Jude the Obscure
...o a loving one. He then makes a mistake of introducing her to Richard, with whom he had lost touch. “As we are going to take a walk, suppose we go and call upon him, its not too late” (100). Sue, who is also a teacher, begins to work with Richard, and those two get married. Sue is unhappy though, and she soon leaves Richard for Jude, saying “I do like you… for a man and a woman to live together on intimate terms when one fells as I do is adultery, in any circumstances, however legal.” (234) Richard is disappointed, but he lets her leave. She and Jude, who now is raising three children, try to have a normal relationship in Christminister. Society is unwilling to accept the fact that two cousins can really love each other, and the entire family is worse off than ever. Only one of the children, Little Father Time, or Little Jude as he is called, gets any attention. Without society’s approval Jude’s relationship with Sue is doomed. Sue is saddened but not surprised, she tells Jude “She said we made bad husbands and wives. Certainly we make unhappy ones.” (210). Little Jude, who throughout his role in the novel seems much older and wiser than his age shows, believes that the blame for the family’s trouble are his and his siblings, and he takes drastic action. At this point in the novel Jude’s life and everything he worked hard for seems to crumble around him, up until his early, unnoticed death, ironically on Remembrance Day, a day set aside to honor Christminister’s founding. In his novel, Hardy depicts Jude as the model tragic character. He is born an orphan to a poor aunt, he is never educated well, he never is able to find true love, and most importantly, he constantly strives to better himself and his place in society. His dreams and ambitions are never really supported in the novel, and one can’t help but pity him, as he works so hard and gets nothing in return. Jude is faced with so much adversity in his life that it is almost comical, and Hardy never writes without a sense of irony and satire thrown at late Victorian English society. Because of this his book was harshly criticized at the time of its publication, so much so that he retired from writing novels and chose only to publish poems, but it is also one reason why the book is so loved today (Nemesvari). This humor becomes quite evident through Hardy’s use of symbolism and the themes of the novel. Nearly every character or setting is mean to symbolize something: Christminister representing the dreams of young Jude, an unattainable goal of becoming educated and recognized, and Sue being used by Hardy to illustrate the emerging feminism movement that was beginning to emerge for the first time. Hardy also has a few themes in the story that become apparent when reading the book, and not all of them are very uplifting. He shows that what society thinks about a persons choices can have a great effect on that person’s well being, and he also makes it clear that a persons dreams must sometimes be altered to fit reality. Hardy’s book is written flawlessly, and his command of the English language is amazing. He i...