Assignment 104

Assignment 104- Literature of the Victorians

Thomas Hardy (1840–1928)

Thomas Hardy is a literary giant in the late Victorian age. Virginia Woolf remarked that “the death of Thomas Hardy leaves English fiction without a leader”. Among all his Literature works, Jude the Obscure is the most controversial one. Thomas Hardy was born on the morning of 2nd June 1840 in the isolated thatched cottage, built by his great-grandfather at Higher Bockhampton, a hamlet on the edge of Middletown Heath, three miles east of the county town of Dorchester.

Thomas Hardy, a builder by trade, had inherited a genius and passion for music. His talents were passed down to the younger Thomas who, from an early age, played the folk fiddle at local ‘randys’, and could be moved to tears by specific pieces of music. After initial schooling in Lower Bockhampton, Hardy was transferred at the age of ten by his ambitious mother to Isaac Last’s non-conformist school in Greyhound Yard, Dorchester -a three-mile walk from the isolated family cottage at Bockhampton. At sixteen, his formal education completed, he was apprenticed to John Hicks, a local architect – continuing to make the daily journey into the county town by foot – as Florence records in Hardy’s ghosted autobiography The Life: Owing to the accident of his being an architect’s pupil in a county-town of assizes and alderman, which had advanced to railways and telegraphs and daily London papers; yet not living there but walking in every day from a world of shepherds and plowmen in a hamlet three miles off, where modern improvements were still regarded as wonders, he saw rustic and borough doings in a juxtaposition peculiarly close.

In April 1862 Hardy traveled to London with a precautionary return ticket in his pocket but readily found employment as a ‘gothic draughtsman who could restore and design churches and rectory houses’. He was to remain in London for five years. In London Hardy wrote poetry when not at work, though with no prospect of publication. For purely practical reasons he now turned his hand to prose fiction, though his first completed novel, The Poor Man and the Lady, proved to be too radical for publication. But in 1870, on the advice of George Meredith acting as a reader for the publisher Macmillan, he produced a sensation novel entitled Desperate Remedies, published by William Tinsley in 1871. The latter three books which dealt with marriage, divorce and the hypocrisy of late Victorian attitudes towards women were described by Hardy as novels ‘addressed by a man to men and women of full age. Wessex Poems contained poetry written from Hardy’s time in London onwards, including the poetry generated by the break-up of his relationship with Eliza Nicholls. 

Works of Thomas Hardy

• Far from the Madding Crowd (1874)
• The Mayor of Casterbridge (1886)
• Tess of the d'Urbervilles (1891)
• Jude the Obscure (1895)
• The Return of the Native (1878)
• The Woodlanders (1887)
• A Pair of Blue Eyes (1873)
• A Laodicean (1881)
• A Mere Interlude (1885)
• Winter Words in Various Moods and Metres (1928)
• The Oxen (1915)

 

Hardy died at Max Gate on the evening of 11th January 1928.

 

Jude the Obscure

Jude the Obscure, the last completed novel by Thomas Hardy, received a mixed critical reception upon its publication in 1895. The novelist H G Wells in an unsigned piece for the Saturday Review eulogized “There is no other novelist alive with the breadth of sympathy, the knowledge or the power for the creation of Jude”.‘Jude the Obscene’, and branded the book a work of ‘naked squalor and ugliness. Jude the Obscure attacks the hypocrisy and double standards inherent in late-Victorian attitudes towards class, education, the role of women, and marriage. Jude studies tirelessly to realize his ambitions but an indifferent Fate, allied to society’s entrenched attitudes towards the working classes, condemns his efforts to failure. Jude the Obscure was somewhat Hardy’s representative novel. He

uses numerous symbols and images to show his intended viewpoints which are totally different from the secular ones. The clacker, appearing at the beginning of the novel Jude the Obscure, is the instrument Jude used or rattled briskly. “You shall have some dinner—you shall...Eat, then, my dear little birdies, and make a good meal!” “The clacker he had by this time thrown away from him, as being a mean and sordid instrument, offensive both to the birds and to himself as their friend”.

 

Jude Fawley, a poor villager, wants to enter the divinity school at Christminster (the University of Oxford). Sidetracked by Arabella Donn, an earthy country girl who pretends to be pregnant by him, Jude marries her but is later deserted. He earns a living as a stonemason at Christminster; there he falls in love with his independent-minded cousin, Sue Bridehead. Out of a sense of obligation, Sue marries the schoolmaster Phillotson, who has helped her. Unable to bear living with Phillotson, she returns to live with Jude and eventually bears his children out of wedlock. Their poverty and the weight of society’s disapproval begin to take a toll on Sue and Jude; the climax occurs when Jude’s son by Arabella hangs Sue and Jude’s children and himself. In penance, Sue returns to Phillotson and the church. Jude returns to Arabella and eventually dies miserably.

 

The novel’s sexual frankness shocked the public, as did Hardy’s criticisms of marriage, the university system, and the church. Hardy was so distressed by its reception that he wrote no more fiction, concentrating solely on his poetry.

 

Themes of Jude the Obscure

 

• Education and Class
• Marriage 
• Social Criticism
• Women in Society
• Religion
• Free will and Human Frustration

 

Education and Class

Education provide the means for upward social mobility but, in doing so, it also challenges the established order that gives advantages and privileges to those already at the higher end of the class system. From the 1870s this had been a reason for Oxford University in particular to hold back the spread of adult education to the working classes in an effort to protect the already over-crowded middle-class professions. Jude meets nothing but resistance from the authorities at Christminster – Hardy’s fictional name for Oxford – in his pursuit of education and social improvement. When he writes to the college masters for advice he receives but a single reply, a brief letter from the Master of Christminster’s Biblioll College stating that judging from Jude’s description of himself as a working man, ‘I venture to think that you will have a much better chance of success in life by remaining in your own sphere and sticking to your trade than by adopting any other course’. In other words, the advice from Christminster is that the working classes should remain the working class.

Access to Oxford and Cambridge at this time also required detailed knowledge of classical Greek and Latin texts, both taught intensively at expensive public schools. 

 

Jude’s attempts to teach himself Latin and Greek from various primers, although admirable, were never going to put him on an equal footing with those who could afford expensive education. Again middle-class rules and middle-class money acted to keep the working classes in check. 

Marriage 

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 their entire lives. When they meet each other and fall in love, Sue and Jude’s pure connection is constantly obstructed by their earlier marriages, and Hardy even presents the tragedy of Little Father Time’s murder-suicide as a natural result of broken marriages and unhappy relationships.

In the narrator’s asides, Hardy also criticizes marriage, describing it as a binding contract that most young lovers are incapable of understanding. He doesn’t believe that the institution is inherently evil, but that it isn’t right for every situation and personality – “sensitive” souls like Jude and Sue should be able to live as husband and wife without a binding legal contract. Though he argues for this flexibility and seems to propose the couple’s unmarried relationship as an ideal solution, Hardy then punishes his protagonists in his plot, ultimately driving Sue back to Phillotson and Jude back to Arabella. The novel is not a simple diatribe against marriage but instead illustrates a complex, contradictory situation. Sue and Jude want their love to be true and spontaneous, but also totally monogamous and everlasting. The epigraph to the novel is “the letter killeth,” which comes from a quote from Jesus in the Bible: “The letter killeth, but the spirit giveth light.” Hardy intended this quote to refer to marriage, where the contract of the institution kills joy and true love, but Hardy purposefully leaves off the optimism of “the spirit” – Jude and Sue’s joy is fleeting even when they are only following “Nature’s law,” and in the end, they find no good answer for how to properly love and live together. By the novel’s tragic end Hardy still leaves the question of marriage unanswered, emphasizing only his dissatisfaction with the institution as it stands.

Social Criticism

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 in Oxford. Jude works for years teaching himself classical languages, but he is never accepted simply because of his social class and poverty. In Jude’s unjustified failures Hardy demonstrates the unfairness and classism of the educational system.

Relating to the marriage theme, Hardy also emphasizes the oppressiveness of Victorian society in dealing with any unorthodox domestic situation. Jude and Sue cannot find a room or a steady job as long as their marital status is anything but traditional, and Phillotson loses his teaching job because he allowed Sue to leave him. Hardy was far ahead of his time in many of his views – implying that universities should accept members of the working class, couples could live together without being married, and even that the father of a woman’s child should be the woman’s business alone – but Hardy’s society was not ready for such criticism. The backlash against Jude the Obscure was so harsh that Hardy gave up writing altogether.

Women in Society

 

Sue Bridehead is a surprisingly modern and complex heroine of 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. She also works alongside both Phillotson and Jude, first marrying Phillotson partly to further her own teaching position (instead of acting as the traditional housewife).

 

Two women play a key role in the exploration of these ideas, and each highlights in a different fashion the choices faced by women at the time: Arabella Donn – seductive, intelligent but uneducated, manipulative, and a born survivor; and Sue Bridehead, Jude’s cousin – intelligent, free-spirited (her love of Edgar Allan Poe’s poem ‘The Raven’ is indicative of her unconventional tastes). Sue’s ability to support herself financially via her career as a teacher and her opposition to marriage marks her out as someone readers at the time would have readily labeled a ‘New Woman.

 

Despite her intelligence and independence, Sue fails at her endeavors throughout the book, and through her sufferings, Hardy critiques the society that punishes his heroine. Sue, like other women, is expected to be the “property” of the man she marries, so Sue is bound to Phillotson for life even after their separation. Sue is never allowed to advance in her work (despite her intelligence) because of her marital status. As an unmarried, disgraced woman she has no power in society. While Hardy was ahead of his time in creating such a strong female character, he still clings to many gender stereotypes about women: Sue is emotionally fragile and often hysterical, changing her mind at the slightest whim and breaking down in the face of tragedy. As an opposite to Sue, Arabella is greedy, sensual, and vain – the stereotype of everything Victorian society found bad and sinful in women. Though Arabella is usually the antagonist, she is also the character who ends up the most fortunate in the plot, showing just how unprepared society was for a character like Sue.

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 god's Venus and Apollo. Jude, meanwhile, hopes to join the clergy as part of his intellectual pursuits. At a model of Jerusalem, Sue wonders why Jerusalem should be honored above Athens or Rome, but Jude is mesmerized by this city which is so important to Christianity.

As with most of his arguments, Hardy also undercuts himself and favors a nuanced approach to an issue. Even as he seems to reject Christianity, he also portrays almost all the main characters as Christ figures at several points, even describing them with Biblical language. The “pagan joy” of Sue and Jude’s unmarried, unreligious love is not actually that joyful either, and Hardy thoroughly punishes them with his plot, ultimately driving Sue to submit to a harsh, legalistic version of Christianity. By associating Sue’s turn to religion with Jude’s turn to alcohol (both used as relief from the tragedy of their children’s death), Hardy again adds more nuance – Christianity may be the “right” way for his country and time, but it can still be used for less-than-pure purposes. As “Nature’s law” fails Sue and Jude, “Heaven’s law” also fails them, and the “letter” of the law of Christianity can seem less moral than human nature. Hardy gives many examples of this, including Sue’s return to Phillotson, which is a kind of adultery even though they are legally and religiously married. As usual, Hardy ends without any clear answer. He seems to reject a Christianity that is overly concerned with laws and traditions, but he doesn’t portray paganism or atheism as a particularly fulfilling alternative either.

 

 

Free will and Human Frustration

 

Jude the Obscure is one of Hardy’s masterpieces. At the time of the novel’s composition, Thomas Hardy (1840–1928) was living between the turn of the 20th century and the eve of the 19th century. The Victorian age is an eventful period, during which great changes have taken place. Schopenhauer’s mysterious theory of voluntarism and gloomy pessimism, as well as the rudiment of feminism, made a notable impact in Hardy’s theme creation. Jude the Obscure is one of Hardy’s masterpieces. At the time of the novel’s composition, Thomas Hardy (1840–1928) was living between the turn of the 20th century and the eve of the 19th century. The Victorian age is an eventful period, during which great changes have taken place. Schopenhauer’s mysterious theory of voluntarism and gloomy pessimism, as well as the rudiment of feminism made a notable impact in Hardy’s theme creation. Jude the Obscure is one of Hardy’s masterpieces. At the time of the novel’s composition, Thomas Hardy (1840–1928) was living between the turn of the 20th century and the eve of the 19th century. The Victorian age is an eventful period, during which great changes have taken place. Schopenhauer’s mysterious theory of voluntarism and gloomy pessimism, as well as the rudiment of feminism made a notable impact on Hardy’s theme creation.

Conclusion

Jude the Obscure is one of Hardy’s masterpieces. At the time of the novel’s composition, Thomas Hardy (1840–1928) was living between the turn of the 20th century and the eve of the 19th century. The Victorian age is an eventful period, during which great changes have taken place. Schopenhauer’s mysterious theory of voluntarism and gloomy pessimism, as well as the rudiment of feminism, made a notable impact on Hardy’s theme creation.

Work Cited

 

• Buzwell, Greg. “An introduction to Jude the Obscure.” The British Library, 15 May 2014, https://www.bl.uk/romantics-and-victorians/articles/an-introduction-to-jude-the-obscure. Accessed 4 November 2022.
• Cosby, Matt. “Jude the Obscure Themes.” LitCharts, 24 July 2014, https://www.litcharts.com/lit/jude-the-obscure/themes. Accessed 4 November 2022.
• Fincham, Tony. “Life of Thomas Hardy.” The Thomas Hardy Society, 2019, https://www.hardysociety.org/life/. Accessed 4 November 2022.
• Lu, Guorong, and Zhehui Zhang. “On the Theme of Thomas Hardy’s Jude the Obscure.” 2019, https://www.researchgate.net/publication/335275879_On_the_Theme_of_Thomas_Hardy's_Jude_the_Obscure. Accessed 4 November 2022.

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