Tess of the D'urbervilles

"Tess" is an exemplification of all the horrors of malignant destiny. By nature its heroine is incarnate goodness: every fiber of her being is pure; and yet, under the stress of circumstances, the compulsion of force and the beguilement of fraud, partly through ignorance, partly through delirium and desperation, she is harassed, degraded, despoiled, plunged into misery, goaded to the insane commission of homicide, and finally is hanged for murder.