Jude the Obscure

Thomas Hardy Other

(1895)
"Yea, many there be that have run out of their wits for women, and become servants for their sakes. Many also have perished, have erred, and sinned, for women... O ye men, how can it be but women should be strong, seeing they do thus?"--Esdras.
This, the last completed of Thomas Hardy's novels, began as a magazine serial in December 1894 and was first published in book form in 1895. Its protagonist, Jude Fawley, is a working-class young man, a stonemason, who dreams of becoming a scholar. The other main character is his cousin, Sue Bridehead, who is also his central love interest. The novel is concerned in particular with issues of class, education, religion and marriage.
Highly controversial when it was first published, with outcries from the Victorian public for its frank treatment of s*x, it was often referred to as "Jude the Obscene". Heavily criticised for its apparent attack on the institution of marriage through the presentation of such concepts as erotolepsy, the book caused further strain on Hardy's already difficult marriage because Emma Hardy was concerned that Jude the Obscure would be read as autobiographical.
This is an almost unbearably sad story about love and s****l desire mapped into the peculiar English matrixes of class and destiny in the Victorian 19th century, has come to be recognized as one of Hardy's most important novels. It tells the tragic story of Jude Fawley, a kid from the country whose aspirations to university scholarship are thwarted; his socially unacceptable love affair is also a disaster.
This is a great novel written by Thomas Hardy. Jude Fawley is an orphan boy, fostered by his Aunt. Disqualified from university because he belongs to a poor family, he tries to survive but fails in both love and education. Jude is confused between sensual love, which is represented by Arabella, and spiritual love, represented by Sue Bridehead.--Submitted by fahim
This intensely bleak novel contains themes already explored in Hardy's previous novels: social injustice, the position of women in Victorian society, the hypocrisy of religion and the invalidity of existing societal mores. However, the over-arching theme of the novel is the human condition, which Hardy believes is inescapable and inevitable. In his later novels Hardy not only denies the presence of God, but seems to see the world as being ruled by a malevolent deity. His atheism precedes the twentieth century novels of James Joyce and D. H. Laurence. A recurrent theme is that of the uselessness of trying to atone for previous "mistakes": Fate will always prevail and no beneficent God will offer forgiveness. This is true of Sue in "Jude", who feels that by flouting contemporary values she has defied God, who is now punishing her. Fate also traps Henchard (Mayor of Casterbridge), and Tess (Tess of the D' Urbervilles), whose dark ending makes explicit man's vulnerability to external dark forces. I have mentioned these other two novels because they have elements in common with "Jude". Hardy depicts the world as he sees it, dark and bleak where escape from one's Fate is impossible, and to paraphrase Elizabeth (Major of Casterbridge), happiness is merely a short interlude in a malevolent world turbulence. My introduction is designed to set "Jude" in context and encourage exploration of links with Hardy's other great novels.--Submitted by Jill Giannotta
Jude the Obscure is a work by Thomas Hardy that takes the reader on a young man's discovery of himself and the world- the world as we too often bleakly find it as opposed to the world of sparkling wonder we too often wish it to be. Hampered by class and convention, struggling with desire and the desire to be moral, Jude aspires to a career above his station and aspires to love, successfully, a woman he cannot fully understand. His struggle is a valiant one, in the face of foes and frustration, the outcome being a lesson learned by so many that life may not take us where we wish to go, yet, on the journey, chance teaches much and atones for more.--Submitted by Claire

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