Thomas Hardy's Tess: Sexiest Mouth in Classic Literature

As I reread Thomas Hardy describe his title heroine in Tess of the D'Urbervilles (2001 Modern Library edition), I became as infatuated with "her mobile peony mouth (p.48)" as her admirers in the novel. That first description of her made me imagine the sexy facial organs of Carly Simon, Deborah Harry, and Angelina Jolie, as did the line "her rosy lips curved towards a smile (p.66)."

One of Tess's admirers in the book, Alec Durberville, became smitten with her mouth the day "He watched her pretty and unconscious munching (p71)." Before seducing her he sums up the reaction of every man who saw Tess: "Upon my honour! There was never before such a beautiful thing in Nature or art as . . . that pretty red mouth (p198)." Alec felt ecstasy when in chapter IX he sneaked upon Tess while she was practicing her whistling.

Her other lover, Angel Clare, felt the same excitement when he beheld the mouth of Tess. He recalled in chapter XIX how her "smile gently lifted her upper lip in spite of her, so as to show the tips of her teeth, the lower lip remaining severely still (p.144)." In chapter XXIV he even is described as masturbating with that image of her mouth: "Clare had studied the curves of those lips so many times that he could reproduce them mentally with ease" and that "they sent an aura over his flesh, a breeze through his nerves, which wellnigh produced a qualm, and by some mysterious physiological process, a prosaic sneeze (p.175)."

So alluring is her mouth that Alec cannot forget it, even after committing himself to serve as a clergyman, and years after Tess's marriage to someone else. He saw Tess after a long separation in chapter XLVI and said, "'that mouth again- surely there never was such a maddening mouth since Eve's (p.366)!" He then resigns from the clergy and tries to once again seduce Tess. She murders Alec when her husband returns.

With Clare's assistance Tess eludes the authorities until chapter LVIII, when she is captured. Even as she is certain to face death, her mouth still enraptures Angel Clare. As she slept the night before her trial, Clare admired "Tess's lips being parted like a half-opened flower (p.433)." The mouth, however, was not sexy enough to keep the authorities from hanging her for the murder of Alec at the conclusion of the novel.

Hardy's descriptions make Tess's mouth intoxicating to any man who reads his novel. It is mobile, a quality that immediately conjures thoughts of lust. It frequently is associated with flowers, implying images of opening and blossoming. It is sexy whether its form is a smile or a pout.

There is such a strong attraction to that mouth that Hardy should have titled the novel something other than just Tess of the D'Urbervilles. He could have called it by a name similar to another of his novels, making it Far from the Madding Mouth.