In Tess of the D'Urbervilles, Thomas Hardy highlights the relationship between fate centered in an unsympathetic universe and fate centered in the character of individual humans. Realizing the power and unforgiving nature of fate stirs many charged emotional responses from the main character Tess. Fate plays an important role in the outcome of Tess' life as a whole. What becomes important is the realization of Tess' ironic placement between an unsympathetic universal fate and her own individually centered fate. The interaction of each fate produces an ironic trap for the main character as she ventures through life, making her life and death tragic.

Tess D'Urbeyfield's life was not conventional by society's standards. Her tragic individual fate is foreshadowed early in her life by her roughly unorthodox childhood. This fate carries through to her relationship with her first and only true love, Angel Clare. Tess and Angel meet at a young age but are doomed to be separated by ironic twists of fate. They are initially separated because Angel professes that he cannot live with a woman that was not a virgin at marriage, and thus pure. However, the irony lies in the fact that Angel is not pure by this standard either. Angel's absolute faith in societal standards only when applied to others is a production of the interaction between Tess' individual fate and her universal fate. Additionally, Tess' murder of Alec (the thief of her virginity that led to Tess' breakup with Angel) is tragically spurred by a twist of fate that brings Angel back to Tess after a long separation. An ironic interaction between Tess' flaws and her general fate as a human living on a "blighted" planet produce Tess' actions.

Hardy also uses the relationship between the two fates to expose the tragic ending to Tess' life. Tess is thrown into an unsympathetic universe. Her cosmic fate, which is seemingly uncontrollable, is actually influenced by her individual flaws. Societal standards and conventions do not influence Tess. Rather, she is pulled along through life by her beliefs in natural law. However different Tess may be from individuals centered in societal conventions, she as a human in this "blighted universe" must also serve the cosmic fate. In lieu of Tess' murder of Alec, she is put to death by hanging. The unsympathetic nature of the universe may have had an influence in this morbid outcome; however Tess' own fate, her strong naturalist beliefs, were also an influence. The combination of a larger fate with individual "flaws" makes Tess' death extremely tragic.

The relationship between the two fates, cosmic and individual, plays an important role in the development of Tess. The conflicts expressed between Tess' flaws and humanity's general fate produce fertile grounds for Hardy's commentary on human character and society.