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Lee, Jae-seong. “Reading Tess of the D’urbevilles in the light of Postmodern Ethics and Laozi and Chuangzi’s Taoism.” Studies on English Language & Literature. 33.1(2007): 143-159. This paper explores how Thomas Hardy’s novel, Tess of the D’urbevilles, leads the reader to the ethical dimension where the totality of the reader’s ontological subjectivity is sundered and subjected to the other, the wholly exterior realm of itself. It uses both Western postmodern ethics and Eastern Daoism: the ethical speculation of Emmanuel Levinas, Derrida, Deluze and Lacan is united with Laozi and Zhuangzi’s thought. Tess is situated between Angel, too much a moralistic man, and Alec who tries to abuse Tess just to gratify his own egoistic desire, and her identity takes a dualistic form between the two men. It is demonstrated in this essay that, owing to this identity, Tess is a supreme literary figure that embodies the fundamental ethics of self-deconstruction and leads the reader’s mind to its outside. (Pusan National University)