Alec uses all types of methods to achieve his goal, from light sexual teasing to forcible rape. One has to believe that it was Alec's intent all along to take any freedoms he chose with Tess. This is foreshadowed by Hardy throughout Phase I in his references to Alec's debauchery and Tess' innocence. From the beginning, Alec has implied that he and she share an intimate link through their common ancestor. (Alec — and the readers — knows this relationship to be false, but Tess does not.) Alec has also been able, in nearly every encounter with Tess, to coerce her to do as he wishes, despite her obvious despair. His predatory behavior escalates from simply refusing to accept her refusal of his advances (the strawberry episode), to putting her in a precarious position (during their wild ride to The Slopes) and then offering her salvation — if she will acquiesce to one small liberty — a kiss in this case, to finally, raping her.
It might be argued that Alec had a history of doing as he pleased, even with the hired help at The Slopes: "It was evidently the gentleman's wish not to be disturbed in this pleasant tete-a-tete by the servantry." Even the cottage workers know what is about to happen, "'Heu-heu-heu!' laughed Car's mother, stroking her moustache as she explains laconically: 'Out of the frying-pan into the fire!'"
Hardy also reintroduces the concept that fate plays a significant part in how people's lives turn out, when he concludes "It [the rape] was meant to be." Fate was not a new concept with Hardy. The ancient Greeks used fate as a guiding force in their plays. To the Greeks (and later Romans) the Fates were, literally, three goddesses — Clotho, Lachesis, Atropos — who control human destiny and life. Late in the novel, Hardy evokes Aeschylus and the Greek idea that we are all destined to be controlled by fate.
