Hi Zeez,
It's interesting how the story plays with "fate": Tess/our Isabel being at heart and in character a "pure woman, faithfully presented", yet unfortunate in being born on a blighted star and not a sound one. It's her character, her good qualities that put her in the snare of our Corianton as she follows a path her instincts know to be dangerous out of obligation to right another wrong in allowing the death of Prince.
Yet all of that is born out of a greater story of fate: her slack-twisted father's own nature puts the chain of events into motion in more ways than one. Had he been more industrious by nature, could he have felt the same type of satisfaction in finding out his heritage and feeling deserving though nothing had changed from the moment before his hearing it to that which came after? Would Corianton have been able to lure Isabel into his web had our Tess/Isabel's father been responsible enough to have kept in shape to transport the bee hives himself and Tess not been in some way responsible for Prince's death? Would Tess have fallen a sleep and dreamed her fateful dream had she not been pondering the news Abraham conveyed about her mother's plan? And speaking of her mother, how could she have allowed Tess/Isabel to go other than she, too, was a child of our blighted star? Blinded by weaknesses too strong to overpower by will (the lack of will being the real weakness after all, eh?) where was she when choices were being made? In fact, her view seems to be little more than of a game, where the prize at the end is a marriage and the acts taken to get there of no consequence had the game been won.
Could it all have been averted had just one person in the chain of event other than Tess have taken responsibility rather than letting fate drive them forward? Or, perhaps, we might say even Tess/Isabel let fate drive her forward when, had she chosen responsibility for her own life only, her better choices would have been best for everyone in the end?
I think that Hardy flirts with this idea more graciously than I am able when he says,
Thus the thing began. Had she perceived this meeting's import she might have asked why she was doomed to be seen and coveted that day by the wrong man, and not by some other man, the right and desired one in all respects--as nearly as humanity can supply the right and desired; yet to him who amongst her acquaintance might have approximated to this kind, she was but a transient impression, half forgotten.
In the ill-judged execution of the well-judged plan of things the call seldom produces the comer, the man to love rarely coincides with the hour for loving. Nature does not often say "See!" to her poor creature at a time when seeing can lead to happy doing; or reply "Here!" to a body's cry of "Where?" till the hide-and-seek has become an irksome, outworn game. We may wonder whether at the acme and summit of the human progress these anachronisms will be corrected by a finer intuition, a close interaction of the social machinery than that which now jolts us round and along; but such completeness is not to be prophesied, or even conceived as possible. Enough that in the present case, as in millions, it was not the two halves of a perfect whole that confronted each other at the perfect moment; a missing counterpart wandered independently about the earth waiting in crass obtuseness till the late time came. Out of which maladroit delay sprang anxieties, disappointments, shocks, catastrophes, and passing-strange destinies.
Or later still,
If before going to the d'Urbervilles' she had vigorously moved under the guidance of sundry gnomic texts and phrases known to her and to the world in general, no doubt she would never have been imposed on. But it had not been in Tess's power--nor is it in anybody's power--to feel the whole truth of golden opinions while it is possible to profit by them. She--and how many more--might have ironically said to God with Saint Augustine: "Thou hast counselled a better course than Thou hast permitted."
Let's take this even further still. At some point, isn't Hardy's indictment of fate an indictment of society as a whole? For example, after Sorrow's passing and Tess is deciding to make the attempt at going her own way, Hardy suggests that so much of Tess's sorrow would be unnecessary if not for convention - and her own inability to live above other's opinions:
Almost at a leap Tess thus changed from simple girl to complex woman. Symbols of reflectiveness passed into her face, and a note of tragedy at times into her voice. Her eyes grew larger and more eloquent. She became what would have been called a fine creature; her aspect was fair and arresting; her soul that of a woman whom the turbulent experiences of the last year or two had quite failed to demoralize. But for the world's opinion those experiences would have been simply a liberal education. (my emphasis)
She had held so aloof of late that her trouble, never generally known, was nearly forgotten in Marlott. But it became evident to her that she could never be really comfortable again in a place which had seen the collapse of her family's attempt to "claim kin"-- and, through her, even closer union--with the rich d'Urbervilles. At least she could not be comfortable there till long years should have obliterated her keen consciousness of it. Yet even now Tess felt the pulse of hopeful like still warm within her; she might be happy in some nook which had no memories. To escape the past and all that appertained thereto was to annihilate it, and to do that she would have to get away. (my emphasis)
That said, let's consider for a moment the "real" story of Isabel and Corianton. The Book of Alma where it's recorded was penned during the time Oliver Cowdery was the scribe for Joseph Smith. I wonder, since we're giving our thoughts freedom, if the missionary messages recorded here don't reflect both the ambition and the dialog between the two when the future was less certain for both? Yet, perhaps, just as equally written by fate? Could, perhaps, our young Corianton and his father Alma the Younger reflect Joseph and Oliver, respectively, as Oliver sees in Joseph a proclivity to lasciviousness that might interfere with their mission of restoration?
Could we even go so far as to see in Joseph playing an Alec d'Urberville to a young Tess come to help in his own household at a future date? Could fate have been written in Joseph's character and as unavoidable? Aren't we all, really, in some way living on the blighted star of that fate...just like Fanny? Can we see in Sir John the traits of Joseph Senior or Lucy Mack who's own view of their family was of ancestral spiritual d'Urbervilles?
