointment of the village atheist from the big city, regarded by him as the source and symbol of evil, disintegration of the patriarchal peasant family, which he idealizes as a symbol of strong morality and real moral virtues becomes central theme in his novels . That is fully represented in Tess of the d’Ubervilles. The novel belongs to the group of novels called for character and circumstances. It can be defined as social, because it is placed in a specific social context, but it can also be defined as moral and psychological. It is like a monograph of a personality but it is also a monograph of a period as well.
A tragic story stands in the center of the novel and that is the story of the main female character Tess Durbeyfield and her life filled with plenty of unusual and exciting meetings, adventures and misadventures.
The novel is divided in several parts , called phases .