Everything about Jude The Obscure totally explained
Jude the Obscure is the last of
Thomas Hardy's
novels, begun as a magazine serial and first published in book form in
1895. The book was burnt publicly by the Bishop of Exeter in that same year. Its hero Jude Fawley is a lower-class young man who dreams of becoming a scholar. The two other main characters are his earthy wife, Arabella, and his cousin, Sue. Themes include class, scholarship, religion, marriage, and the modernisation of thought and society.
Plot introduction
The novel has an elaborately structured
plot, in which subtle details and accidents lead to the characters' ruin. It also develops many different
themes. These include how human loneliness and sexuality can stop a person from trying to fulfill his dreams, how, when free from the trap of
marriage, one's dreams won't be fulfilled if one is of a lower status, how the educated classes are often more like
sophists than
intellectuals, how living a
libertine life full of integrity and passion will be condemned as scandalous in traditional society, and how religion is nothing but a mistaken sense that the
tragedies that wear down an individual are the result of having sinned against a higher being.
As in most of Hardy's novels, except for
Far From the Madding Crowd, Hardy manipulates the downfall of his characters like a sadistic god—as if he were a true believer in a deity that wasn't a redeemer but a cruel monster (a motif frequently called a "
rigged doom").
There are strong autobiographical references to Hardy's own life in
Jude the Obscure. Like Jude, Hardy didn't go to university and like Sue, the love of Jude's life, Hardy's first wife, Emma Gifford, also became more and more religious as years passed.
Plot summary
The novel tells the story of Jude Fawley, a village stonemason in the southwest English region of
Wessex who yearns to be a scholar at "
Christminster", a city modelled on
Oxford,
England. In his spare time, working for his aunt's bakery, he teaches himself
Greek and
Latin. Before he can try to enter the university, the naïve Jude is manipulated into marrying a rather coarse and superficial local girl, Arabella Donn, who deserts him within two years. By this time, he'd abandoned the classics altogether.
After she leaves, he moves to Christminster from his village and supports himself as a mason while studying alone, hoping to be able to enter the university later (he never will). There, he meets and falls in love with his cousin, Sue Bridehead. Sue and Jude also meet the latter's former schoolteacher, Mr Phillotson, who marries Sue some time later. Sue is attracted to the normality of her married life but quickly finds the relationship an unhappy one because, besides being in love with Jude, she's physically disgusted by her husband (and, apparently, by sexual relations in general).
Sue eventually leaves Phillotson for Jude. Sue and Jude spend some time living together without any sexual relationship because Sue doesn't want one. They are also both afraid to get married because their family has a history of tragic marriages, and because they think being legally obliged to love one another might destroy their love. Jude eventually convinces Sue to sleep with him, and several children are born. They are also bestowed with a child "of an intelligent age" from Jude's first marriage, whom Jude didn't know about earlier. He is named Jude and nicknamed "Little Father Time".
Jude and Sue are socially ostracized for living together unmarried, especially after the children are born. Jude's employers always dismiss him when they find out, and landlords evict them. The precocious Little Father Time, observing the problems he and his siblings are causing their parents, murders Sue's two children by strangling them with box cord and then commits suicide by hanging himself. He leaves a note reading:
Done because we're too menny [sic].
The shock of these events pushes Sue into a crisis of religious guilt. Although horrified at the thought of resuming her physical relationship with Phillotson, she nevertheless returns to him and becomes his wife again. Jude, demoralized, is tricked by drink into remarrying Arabella. After one final, desperate visit to Sue carried out in horrible weather, Jude becomes seriously ill and dies within the year, while Arabella is out courting a doctor.
Reviews
Called "Jude the Obscene" by at least one reviewer
(External Link
),
Jude the Obscure received a very harsh reception from scandalized
critics. Hardy stopped writing
novels altogether because of personal reasons and partially because of the manner in which
Jude the Obscure was accepted; Hardy produced only
poetry and
drama for the rest of his life.
Jude was first published under the title
The Simpletons; and then
Hearts Insurgent in the European and American editions of
Harper's New Monthly Magazine from December 1894 until November 1895. The initial, serialized edition was substantially different from the later novelized form. Many minor changes were made because the magazine publishers insisted—for moral reasons. Large portions of the plot were also different.
D. H. Lawrence, an admirer of Hardy, was puzzled by the character of Sue Bridehead, and attempted to analyze her sexual problem in his famous essay "A Study of Thomas Hardy" (1914).
Film, TV or theatrical adaptations
Several films and songs based on this book exist.
Further Information
Get more info on 'Jude The Obscure'.
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