Tess of the D'Urbervilles Tess of the D'Urbervilles by Thomas
Hardy group rates for schools and districts  Jack Durbeyfield
Character Analysis  What's there to say about Jack Durbeyfield?
He's a minor character, but like Mrs. Durbeyfield, he serves a
certain purpose in the novel. His unreasonable pride in his
dusty D'Urberville connections makes him even more unwilling to
work than he was before. In fact, his character can really be
summed up in two words: pride and shiftlessness. The narrator
frequently describes him using the word "shiftless," which is
really just a synonym for lazy: for example, as the head of "the
shiftless house of Durbeyfield" (3.40).  But despite his
flatness as a character, he's still important to moving the
story forward: when Parson Tringham calls him "Sir John," and
tells him that he's a descendent of the ancient D'Urberville
family, Jack Durbeyfield becomes absorbed in this illusions of
grandeur, and starts puffing himself up because of his
ancestors. He's just the kind of "arist