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Jude the Obscure
Jude the Obscure is Hardy’s last novel. The novel with the plot of
destruction and failure of Jude reflects social problems in late Victorian
Age.
Hardy’s most pessimistic novel Jude the Obscure met with severe
condemnation by bourgeois readers and from then he turned to poetry.
Jude Fawley is a village mason, simple and poor, who
has passion for learning, but he is deprived of the opportunity of receiving
education for his poverty and lower position in society. He determines to do
any hard work in order to get means to regular education. However, he is
involved with a love affair with Arabella Donn and is entrapped into
marrying her for his “flaw” in his personality—a weak will. Soon, she
deserts him and he turns back to learning and decides to be a clergyman by
education. Then he falls in love with his cousin, Sue Bridehead, who is
married to Philloton. Finally, Sue leaves Phillotson and lives together with
Jude. This relationship makes it impossible for Jude to realize his dream.
It is impossible for them to get married legally in that age even if their
respective spouses get divorced. Sue is influenced by the “moral” of the
Victorian society. When she sees misfortunes come one after another in her
life, she believes this is the punishment of God for her and Jude’s sin and
decides to go back to Phillotson. Jude is very depressed and takes to drink
and then is enticed to go back Arabella. The story ends the misery death of
Jude.
Jude is a hero who struggles very hard in hope of good
education and ideal life. He hopes to cultivate his own mind and soul
through intellectual studies; when the young man, Jude, looks towards
Chritminister and breathes “the heavenly
Jerusalem”, we know he could not
get education from there. Jude hopes to bring happiness to his men, but his
hopes are shattered by the social reality which Hardy criticizes. The main
character is sensual and spiritual. Jude is sensitive to the life activities
and latent in the natural world and tends to identify them with those of the
human being.
“He had never
brought home a nest of young birds without lying awake in misery half the
night after, and often reinstating them and the nest in their original place
the next morning. He could scarcely bear to see trees cut down or lopped,
from a fancy that it hurt them; and late pruning, when the sap was up, and
the tree bled profusely, had been a positive grief to him in his infancy.”
(I ii 11)
Jude's character is Romantic than Darwinian. That is
why he cannot survive in the Victoria age. His weak character can not make
him happy and he can not survive the dark side of society. Hardy tells
readers that in these very early pages Jude's life will not be happy,
because Darwinism and Determinism has become the dominant force in Jude's
society, only the strong will survive. But Jude is not one of the strong
ones. Jude's idealism is ultimately defeated -- he neither achieves the
academic success he desires, nor does he gain Sue's love in the way that he
had hoped.
This sensitivity also makes him prone to the attractions of
the other sex. After a disastrous early marriage the Arabella, he is
entrapped in Sue Bridehead. He is not as passive as Tess when facing
repeated difficulties, though he meets repeated failures, including the
letter of rejection from a university, until one day he realizes that a
person in a lower class in society has no hope of success. Jude is an
upright man full of aspirations and ideals while Arabella is selfish young
woman with none. Sue is a young woman with enlightened mind, free from the
shackle of society conventions and religious dogmas, but she submits to
social criticism and conventional moral and religious belief in Victoria Age
in the end just because of her weak personality. At last, she leaves Jude
and forces herself to live with a man who physically revolts her. She brings
Jude total disaster never happiness or prosperity. Sue’s tragedy indicates
that a simple and weak-willed person may be destroyed under the
circumstance. In this novel, firstly she is responsible for the emancipation
of Jude’s mind, but gives in gradually to the pressure of the society.
Through description of a tragedy of a small person from
laboring mass in the lower class, Hardy attacks furiously on the moral,
religious prejudice, legal system and educational system of the bourgeois
society. The dominant theme of this story is the futility of man’s effort to
struggle against Fate, Chance and Circumstances In this novel, human beings’
desire for joy and happiness meets repeated difficulties and determined by
the Fate.
Hardy’s last novel Jude the Obscure is the most
outstanding one full of pessimistic elements. This novel gives the readers
the pity and despair in view of the blind struggle of lower class people.
The hero has to fight the losing battle against an environment. This
conflict between man and environment is the center force of the tragedy. He
generally depicts human beings as helpless before the mysterious forces. As
a critical writer, he presents so fully and truthfully the picture of the
society which carries sharp social criticism with it. Fierce attacks by the
bourgeois English in this novel than ever before. Jude shows Hardy’s
sympathy for the laboring people. The structure of this novel is arranged to
achieve tragic effect.
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