Jude the Obscure

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Original title page of Jude the Obscure

Jude the Obscure is the last of Thomas Hardy's novels, begun as a magazine serial and first published in book form in 1895. 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 intellectual cousin, Sue. Themes include class, scholarship, religion, marriage, and the modernization of thought and society.

1 Description
2 Plot summary
3 Reviews
4 Film, TV or theatrical adaptations
5 External links

[edit] Description

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 fulfil his dreams; how, when free from the trap of marriage, one's dreams will not 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, perhaps, 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 was not 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. Hardy, himself a stonemason in earlier years, also did not go to university, and his first wife, Emma Gifford, also became more and more religious as years passed.

[edit] Plot summary

Spoiler warning: Plot and/or ending details follow.

The novel tells the story of Jude Fawley, a village stonemason in the fictional southwest English region of Wessex who yearns to be a scholar at "Christminster", a city modelled on Oxford, England. In his sparse 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 had 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 is physically disgusted by her husband.

Sue eventually leaves Phillotson for Jude. Sue and Jude spend some time living together without any sexual relationship because Sue does not 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 ten-year-old child from Jude's first marriage, whom Jude did not 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, smothers Sue's two children and then hangs himself. He leaves a note reading: Done because we are too menny [sic].

The shock of these events pushes Sue into a crisis of religious guilt. She returns to Phillotson and becomes his wife again. Jude, demoralized, is tricked 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.

Spoilers end here.

[edit] Reviews

Called "Jude the Obscene" by at least one reviewer[1], Jude the Obscure received so harsh a reception from scandalized critics that Hardy stopped writing novels altogether, producing 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 publishers insisted—for moral reasons. Large portions of the plot were also different.