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Jude the Obscure

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Supposedly, this book was burned by the Bishop of Wakefield when it was first released, and Hardy's wife was furious at him because people would think it was autobiographical. The response to the book was the final nail in the coffin that caused Hardy to stop writing novels.

Jude Hawley is born into a changing world-- a world that's changed enough that a poor boy can dream about a university eduction and a professional future. However, it hadn't changed enough for that dream to yet be realizable. Hawley instead is entrapped into a hasty marriage and sacrifices his dreams of further education. Even after the marriage is dissolved by the wife removing herself to Australia, Jude continues to be haunted for the rest of his life by his early mistake-- dooming himself and his true love to a lifetime of misery.

The book is bleak. The characters (Jude and Sue, primarily) can't live with the choices that law and religion demands, but they can't live outside them either and their attempts to do so only drive them down deeper. The central thesis of the book, and the one that was so shocking a the time, was that these moral and legal strictures prevented people from fulfilling their dreams and living happy lives. Jude the Obscure challenges the sanctity of marriage by building a tragedy about people trapped by its convention.

An important and challenging book. It continues to be relevant today.

Ready for four hundred pages of sparkle and sunshine? "Jude the Obscure" is about a group of people whose every hope and dream is gradually crushed to a fine powder and blown away by the winds of despair. Hardy is his usual unforgiving self in this grim, discomforting tale of educational goals thwarted, marital bliss destroyed, childhood innocence corrupted, and spiritual redemption viciously mocked. Those who might suspect that this is a recent example of the current cultural debasement of family values would be amazed to know that this novel was written not in 1995 but in 1895. Upon its publication, Hardy was criticized for his pessimism when all he was did was herald the arrival of the pessimistic twentieth century.

"Jude the Obscure" is not an indictment of education, marriage, family, or religion, but rather Hardy's bitter commentary on how society misuses these institutions to defend its shaky beliefs and practices. Jude Fawley, the title character and society's puppet, is a young man trying in vain to transcend his environment. A stonemason by trade, he dauntlessly studies Latin and Greek with the rigorous mind of a classical scholar in preparation for entering the ivy-covered Gothic halls of Christminster, a college town supposed to evoke Oxford. Two things stand in his way: He is too poor to afford the tuition, and he marries an ignorant farm girl named Arabella who discourages his academic aspirations.

Separated from Arabella but still legally married, Jude begins a relationship with his pretty cousin, Sue Bridehead, after he moves to Christminster to be nearer his goal, supporting himself with various stonemasonry jobs. Sue marries Jude's former teacher, Richard Phillotson, many years her senior, also rejected by Christminster and now a local schoolmaster. When Phillotson realizes that Sue's heart belongs to Jude, he sorrowfully but graciously cuts her loose, whereupon she goes to live with her lover. The irony that Hardy emphasizes is that the two couples in the novel who were never meant to be--Jude and Arabella, and Phillotson and Sue--were the ones who married, while Jude and Sue, the only mutually happy couple, are unmarriageable to each other.

Sue is the most interesting, and arguably the most tragic, figure in the novel. At first she appears to be a devout Christian, working in a shop that makes religious ornamentation; but she soon reveals herself to be as cynical as Jude is earnest, acknowledging that she and Jude are descendants of a fractured family for whom marriage seems not to be intended. However, towards the end of the novel her character is transformed by a misfortune so violent and sickening that it has the power to convince her that she is being punished for her sinful ways. A pious person would be probably cheered by choosing conventional morality after such an incident, but Sue, fearful of the wrath of a divine force she can't know or control, is only made more miserable by feeling pressured to accept the undesirable situation of living with her lawful husband.

"Jude the Obscure," even more so than Hardy's other famous novels, is swamped in loneliness, frustration, disillusion, anger, and hopelessness, all delivered by the relentless fist of fate, and it is exhausting to imagine the emotional abysses he would have had to plumb had he decided against all critical opposition to continue this avenue of his career. Hardy, like Jude an autodidact but unlike Jude a professional success nonetheless, is plaintive about a social system that prevents talented people of poverty from realizing their potential while requiring them to live holy lives. His response was to write a book that would shock the public, not to shame them, but into seeing what he saw.

As are Hardy's other books, Jude the Obscure is not an "easy read." Appreciating Hardy's work requires a little work and the ability to pay attention and to think a little along the way. But the effort pays off. Jude the Obscure is a great book about the human condition, at least as it exists for many people. Like other Hardy characters, Jude Fawley makes a mistake early in his life and continues to pay the price until the day he dies. He commits an act of folly that seals his doom, and nothing he can do can make it right. This would be merely sad or melodramatic were if not for the fact that Jude is a truly good man with truly good intentions. It is this that makes his story truly tragic. Not only is he trapped by the consequences of his early act of foolishness, but he is also trapped and eventually dragged down by the conventions of a society that is more concerned with status and class than with character and ability and more devoted to mindless tradition than to a considered morality. Most of what can be said of Jude also be said of his love, Sue Bridehead, although I found her to be a less believable and sympathetic character. I was surprised by the frankness with which Hardy deals with sexuality in 1895, and I can understand now the furor this book apparently caused in Britain and America upon publication. Hardy is a writer of great power and insight. He also knows how to build a great story. And he is a novelist of ideas. He has his faults, of course. At his worst, he is wordy, obscure, and pedantic. But at his best, he is one of the most emotionally moving of writers. At times his books flash briliantly with passion. At times, he is heartbreaking. Jude the Obscure is a novel that no lover of fine writing and a great story can afford to miss. The novel has haunted me for weeks since I read it, and it probably will for a long time.

Prior to reading Jude the Obscure, I had a smattering of knowledge about the religious uproar it caused upon publication, which led Hardy to abandon novels and focus merely on poetry. His work being denounced and burned by the churches, Hardy felt that if that was to be the treatment of his work, he would no longer produce the work.

Now that I have read the novel, and having attempted to place myself in the mindset of the later 19th century morals and ideals, I can begin to understand why such an uproar was raised.

First, the story...Jude Fawley, of poor and meager birth, aspires to academic greatness. When it is recommended to him that he stay on the 'blue collar' course he has begun, and not wish for more, he decides to educate himself, one day hoping that it will position him for greater things.

Jude enters into a hasty marriage, which by later standards would be described as a 'shotgun' wedding, which he eventually comes to regret, and ends. Enter his cousin Sue, who becomes the love of his life. Sue also ends an unsatisfactory first marriage, freeing herself to be with Jude, whom she loves as well.

What follows is a descent into tragedy and despair, with numerous twists and turns along the way. Not wanting to spoil them, I will not divulge.

However, the remainder of the novel touches upon many, many themes that amounted to raising of the ire of the church in response. Divorce; childbirth out of wedlock; loss of faith in God; questioning religious ideals and teachings; all these and more are present in the latter half of the novel, and so much more.

Upon finishing the book, I was left to question were these really Hardy's own feelings illustrated in his work, or simply a realization of a course of events for the characters, and not a reflection on the author's beliefs. That, however, bears further reading on the life of Thomas Hardy.

Where I find fault with the novel is in the characters, and it is merely a distaste with their actions. Sue, the heroine, spends far too much time vacillating about her love for Jude and her desire to marry him. When Jude tries to do the right thing by Sue, and respect her wishes, she claims he has 'given up too easily, and doesn't seem at all disappointed'. Jude's first wife, Arabella, displays an utterly selfish, self-absorbed personality, and was, for me, unlikeble, and unsympathetic. Jude, a character capable of learning Latin and Greek and engaging in other scholarly pursuits, seems completely naive in the ways of the world, and further seems blinded by a sense of duty over a sense of the rights and wrongs of others. His actions make him appear to have no regard for himself, until the very end.

Perhaps this is exactly as Hardy meant the characters to be seen, perhaps not. I did enjoy the book more than I expected to, and apparently more than others who have said to me "What on earth are you reading THAT for???". Hardy is not a comedy writer, and one should not expect a glamorous, cheerful, tidy ending, it does not exist here.

While not the greatest of classic novels I have read, I can certainly see why this one has been discussed for over 100 years. While Dickens peppered his stories with levity to break up the gloom, Hardy continues on a downward spiral, leaving his characters in despair within and without. I recommend it to readers who enjoy a good characterization of later 19th century life in England. But if you are looking for something to put a smile on your face, Hardy might not be for you.

He was a poor boy who felt things those around him couldn't feel. He felt pain and compassion towards helpless animals. He levitated while reading books into a charming world of imagination and fantasy; the words that lifted him were the same words others considered boring and complicated. He saw something more, unseen by others, from floating phantasms and phantoms to vivid dreams. Eventually he joined their obscurity, away from the surrounding idle vision and hollow souls.

Thomas Hardy's last novel "Jude the Obscure", tells the story of Jude, a visionary and intellectual orphan growing up with his aunt in the humble town of Marygreen. As we turn the book's five-hundred pages we witness the formulation and maturation of Jude's character and the successive failures and misfortunate events cast upon him.

The adjective "obscure" is not confined to Jude's character; it is rather used repetitively throughout the novel to describe situations, places, circumstances etc... The obscurity manifested in the actions and thoughts of the characters is not part of them, but rather shed upon them from their society and the positions it entitles them to.

Such obscurity comes to light when we observe the constant confusions and internal struggles suffered by both Jude and Sue, his lover, soul-mate and cousin. Jude is shattered between his dreams, intellect, religious faith and animal instinct. At one point of the novel he says "people go on marrying because they can't resist natural forces, although many of them may know perfectly well that they are possibly buying a month's pleasure with a life's discomfort". Jude is shattered between his religious conviction and aspiration of becoming a priest and his human instinct, until at last he decides he was unfit for such vocation and burns all his theological books. At times he regrets reading and studying, as he knows that he would go on being a stone worker, yet his resting hours were always dedicated to his books.

Though from the beginning of the novel an aesthetic dreamer, Jude soon discovers that reality encompasses all dreams, hopes and fantasies. The society denied him all chances of happiness. He had thought that if he couldn't get the education he had longed sought, the presence of Sue beside him would condole, or even obliterate, his great loss, but even Sue was collared from him like his career and efforts.

Towards the end when Sue threatens to leave him after the significant change in her mentality, Jude wonders in rage "Perhaps the world is not illuminated enough for such experiments as ours! Who were we, to think we could act as pioneers." Even though Jude had determination, he wasn't strong enough to contend the multitudinous problems that confronted him and fight long enough for his beliefs.

The other character almost equally important as that of Jude's is Sue Bridehead, his cousin. At the beginning of the novel Jude's aunt makes a brief reference of her as a girl who shared Jude's passion for reading. Then when Jude decides to move to Christminister, his aunt tells him that she happens to be there at well. He takes her picture, which he finds very pretty, searches for her, but despite that never dares to go and tell her about their relation. It was she who took the initiative after discovering that he was her cousin.

Like Jude, Sue has a distinct character which develops and undergoes significant changes.

We see her first as a reckless intellectual who is charmed by -and encourages-men's love to her "Sometimes a woman's love of being loved gets the better of her conscience, and though she is agonized at the thought of treating a man cruelly , she encourages him to love her while she doesn't love him at all" .However she is repugnant by their sexual desire in her. She sent Jude a letter telling him he can love her if he wants, however even after she went to him she didn't like him kissing her a lot "I think I would rather go on living always as lovers, as we are living now, and only meeting by day. It is so much sweeter for the woman at least, and when she is sure of the man". It was only when faced by the seriousness and likeliness of Jude's returning to Arabella that she finally agrees to "go further" and " intensify" her "liking" of him by marriage. Unlike Jude, however, Sue didn't have any feelings for Philloston except those of respect ad friendly love. Her brief marriage to him was unbearable and once she chose to throw herself from the window than to have him touch her.

Faced by the death of her children ,however, Sue finds herself unable to hold to her convictions and she yields to the religious thought of her society leaving Jude behind.

Christminister is the embodiment of mystery. The mystery of dreams. The mystery of time. The mystery of loss. The obscurity of mystery. It is the place that sums up Jude. The place that built him and turned him to an additional edifice of its ancient and glorious architecture. The core of his heart; his Jerusalem; his "centre of the universe".

Arabella and Philloston can be better described as ghosts than as characters. They are the ghosts of past and convention that haunt the freedom of the rebellious couple, following them like shadows so that they look obscure in the eyes of the society. Whether consciously or unconsciously they act with a determination to normalize or destroy them.

The only winner at the end seems to be Arabella. The story unfolds with her preparation for marriage amidst the tragedy of a dead Jude and a dying Sue. She was the one capable to be cruel and heartless for her carnal desires within the limits of accepted tradition and social conventionalism. She could murder a pig in cold blood to eat, and lawfully- yet immorally-entrap a man to marry her for her own comfort, support and protection using virtue and weakness as a justification.

Jude suffered because he pursued his dreams. In his quest of becoming something more and going out of the gloomy conventional track of his society he lost everything-his children, his love, his life. However a sense of mollification underlies the tragic end of the story, for even though Jude dies after a lifetime of suffering, he dies at an early age, before he could live long enough to witness further humiliation and anguish. It is a romantic ending for someone who searched, someone who tried; someone who was pulled back, and abandoned.

Jude the Obscure, the last novel written by England's greatest novelist, is often called Thomas Hardy's masterpiece. I do not quite agree, but it is certainly in his top tier, which puts it with the all-time best novels. It is absolutely essential for fans of Hardy, English literature, or tragedy as well as anyone alive to art that is profoundly moving and deeply thought-provoking.

Jude in many ways culminates Hardy's novelistic career, portraying several key themes and facets more clearly and fully than previously. The marriage institution had rarely fared well in Hardy, but this is his most devastating critique - nay, one of the most devastating of all-time. Hardy questions it on all fronts: historical, social, religious, and moral. He also thoroughly explores a wealth of related issues: sexuality, male/female relations, love, etc. Very few writers have written of love so movingly or honestly; Jude shows nearly every aspect - from euphoric first love to cynical bitterness - so vividly and emotionally that everyone will relate to one or more parts. All told, the love depiction is extremely bleak; Hardy has little hope for successful relations and generally portrays love itself as fundamentally destructive and lust even more so. They distract from what are really more important things and can even wreck dreams, which of course does not make it any more resistible - even if one knows it.

This is the novel's most famous aspect, but it has a wealth of other important themes. Keeping its 1895 publication in mind is important, as it deals with many issues central to late Victorian society - mostly ones that few wanted to discuss or even admit existed. Hardy truly had his finger on the contemporary pulse, and his unorthodox views led to near-unbelievable controversy, which gives Jude great historical value. However, it is also universal in the best and truest sense. Many problems dramatized here are unfortunately still very real; even more sadly, most seem inherent to the human condition. Class problems are one of these - always important in Hardy but perhaps never so clearly. Hardy was an autodidact, as are many of his characters; he routinely shows just how hard it was for the poor to become educated, much less use education for advancement, even if they wanted it desperately. Jude explores this with great depth and subtlety, shedding much-needed light on a perennial social failing and many overlooked personal tragedies. The English education system itself is thus taken to task, as are self-proclaimed intellectuals. The novel also more than hints at what Hardy later called the Imminent Will - a blind force governing human fate. The characters seem to have very little or no control over their destiny, being prey to vast forces beyond their control. Hardy is often said to have an almost malevolent attitude toward characters, arranging chance and circumstances so that they do the most possible harm to essentially undeserving victims. This inevitably leads to very elaborate plots and heavy reliance on melodramatic coincidence, which some have always disliked. This is of course one's right, but those who think he could not plot without such things miss the point; he had a very dark view of life, lacked belief in a benevolent force overseeing humanity, and thought change and chance usually affected life for the worse. All this comes across very powerfully; Jude may have faults but is far more sinned against than sinning. Hardy has drawn him too specifically - and, some have always said, too autobiographically - for him to be an Everyman, but we identify with and have great sympathy for him because of his core frail humanity. What happens to him could happen to almost anyone, making his story all the more believable and thus all the more tragically affecting.

As all this suggests, Jude is very modern; most of Hardy's views were very advanced, and the novel was on the very cutting edge of late Victorian ethics, philosophy, and theology. The marriage issue of course takes on a central church issue directly, but the discerning will see more fundamental religious criticism. Though he almost never gets credit, Hardy was a proto-existentialist, consistently dramatizing the intellectual and moral consequences of living in the modern, post-religion world. Jude shows just how black that world can be and vibrantly conveys the profound changes that were even then transforming every aspect of it. Hardy's work is well-known for showing modernity's ache - how rapid advancement in everything from technology to religion was quickly making obsolete a rural agricultural society that had been virtually unchanged for a thousand years. Like much of Hardy's work, Jude is partly set in Wessex - a part-real, part-dream setting based on his native Southwest England. Perhaps no one equals him at making place so important that it is integral to the story, and setting is never mere background with him. The lush, minutely described rural landscapes are as compelling as ever, but Jude is unique in being substantially set in Christminster - a relatively large town, based on Oxford, outside Wessex proper. Oxfordians have long been fascinated by Hardy's depiction; he did much on the spot research to maintain his usual verisimilitude, and it shows. He truly seems to bring the city alive to an extent rarely even approached, much less achieved, with any location. Those who appreciate this Hardy aspect will thus not be disappointed, and those who stereotype him as using only rural agricultural settings will be pleasantly surprised.

Important as all this is, the characters in many ways make the book. Jude is one of Hardy's great creations, and Arabella is one of literature's most intriguing and nuanced female villains. The most interesting character may be Sue Bridehead, a curious and uneasy mix of the Victorian female ideal and the rapidly emerging New Woman. Hardy's Preface notes that an early feminist told him Sue was literature's first real feminist, and so she is in many ways. Hardy himself was almost a proto-feminist and uses her to explore many issues of importance to women at the time and indeed now. In particular, he shows just how hard it was for even the most staunchly independent and freethinking women to stay true to themselves - or even stay alive - in such a drastically oppressive society. We see how marriage was virtually the only method of subsistence and how women were all but forced to marry grossly unsuitable men. For a man of the era, much less of Hardy's age (fifty-five) to have even been aware of such things, much less to dramatize them with discernment and sympathy, is truly remarkable. The feminist was disappointed by what Hardy does with Sue in the end, saying no woman would have written so, and D. H. Lawrence was later fascinated by her for similar but subtly different reasons. It is easy to criticize Hardy for losing nerve and falling back on prevailing stereotypes, but it is important to remember a few things. First, the event that pushes Sue over the proverbial edge is the most harrowing I have ever read; even the darkest Russian literature - nay, even Greek tragedy itself - does not equal it. I will say no more because all should experience it for themselves - and indeed it cannot be reproduced -, but it must be asked what would drive a woman (or anyone) to extremes if this would not. Second, and probably more importantly, Sue's plight and all it leads to epitomize Hardy's dark philosophy. Showing things as they should be was not his goal; he showed them as they are - which is of course not what most want to see. A wide range of ideologies may find this far from palatable, but he wisely noted that there is an obligation higher than any ideology - Truth. Few have equaled Hardy at showing it, especially the dark side so many refuse to see, and Jude is a seminal instance.

Jude may not be the easiest Hardy novel to start with; a work like Far from the Madding Crowd or The Mayor of Casterbridge is probably better. However, this should be one of the first Hardy novels anyone reads, and those who have not read him should start immediately. He is not only one of the world's greatest writers but seemingly more relevant and influential with each passing year, and this is a masterpiece of the highest order - essential Hardy, which means it is simply essential.

Jude The Obscure goes against the normal strain in its treatment of topics ranging from marriage, ambition, dreams, and class-society. The book takes shocking twists and turns, and even though the subjects are often depressing, the sheer shock of what has just happened makes you want to read more. Hardy's main character is Jude, a poor, parentless boy whose ambitions far exceed the restrictions his class would put on him. Throughout his childhood he pushed himself in the studies of academia, he would always be seen with Latin books while delivering bread to the villagers. Eventually, as Jude grows he decides to move to Chirstminister-Jude's dream starting from his very early days of youth. Christminister is the center of all academic pursuit and home to the greatest colleges of learning. We follow Jude's adventures there, along with all of his attempts to being admitted into one of these institutions. This is not easy for a young man who has no money or family status behind him. One of Jude's great battles is between his burning desire to achieve higher learning, and his weakness towards women which draw him away from this goal. The elements which Jude's eventual children present, make an outlandish story even stranger by their actions. Certainly Hardy intended the children to present us with some additional lessons to consider while contemplating the book.

The book was difficult for me to read, as mentioned in other reviews, the depressing subject matter and gloominess is not inherently an inviting thing. However, by unfolding the story as Hardy did, following the dreams and failures of young Jude, I learned some lessons that I do not think I could have otherwise. I received a strong personal impression in the importance of not giving up on yourself. That even if your opportunities are not optimal, or you environment is not perfect, that you still have the ability to reach for your dreams. And at all costs you should not give up on your dreams, or believe that you are not capable of accomplishing them. I also thought a lot about the acts the society would have us perform, which are not securely right. Having read the book forced me to reflect about the daily choices I make, how many of those are really mine, and how many are artificial restraints institutions would have me believe I must make.

While I have read more entertaining books, I would have to recommend this one because of the unique perspective it presents. Hardy message allows us to think about important issues in a light not often seen through.

It seems to me, after reading a couple of Thomas Hardy novels, that although Hardy's stories are rich in narrative, they're working on a more abtract level or meant to convey more universal themes. My impression is that the point of the novel is made in the very title of the book. One doesn't have to consider this story in the context of the 19th century. The same set of circumstances could have occurred in any century. Jude was living his life according to his own values; outside forces played upon his choices, and the results were unfortunately, unhappy for Jude. I guess in today's competitive world where people believe they control every turn of their destiny, it may seem the outcomes in this novel should have been different. But, look again. You'll simply find a man living his life the best way he knows how to.

This was Thomas Hardy's last and most dark (obscure) novels. A true masterpiece! Hardy exells himself in describing every little emotion of Jude and Sue: two outcasts from society, seeking refuge in each others love, but with a grim conclusion. Though, Hardy's extraordinary insight in the souls of his two greatest creations is astonishing, it is the pureness and simpleness of the story that is most striking.

This is truly one of the best books I have ever read

Jude the Obscure is a saddening book that deals with the oppression that society can force onto people. Jude Fawley's many attempts to rise above his social class and to become something better than he was born to are crushed time and again through society or the forces of nature. The writing itself is very readable; in the beginning of the book, I was very amused by how naive Jude was and enjoyed the way that Thomas Hardy used the language. The quality of writing never suffered through the book, but the plot becomes more and more depressing. In the final scene of the book, where Jude is finally dying after his life of oppression and tragedy, you feel incredibly sorry for all that Jude had to go through. Throughout his entire life he had been mocked by Christminster and all that it represented for Jude. Jude did all that he could to get there and become a scholar, but he was told to stay in his class and be content with what he had. Oppression through marriage of all of the main characters (Jude, Sue, Phillotson, and Arabella) was also explored through the entire book. Arabella is the mistake that Jude made that he cannot escape from. His one wrong choice early in his life ruins his chance for having a normal relationship with Sue, and in his final days he has to live with that choice. The underlying themes here are explored well by Hardy and give the reader a chance to see life from a different angle and hopefully appreciate what they have.

One thing I disliked about the book was the constant tragic events. I understand that Hardy was trying to explore certain themes by using such depressing events, but it was too much sometimes. When little Father Time and the children of Jude and Sue died, I was probably as crushed as Sue was. That is perhaps the saddest point of any book that I have read and it caught me by surprise. The tragedy of it was much more than I was expecting, and that is probably what Hardy was looking for. I didn't appreciate being bombarded by such emotional manipulators by Hardy.

The characterizations in the book were wonderful. Jude's aspirations that continued to be subverted by his weaknesses made him the perfect tragic hero. Sue was realistic, but she was never strong enough to earn my sympathy. She was just too weak, despite being the "liberatedEwoman. I came to dislike Arabella right from the start, and my dislike grew with each appearance she made. Phillotson was perhaps the most pitiable character in the novel, especially when he is persecuted for letting Sue go. The minor characters in the story add to these main characters and help to reveal who that are and why they do what they do.

Overall, Jude the Obscure is an excellent novel, but it does have its bad points. The thematic elements in the novel are explored in a thought-provoking way and the characters are portrayed in a realistic and poignant way that helps the reader to understand who they are and why they are being slammed by forces outside of their control. Those forces, though, are sometimes too strong and detract from what Hardy is trying to do with the novel. I would recommend this book, but be prepared to leave aside time to think about it afterwards. This book makes you sit down and think after you read it. If you don't do this afterwards, there will be so much that you miss.