Jude the Obscure

Thomas Hardy, (born June 2, 1840, Higher Bockhampton, Dorset, England—died January 11, 1928, Dorchester, Dorset), English novelist and poet who set much of his work in Wessex, his name for the counties of southwestern England.

Jude the Obscure

Jude the Obscure is a novel by Thomas Hardy, which began as a magazine serial in December 1894 and was first published in book form in 1895 (though the title page says 1896).It is Hardy's last completed novel. The protagonist, Jude Fawley, is a working-class young man; he is 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, morality and marriage.

Jude 

A young man from Marygreen who dreams of studying at Christminster but becomes a stone mason instead.

Susanna Bridehead

Jude's cousin. She is unconventional in her beliefs and education, but marries the schoolmaster Richard Phillotson.

Arabella Donn

Jude's first wife. She enjoys spending time in bars and in the company of men.

Aunt Drusilla

The relative who raised Jude.

Richard Phillotson

The schoolmaster who first introduces Jude to the idea of studying at the university. He later marries Sue.

Little Father Time (Little Jude)

Jude and Arabella's son, raised in Australia by Arabella's parents. He is said to have the mind of an old man, though he is a young child.

Themes in Jude the Obscure

Marriage

Much of Jude the Obscure consists of a critique of the institution of marriage, which Hardy saw as flawed and unjust. The novel’s plot is designed to wring all the possible tragedy out of an unhappy marriage, as Jude is first guilted into marrying Arabella by her feigned pregnancy, and Sue marries Phillotson mostly to make Jude jealous. Both protagonists immediately regret their decisions, and realize how a single impulsive decision can affect them.

Fate

Throughout the book Hardy subjects his characters to many hardships and unlucky coincidences which come to feel like fate, whether that fate is interpreted as a supernatural punishment for rebelling against religion or a fate determined by a society structured to thwart independent, sensitive souls like Jude and Sue. The novel’s overarching story of fate is that Jude and Sue’s family is “cursed” in marriage.

Social Criticism

Much of the novel serves as a vessel for Hardy’s criticism of English Victorian society. Most of this critique is aimed at the institution of marriage, but Hardy also targets education, class divides, and hypocrisy. The early part of the novel involves Jude’s quest to be accepted into a college at Christminster, a university town based on Oxford. Jude works for years teaching himself classical languages, but he is never accepted simply.

Women in Society

Sue Bridehead is a surprisingly modern and complex heroine for her time, and through her character Hardy brings up many gender-related issues. Sue is unique in Victorian society in that she lives with men without marrying (or even sleeping with) them, as with her undergraduate student friend. Sue is highly intelligent and very well-read, and she rejects the traditional Christianity of her society.

Religion

Along with marriage and society, Hardy spends much of Jude the Obscure critiquing religion and the institution of Christianity. He often portrays Christianity as life-denying and belonging to “the letter” that “killeth” (from the novel’s epigraph). In contrast, Sue is introduced as a kind of pre-Christian entity, an ethereal, pagan spirit, and she first appears buying figures of the ancient Greek gods Venus and Apollo.