Why Tess of the d’Urbervilles still explains the anatomy of rape in Pakistan

Thomas Hardy’s Tess of the d’Urbervilles is not merely a piece of 19th-century Victorian literature; rather, it is a  mirror reflecting the brutal realities women endure across eras and geographies.

Thomas Hardy’s Tess of the d’Urbervilles is not merely a piece of 19th-century Victorian literature; rather, it is a  mirror reflecting the brutal realities women endure across eras and geographies. Real-world facts from late June 2026 in Pakistan alongside the tragedy of Tess Durbeyfield expose the meek connection between historical fiction and modern-day societal horrors. The devastating connection reveals through specific themes of the novel bound tightly to actual events springing from power, entitlement, and ransom.

On June 29, 2026, a horrific incident shook Lahore that perfectly illustrates the raw mechanics of sexual violence and structural power. Two foreign nationals including a Dutch woman and a Venezuelan woman were abducted and gang-raped. The primary suspect arrested was Muhammad Raza Dar, the grandson of Pakistan’s Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister, Ishaq Dar. The perpetrators used the guise of a cryptocurrency business venture to lure the women to Pakistan, arranged business visas, and then aggressively held them captive, demanding a $2 million ransom and forcing them to transfer digital assets before sexually assaulting them. This incident raises a crucial question that what’s the psychology behind this heinous thinking process directing towards the Idea of Rape. More of less, it takes away dignity or steals something of bigger value from a person. A woman is often considered even lower than a lifeless body stripped of its soul.

In Hardy’s novel, Tess is systematically stripped of her agency. Her abuser, Alec d’Urberville, uses his economic privilege and class dominance to violate her in The Chase. Alec views Tess not as a human being with intrinsic dignity, but as an object he is entitled to possess due to his wealth. The Lahore gang-rape case takes this to a terrifying scale. The perpetrators did not just seek physical violation. They literally attempted to strip the victims of their financial and physical sovereignty, treating them like commodities to be blackmailed, tied up, and exploited for crypto assets. The psychology remains identical to Alec’s absolute entitlement fueled by class, political impunity, and economic power.

A woman is viewed through a colonized, misogynist, patriarchal gaze that maps out geographies of her morality. This gaze condemned that person to all of eternity in the eyes of herself. That’s what happened to Tess, too. After being violated by Alec, Victorian society casts the patriarchal gaze upon Tess and brands her an impure, fallen woman. Even Angel Clare, the man who claims to love her, abandons her because he cannot look past the societal expectation of virginity and purity. Tess internalizes this condemnation, viewing herself through a lens of brokenness that eventually drives her to her tragic demise.

When high-profile sexual violence occurs in Pakistan, the patriarchal gaze immediately shifts into high gear to police the victims. Because the main suspect is a direct relative of the Deputy Prime Minister, immediate political and societal machinery is deployed to shield the perpetrators, often casting blame on the victims for traveling or engaging in business. The societal gaze maps out where women belong, implying that a woman has stepped outside those boundaries (or crosses borders for autonomy). Consequently, he has somehow forfeited her right to safety. Hardy states that he pointed out the eternal hypocrisies of the world that how language, knowledge used to put happy people in peripheries and then take violence against them. Tess starts as a vibrant, innocent young woman who wants nothing more than to help her impoverished family. The structural hypocrisy of the wealthy elite uses laws, social status, and moral language to push her to the absolute margins of society before destroying her.

The rise in harassment and violence demonstrates an aggressive backlash against women who dare to be independent, successful, or happy in public and digital spaces. Whether it is foreign business travelers or local working women, the elite and patriarchal structures use their immense leverage such as political influence, delays in the legal system, and social networks to push independent women into vulnerable, peripheral spaces. The horrifying events of late June ddemonstrate that rape and harassment are never just random acts of violence. They are structural tools used by those in power to punish women who navigate a world that patriarchy believes is not hers.