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Jude the Obscure by Thomas Hardy

Jude the Obscure 


Hardy strongly believed in the incoherence of the empirical world. In his major fiction Hardy illustrated his personal philosophy of chance, a belief that chance, a blind force of Nature, can change man's destiny. Chance is for Hardy everything for which man has no control.


Thomas Hardy published fourteen novels, four short story compilations, eight volumes of poetry, and a groundbreaking poetic drama during his lifetime. At least one additional novel, The Poor Man and the Lady, went unpublished and no longer exists.


Thomas Hardy is best known for writing about the bleak fate of the working class as imposed on them by social norms and the privilege of the wealthy. He is known both as a poet and a novelist.


Hardy strongly believed in the incoherence of the empirical world. In his major fiction Hardy illustrated his personal philosophy of chance, a belief that chance, a blind force of Nature, can change man's destiny. Chance is for Hardy everything for which man has no control.


Published in 1895, 'Jude the Obscure' was Thomas Hardy's last novel. With the approach of the turn-of-the-century.

Summary of 'Jude the Obscure'.

Summary 'Jude the Obscure' in Hindi.


Religion:

The criticism of religious belief and tradition was one of the controversial aspects of Jude. There are hints of this theme in earlier Hardy novels but in Jude it becomes overt. Though Jude aspires to be a man of the church, Sue is more of a free thinker and a sceptic who sees nothing unique or superior in Christianity compared to other faiths or philosophies.


‘I fancy we have had enough of Jerusalem,’ she said, ‘considering we are not descended from the Jews. There was nothing first-rate about the place, or people, after all – as there was about Athens, Rome, Alexandria, and other old cities.’


The development of their relationship coincides with Jude turning his back on his religious ambitions. The title ‘Jude the Obscure’ is apparently a reference to the Roman Emperor Julian, called ‘Julian the Apostate’ by the early church for his rejection and hostility towards Christianity.


Sue has the opposite reaction to Jude and her suffering pushes her to abandon her scepticism and grow towards faith. Faith seems to offer Sue an explanation for her misfortune – as a punishment for her faults – and comfort in submission to an omnipotent power.


Woman:

Thomas Hardy of being a misogynist, harshly punishing women for their open defiance of Victorian social expectations. However, by writing about sexually-charged issues at a time when subjects such as premarital sex, rape, illegitimate children, adultery, and divorce were taboo, Hardy challengedhis readers to consider the destructive power caused by hypocrisy and double standards, makingmany consider him to be among the first feminists.


His characters, both men and women, were creatures to him of an infinite attraction. For the women he shows a more tender solicitude than for the men, and in them, perhaps, he takes a keener interest. Vain might their beauty be and terrible their fate, but while the glow of life is in them their step is free, their laughter sweet, and theirs is the power to sink into the breasts of Nature and become part of her silence and solemnity, or to rise and put on them the movement of the clouds and the wildness of the flowering woodlands.


Victorian culture:

Though Hardy challenged the Victorian concept of sexual relationships between men and women, Hardy did not attack marriage as an institution. In fact, many of his novels depict marriage as often necessary and even, at times, desirable for immediate survival and long-term propagation of the human species. The problems with marriage, according to Hardy, occur when the relationship is forced. The inequality between men and women and the injustice suffered as a result of the era’s male-biased double standard leaves women powerless, depriving them of their natural ability to reason and participate in personal and professional matters; they are unnaturally defenseless and easy prey to those who will harm them.


Marriage:

In Jude, there are two examples of extramarital sexual relationships: Arabella and Jude, and Jude and Sue.


Hardy tries to present Sue as an independent woman, of free will, deeply rooted in the modernconcept of twenty first century woman. At the end it is Sue Bridehead, the free spirit and freethinker who re-constructs the providence of the novel, imposing a terrible restriction and law onher behaviors and her body. This is Hardy’s truthfulness, as he knows that it’s quite impossibleto escape from the language of our culture. So instead of presenting Sue as a New Woman, he presents her as the “Imaginative spokesman for an impossible but life supporting ideal offreedom.” Therefore, Hardy’s presentation of Jude the Obscure stands separately within the rushof other novels of common thoughts.Jude the Obscure achieves the epithet ‘modern’ for its quest for perfection of idealistic fulfillment in the form of intolerable impediments.

Trailor of 'Jude the Obscure' movie.

Marriage:


Hardy presents it as unfortunate for both sexes, at least for honorable and well-meaning men and women.


Through his novels, Hardy challenged existing sexual morality and marriage laws, demonstrating the cruelty of the system to both men and women.


For sue marriage can never become a religious ceremony, it’s simply a sordid contract whichevacuate the tenderness between couples. Sue exclaims that,“Why can’t we agree to free eachother? We made a contract and surely we can cancel it-not legally, of course; but we can morally. why should I suffer for what I was born to be, If it doesn’t hurt other people?”


This companionate marriage is based on the intuitive love between two people, believes infree union which is not dependant on any sordid contract. But the people of 1890 s were not prepared to accept this ‘free love’ or ‘free union’. Though Sue and Jude is a Victorian couple but they are remarkably like a pair of modern lovers.


Thomas Hardy had published what would become later his last novel. Jude the Obscure was the title of this final masterpiece. Today, the book is regarded as one of the best specimens of late- Victorian literature on account of its bold and yet honest tone, its daring analysis of the social machinery of the day, and its candid concern for the human condition. 


[Words 1051, Images 06, YouTube video 03] 

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