Analysis of Conflicts of The Protagonists in Thomas Hardy's 'Tess of The D'Urbervilles and Catherine Cookson's The Cinder Path'.

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ABSTRACT

Dua buah novel Inggris berjudul Tess of the D’Urbervilles karya

Thomas Hardy dan The Cinder Path karya Catherine Cookson menyajikan

berbagai macam konflik yang dialami oleh tokoh utama cerita secara gamblang

dan menarik. Akibatnya, saya memutuskan untuk menganalisa secara terperinci

mengenai konflik-konflik dalam kedua novel tersebut.

Konflik-konflik sosial dalam Tess of the D’Urbervilles berlatar

belakang masalah perbedaan gender dan status sedangkan konflik-konflik batin

berlatar belakang masalah cinta. Sementara itu, konflik-konflik sosial dan batin

dalam The Cinder Path berlatar belakang masalah anggapan pihak-pihak tertentu

tentang dirinya sebagai pencundang dan pengecut.

Setelah saya selesai menganalisa, saya menarik kesimpulan bahwa

konflik-konflik yang dialami oleh kedua tokoh utama terjadi karena adanya

perbedaan pola pikir baik antara kedua tokoh dengan pihak-pihak lain maupun

dalam diri mereka sendiri mengenai topik-topik yang dibahas. Semua konflik

akhirnya dapat diselesaikan. Akan tetapi, sebagian besar cara penyelesaian yang

digunakan oleh kedua tokoh cenderung negatif karena berupa tindakan-tindakan

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APPENDICES

Synopsis of Tess of the D’Urbervilles

Thomas Hardy’s Tess of the D’Urbervilles begins with an accidental

meeting between Parson Tringham and Tess ‘father, John Durbeyfield. The parson

tells Durbeyfield some very surprising news that he is a genuine descendant of the

D’Urbervilles, a noble family once renowned in England. After hearing this,

Durbeyfield spreads the news to all over Marlott, the village where both he and his

family live, and starts making a grand plan with his wife to marry off his eldest

daughter, Tess, with a gentleman who is the only remaining kindred of the

D’Urbervilles, and rich.

At first, Tess refuses her parents’plan, but then she gives in, owing to the

death of the family’s horse, which has become her family’s main source of living.

Feeling guilty as the one responsible for its death, Tess goes to Trantridge to meet the

gentleman himself, whose name is Alec, who offers her a job on his poultry-farm.

She takes the job, even though she hardly likes Alec. On the other hand, Alec has

been attracted to her since their first meeting. He seduces her on a few occasions and

finally rapes her.

The rape brings destructive impact to Tess. She becomes pregnant and

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a job elsewhere in a neighbouring field. It is not easy for her since she has to endure

humiliation. Her burden increases when her child becomes ill before being baptized. Tess

has no opportunity to call a minister so she baptizes it with the name of Sorrow.

A moment later, the child dies.

Two or three years later, Tess leaves Marlott to work at Talbothay dairy,

where she falls in love with and marries Angel Clare. On their honeymoon, Tess

confesses to her husband her dark past with Alec. Soon after listening to Tess’confession,

Angel forsakes her by going to Brazil. Tess, having no one to rely on, returns home.

Unfortunately, Tess’ poor family makes her leave Marlott one more time. She heads for

Flintcomb-Ash to work as a swede-hacker. At Flintcomb, she is badly treated by her

employer. Worst of all, she meets her past enemy, Alec. Though his appearance is

different now due to his new profession as a minister, Alec is still the same. He leaves his

ministry so that he can seduce Tess freely. He also proposes to Tess by convincing her

that Angel will never come back to her. At first, Tess fights him vigorously. Yet, when

her family is driven out from Marlott, she accepts Alec’s marriage proposal. Finally, their

marriage comes to a tragic end. Tess kills Alec after seeing that Angel comes back. She

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Synopsis of The Cinder Path

Catherine Cookson’s The Cinder Path is a story about a kind-hearted young

man named Charlie Macfell, who encounters a lot of misfortune in his life. When he is

young, Charlie has to witness his father’s cruelty. His father, Edward Macfell, keeps

abusing Charlie and the rest of his family suffers mentally. Therefore, Charlie hates him

very much. His hatred grows deeper when he sees his father give one of his guilty

servants a severe punishment by flogging him on the cinder path. Ginger Slater, the

young servant who later becomes Charlie’s foe, has suffered many times from this

punishment.

One day, Edward plans to marry off Charlie to Polly, the eldest daughter of

his servant. Things do not run smoothly, however Arthur, Charlie’s best friend and

Polly’s elder brother, murder Edward, since Arthur thinks that Edward will take Polly as

a mistress. Because of his deep love for Polly and his close relationship with her family,

Charlie conceals the crime.

After his father’s death, Charlie is appointed the sole heir of the farm. Hence,

he decides to end his study in town so that he can manage the farm, as he anticipates his

family’s ambition to own it. Charlie’s decision brings nothing but misfortune. He must

deal with his family’s hostile attitude. Finding out about Charlie’s involvement in

concealing the crime, Slater threatens that if he cannot marry Polly, he will reveal his

secret of the crime. Charlie gives up Polly. He marries Victoria, a woman of his own

class. His marriage is a total failure. He cannot control his wife’s wild behavior. They

often quarrel. Not only that, but he also has to face the fact that Victoria is a prostitute.

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by chance with his old foe, Slater, who turns out to be his senior. Slater, regarding him as

a born-loser, seems pleased to bully and insult him.

Despite all the bitterness, Charlie is still able to be happy. He divorces his

wife, falls in love with Nelly, his sister-in-law, and is given a promotion in rank as an

officer. Then he starts a new life by dedicating himself to the army and fighting

courageously in wars. Nevertheless, he continues to experience misfortunes. In a war, he

meets Slater once again. As usual, Slater insults Charlie, he goes so far that Charlie

shoots him dead. Luckily, Charlie escapes from the punishment. Not long after this, he is

badly injured. On his recovery, Charlie has to swallow a bitter pill again. He is deceived

by his sister, Betty, who empties the farm without his permission, then disappears.

However, tries to console himself that he still has many precious things in his life, Nelly,

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Biography of Thomas Hardy

Thomas Hardy was born in the village of Upper Bockhampton, South

Western England, on June 2, 1840. His father was a stone mason and a violinist, while his

mother was interested in reading and relating the folk songs and legends of the region. No

wonder Hardy had hidden talents in architecture, music, and particularly in literature.

At the age of eight, Hardy entered Julia Martin’s school in Bockhampton.

However, he loved teaching himself through the books he found in Dorchester, the

nearby town. In 1862, he went to London, then he returned to Dorchester as a church

restorer and a writer.

The first part of his career in writing was devoted to the novel. He produced

many popular high-literary novels such as Under the Greenwood Tree (1872), Far from

the Madding Crowd (1874), The Return of the Native (1878), The Mayor of Casterbridge

(1886), The Woodlanders (1887), Tess of the D’Urbervilles (1891) and Jude the Obscure

(1895). Moreover, he wrote five shorter novels, three collections of short stories, hundred

of poems and an epic drama in verse, The Dynast (1908).

During the last two decades of his life, Hardy was as famous as Dickens. In

1910, he received the Order of Merit. Unfortunately, his happiness was interrupted by the

death of his first wife, Emma, in 1912. But he did not grieve very long. He married

Florence Dugale in 1914. After leading a successful life, Thomas Hardy finally died on

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Biography of Catherine Cookson

Catherine Cookson was born on June 27, 1906, in Tyne Dock, Northeast

England, as the illegitimate daughter of a poverty-stricken and abusive woman, Kate,

whom she believed to be her elder sister. At the age of thirteen, Cookson left school and

started working as a maid. Then she moved to Hastings, where she met her would-be

husband, Tom Cookson. They got married in 1940.

Cookson’s talents in writing had obviously been seen from an early age. After

her marriage, she published over fifty highly popular works, which are divided into five

categories, namely, novels: Kate Hannigan (1950), The Round Tower (which won the

Winifred Holtby Award for the best regional novel in 1968), The Cinder Path (1978), and

many others; serial books: Mary Ann, Mallen Family, and some others; picture books:

Nancy Nutall and the Mongrel (1982) and The Moth (1986); collections: Selected Works

(1978), Just A Saying (2002), and many others; non-fiction: Our Kate: An

Autobiographical Memoir (1969), Kate’s Daughter: The Real Catherine Cookson (2003),

and many others.

Cookson was the recipient of many awards, both in literature, (such as the Winifred

Holtby Award, and the Royal Society of Literature, which established her as on of the

most popular regional contemporary English novelists), and in society, (such as being

appointed a Dame of the British Empire in 1993 and an Honorary Fellow of St. Hilda’s

college, Oxford, in 1997). She never stopped writing until she died shortly before her

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CHAPTER ONE

INTRODUCTION

Background of the Study

Novel is a long, imaginary story in common language. The characters,

happenings, setting, plot and theme are systematically and consistently described and

taken from real life. As Shaws says, it is ‘… a lengthy fictitious prose narrative

portraying characters and presenting an organized series of events and settings. …

Every novel is an account of life; every novel involves conflict, characters, action,

settings, plot and theme.’ (Shaw, 1972:257) This definition points out that novel has

more complete and realistic descriptions than other literary genres, which makes it

easier to analyze and understand.

In a novel, conflict becomes one of its fundamental aspects. According to

Shaw in his Dictionary of Literary Terms, conflict is defined as ‘… the opposition of

persons or forces upon which the action depends in drama and fiction.’ (Shaw,

1972:91-92) Furthermore, he divides conflict generally into three types: elemental or

physical conflict, social conflict and internal / inner / psychological conflict. Physical

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ideals with man’s struggle against man. Inner conflict deals with man’s

struggle against desires within himself.

As conflict is fundamental to a novel, it has an important role. It functions

as the material an author needs to make an exciting and meaningful story. Without

conflict, a story would be so tedious that no one would desire to read it twice.

Conflict also evokes the reader’s curiosity, causing him to think about the meaning

behind the story. Therefore, knowing how important conflict is, I decide to analyze it.

Two novels, have drawn my attention namely, Tess of the D’ Urbervilles

by Thomas Hardy and The Cinder Path by Catherine Cookson, because they share

prominent similarities and differences as well. There are two similarities I find in

both novels. Firstly, each of the novels is one of each author’s popular novels. Their

popularity repeats through this present time, which becomes an obvious sign that they

are very successful in enthralling their readers. One factor making the novels such a

hit is that they present abundant conflicts. These conflicts appear in two types: social

conflict (man against man) and inner conflict. The former is more dominant than the

latter. Secondly, the protagonists have to struggle against their enemies who keep

torturing them mentally, until the protagonists murder them. Besides being similar in

some aspects I have already mentioned, the two novels show some differences. In

Tess of the D’Urbervilles, the protagonist is a woman who has social conflicts with

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a low-class society whereas the man fights to prove his identity. The last difference, I

notice, is the ending of the conflicts. It seems that the first novel provides its reader

with endless conflicts. The protagonist faces conflicts persistently up to her death.

But this is not the case with the second novel. Its protagonist does not need to face

conflicts for the rest of his life since he can learn to handle the situation well.

Statement of The Problem

I would like to analyze the following problems:

1. What kind of conflicts occur in Tess of the D’Urbervilles and The Cinder Path ?

2. Why do such conflicts occur?

3. How are the conflicts resolved?

Purpose of The Study

The purposes of this study are:

1. To identify the conflicts which occur in Tess of the D’Urbervilles and The Cinder

Path.

2. To show the reason why such conflicts occur.

3. To show how the conflicts are resolved.

Method of Research

The method I use is library research. I begin with reading Hardy’s Tess of

the D’Urbervilles, and then Cookson’s The Cinder Path. After that, I search for,

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either from other books or from the internet. With the help of these data, I analyze the

two novels and then come to a conclusion.

Organization of the Thesis

I divide this thesis into four chapters, which are preceded by the Preface,

the Table of Contents, and the Abstract.

In Chapter One, I present the Introduction, containing the Background of

the Study, the Statement of the Problem, the Purpose of the Study, the Method of

Research and the Organization of the Thesis. In chapter Two and Chapter Three, I

analyze the conflicts seen through the protagonists in Hardy’s Tess of the

D’Urbervilles and Cookson’s The Cinder Path. In Chapter Four, I present the

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CHAPTER FOUR

CONCLUSION

After I have analyzed completely the protagonists’ social and inner

conflicts in the two novels, Tess of the D’Urbervilles by Thomas Hardy and The

Cinder Path by Catherine Cookson, I come to a conclusion that these conflicts

have their similarities and differences.

My discussion about the above conclusion will go first with social

conflicts. The protagonists’ social conflicts are similar in some ways. Firstly, they

begin to face their social conflicts after particular incidents that take place in their

youth. Tess, in Tess of the D’Urbervilles, faces her conflicts soon after the

discovery of her family’s lineage, which proves that both her family and her

belong to one of the famous English royal family. In The Cinder Path, the murder

of the protagonist’s (Charlie) father becomes a powerful trigger for his conflicts.

Secondly, they are involved in social conflicts with their past enemies more

frequently than with any one else. The last similarity I notice is that they are

finally capable of putting an end to their social conflicts when they murder their

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The social conflicts, that the protagonists encounter, also denote some

differences. The first difference is about people with whom both protagonists have

their conflicts. Tess experiences conflicts with two high-class men, Alec d’Urberville

and Angel Clare, whereas Charlie with a man from a lower-class named Ginger Slater

and two high-class women named Mary Macfell (his mother) and Victoria (his wife).

The second one is about the protagonists’ aims. Tess has a great desire to

show her natures’ good quality to high-class men even though she is a woman from a

lower class. For instance, she shows Alec that she is a woman who appreciates

politeness, loyalty, and trust. She also shows Angel that she is a merciful woman

capable of forgiving and forgetting anyone else’s sins particularly her beloved people.

Meanwhile, Charlie struggles hard to prove to others that he is not a cowardly

born-loser man every time he argues with them, such as he fires Slater immediately from

his job when Slater insults him and threats Victoria with a divorce when she does not

submit to his request to help him run the farm.

The last one is the end of the protagonists’ stories after they murder their

enemies. As soon as Tess stabs Alec with a knife, she becomes a fugitive. However,

she gets caught then and is sentenced to death by the court. On the other hand,

Charlie can obtain his freedom although he deserves to be put in jail because he has

murdered Slater and there are some eye-witnesses who will give the court strong

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The next discussion is concerned with inner conflicts. The two

protagonists suffer from inner conflicts that are caused by men. In Tess of the

D’Urbervilles, Tess often debates with herself about an attractive young man named

Angel Clare. Charlie, in The Cinder Path, also faces inner conflicts because of a

young man named Ginger Slater. Nevertheless, there are differences I underscore.

Tess’s inner conflicts always deal with the man she loves profoundly, Angel, and

always reflect her love and adoration for Angel, whereas Charlie’s with the man he

hates, Slater, and his conflicts reflect his desires not to be mocked as a coward or a

loser.

Besides discussing the similarities and differences of the protagonists’

conflicts, I would like to end this chapter by giving some other conclusions. In my

opinion both social and inner conflicts in Tess of the D’Urbervilles are portrayed in

more interestingly and blatantly ways and the novel is also deeper in its content than

The Cinder Path. Yet, I do not want to belittle The Cinder Path. Somehow, I find it

easier to understand owing to its simple language.

The interesting portrayals of the conflicts in Tess of the D’Urbervilles are

seen in the protagonist’s, Tess Durbeyfield, different attitudes, especially in her social

conflicts with two male major characters, Alec d’Urberville and Angel Clare. When

being involved in conflicts with Alec, Tess always turns to be very courageous like a

lioness to defend either herself or Angel. She also always expresses her temper

through unexpected and violent actions such as slap and murder. But, when facing

Angel, she becomes as meek as a lamb although Angel hurts her more. In The Cinder

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except for one case as he quarrels with Slater for the last time, that I feel them quite

monotonous to analyze. The conflicts in Tess of the D’Urberville are also written

more blatantly because Thomas Hardy, its author, deliberately creates them with the

use of long and detailed language. Meanwhile, Catherine Cookson, The Cinder Path’s

author, tries to expose the conflicts in a brief way. Consequently, I have a difficulty to

quote some proper quotations. As for the depth of the novels’ content, there is a

reason why Tess of the D’Urbervilles is considered to be deeper than The Cinder

Path. I notice that the first lifts up many various values like religious-moral value, in

the view of Christianity, and social value (mainly gender and status discrimination),

whereas in the latter there is only moral value.

The next conclusion is that the protagonists’ conflicts take place since

there are different ways of thinking between the protagonists and their opponents and

also within the minds of the protagonists about the subject matters. For social

conflicts, both protagonists insist on maintaining their own thoughts that some

conflicts are ended with murders.

I finally conclude that all conflicts are resolved. But, most of the

resolutions are inclined to be negative if they are seen through the protagonists’ ways

of taking decision. Whenever they decide something, anger and harsh actions usually

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BIBLIOGRAPHY

References

Williams, Merry. Thomas Hardy and Rural England. London and Basingstoke: The Macmillan Press LTD, 1972.

Shaw, Harry. Dictionary of Literary Terms. London: McGraw-Hill Inc, 1972.

Ingham, Patricia. Tess of the D’Urbervilles. London: Everyman’s Library, 1984.

Internet

Gradesaver.com:ClassicNotes. 2007. 6 December 2007 <http://www.gradesaver.com//>

LitWeb.net:LITWEB. 2007. 4 March 2007 <http://www.litweb.net//>

Primary Texts

Hardy, Thomas. Tess of the D’Urbervilles. New Delhi: Peacock Books, 2002.

Cookson, Catherine. The Cinder Path. London: Heinemann, 1978.