Two on a Tower (1886): ‘The Artificial System of Things’

Abstract

Two on a Tower asserts the need for a radical reassesment of the gendering process which is seen as instrumental in the distortion of individual sexuality and sexual relationships in general. Viviette Constantine’s is another dissident subjectivity rigorously policed and brought to order by an outmoded and restrictive moral system which militates specifically against women. In this way Two on a Tower takes up and develops issues of female sexuality explored in A Pair of Blue Eyes, and anticipates Hardy’s most damning indictment of feminine sexual subjection, Tess of the d’Urbervilles.