Jude the Obscure is the last of Thomas Hardy's novels. Because of the fierce reception the novel received when it was published (critics savaged both what they saw as its obscenity and its pessimism), Hardy gave up writing in prose, turning his concentration to poetry. Literary fiction's loss turned out to be poetry's gain. Hardy produced some of the most beautiful poetry of the late 19th and early 20th centuries.
Overview: Jude the Obscure
The novel tells the history of Jude Fawley. Despite his longing to attend the university, Jude is tricked into marrying a local country girl called Arabella. She leaves him soon after their marriage, so he sets off to Christminster (a nearby university town) to become a scholar. While he's in Christminster, he meets Sue, his cousin. She is an intellectual and free-spirited woman. She leaves her husband, lives with Jude, and they have children.
Their relationship turns to tragedy when their oldest son, a depressive boy they've nicknamed "Little Father Time," realizes the economic difficulties his parents are facing--with so many mouths to feed. To ease the burden, he kills his brothers and sisters and then hangs himself. He leaves a misspelled letter, "Done because we are too menny."
The novel tells the history of Jude Fawley. Despite his longing to attend the university, Jude is tricked into marrying a local country girl called Arabella. She leaves him soon after their marriage, so he sets off to Christminster (a nearby university town) to become a scholar. While he's in Christminster, he meets Sue, his cousin. She is an intellectual and free-spirited woman. She leaves her husband, lives with Jude, and they have children.
Their relationship turns to tragedy when their oldest son, a depressive boy they've nicknamed "Little Father Time," realizes the economic difficulties his parents are facing--with so many mouths to feed. To ease the burden, he kills his brothers and sisters and then hangs himself. He leaves a misspelled letter, "Done because we are too menny."
After this sudden and unbelievable tragedy, Sue becomes distraught and filled with guilt. She begins to see her children's deaths as a punishment for her wicked attempt at happiness with Jude. Mentally worn out, she returns to her husband; Jude is once more tricked into re-marrying Arabella. Jude dies unhappy and heart-broken, having never fulfilled his dream of attending the university.
The Morality of the Controversy: Jude the Obscure
Despite the controversy the novel caused, Jude the Obscure could be seen as a conservative moral. Certainly, the novel is an impassioned plea for rationality, freedom between men and women, and enlightenment from religious dogmatism. However, it also hammers home the tragic consequences of swimming against the dominant tide of society's norms.
Both Jude and Sue thirst for knowledge. They live their lives, and they feel themselves at the forefront of a world that is changing. They live in a time that is leaving the darkness of old ages behind. With such intense torment, it seems that some Divine Being must positively enjoy their suffering. Their punishment is complete--with the death of their children and then being forced back into loveless relationships. And, all they did was desire happiness outside of the normal conventions of life.
The Morality of the Controversy: Jude the Obscure
Despite the controversy the novel caused, Jude the Obscure could be seen as a conservative moral. Certainly, the novel is an impassioned plea for rationality, freedom between men and women, and enlightenment from religious dogmatism. However, it also hammers home the tragic consequences of swimming against the dominant tide of society's norms.
Both Jude and Sue thirst for knowledge. They live their lives, and they feel themselves at the forefront of a world that is changing. They live in a time that is leaving the darkness of old ages behind. With such intense torment, it seems that some Divine Being must positively enjoy their suffering. Their punishment is complete--with the death of their children and then being forced back into loveless relationships. And, all they did was desire happiness outside of the normal conventions of life.
Out of the Darkness: Jude the Obscure
Hardy is famous for setting his novels in the fictional county of Wessex, and Jude the Obscure is another work in this ilk. Perhaps more than its predecessors, the novel depicts a negative vision of the country life that critics of earlier novels had suggested Hardy over-idealized.
Far from being a place of innocence and mellow fruitfulness, the Wessex countryside is instead seen as a world in which the innocent Jude is prey to the machinations of the local women. His intellectual pretensions are stifled in an oppressive atmosphere of ignorance. More than that, though, Jude is looked down upon for his profession and lack of learning. Jude is a misfit wherever he goes--unable to achieve his dream.
Hardy is famous for setting his novels in the fictional county of Wessex, and Jude the Obscure is another work in this ilk. Perhaps more than its predecessors, the novel depicts a negative vision of the country life that critics of earlier novels had suggested Hardy over-idealized.
Far from being a place of innocence and mellow fruitfulness, the Wessex countryside is instead seen as a world in which the innocent Jude is prey to the machinations of the local women. His intellectual pretensions are stifled in an oppressive atmosphere of ignorance. More than that, though, Jude is looked down upon for his profession and lack of learning. Jude is a misfit wherever he goes--unable to achieve his dream.
Jude the Obscure is a terribly dark work of art, perhaps even darker than the other tragic novels that Hardy wrote in his later years. The central tragic murderous act--committed by a child--is probably one of the most heart-breaking passages in literary history.
Even at such an early age, the child realized how sad and empty the world is.
Hardy imbued Jude with hope for everything that the author considered dear: intellectual vigour, rationality, unconventionality. But, the author then allows all of Jude's hopes to be utterly destroyed. While writing Jude the Obscure, something of Hardy's own optimism in the power of his fiction was slowly draining away.
Hardy imbued Jude with hope for everything that the author considered dear: intellectual vigour, rationality, unconventionality. But, the author then allows all of Jude's hopes to be utterly destroyed. While writing Jude the Obscure, something of Hardy's own optimism in the power of his fiction was slowly draining away.
