Jude the Obscure

 Jude the Obscure

Hello Readers, I am writing down answers to some questions in this blog. Which is given by Dr. Dilip Barad sir, Department of English Maharaja Krishnakumarsinhji Bhavnagar University.

Introduction of the Author Thomas Hardy

"One of the most renowned poets and novelists in English literary history"

Thomas Hardy was born in 1840 in the English village of Higher Bockhampton in the county of Dorset. He died in 1928 at Max Gate, a house he built for himself and his first wife, Emma Lavinia Gifford, in Dorchester, a few miles from his birthplace. Hardy’s youth was influenced by the musicality of his father, a stonemason, fiddler, and his mother, Jemima Hand Hardy.

As Irving Howe noted in Thomas Hardy, any “critic can and often does, see all that is wrong with Hardy’s poetry but whatever it was that makes for his strange greatness is hard to describe.”

Jude the Obscure is a critique of the marriage institution of Victorian society

"Marriage", as a social institution, has always been considered one of the major themes around which a good number of Victorian novels such as Jude the  Obscure revolve. It is believed by many critics that the presentation of  "marriage"  in this novel has been performed through various literary tones including irony, diatribe, sarcasm, satire, or direct criticism. The first question is about Hardy himself: Does  Hardy take sides with his own fictional characters (Jude and Sue) or does he support the conventional side? It is already known that Sue and Jude's ideas do not conform to the dominant definition of marriage in the Victorian era. However, at the end of the novel, we have Sue define herself as "a poor wicked woman who is trying to mend" we observe Jude musing, "What does it  matter what  my opinions  are, a wretched like me!" 

“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.” ― Thomas Hardy

A major theme in the novel is that people often make wrong choices in marrying. Given human error and the Consequences of a poor choice in a marital partner, the story shows that people should not be bound to remain in an unhappy relationship and suffer a lifetime of penance.

In other words, Hardy's decision in depicting Jude and Sue as the "wretched" man and the "poor woman" somehow implies that his pioneer characters' daring personalities are finally influenced and fated by the author's  Victorian  "internalized" conventions. It has already been mentioned that Jude and Sue represent the resisting discourse within society. It should be added that according to Foucault, this resistance is an inward necessity for  the dominant system to consolidate its own discourse. Jude the Obscure implicitly supports such an institution of marriage. The Victorian period is not a suitable time for the unconventional, marginal discourses of marriage. As Jude says, "Our ideas were fifty years too soon".

Thomas Hardy, as a member of Victorian society, presents the subject of marriage in Jude the Obscure in a two-dimensional discourse. The first level, which is explicit, seems to be a critical approach to Victorian marriage; the second one, however, the one that is more implicitly provided, is a consolidatory discourse that supports traditional marriage.

Write an essay on the symbols like Christminister and Little Father Time in the novel Jude the Obscure.

Among the symbols employed by Hardy in Jude, the biblical archetypal character is the most deliberate and intentional. Generally speaking, an archetype is an image that recalls basically psychological events common to all people and all cultures. A character or a pattern of images or events so fundamental that it has never been absent from literature, religion, myth, and dream.

As a literary technique, symbolism in English literature has a great tradition, and it plays an important role in Hardy's Jude the Obscure. This thesis mainly focuses on Hardy's use of symbolism, which includes biblical archetypes and the theme of the quest implied by the context. In this way, the author finds something new in the understanding of the novel. As in Hardy's other novels, symbolism in Jude the Obscure tends to be taken from nature and religion. Two symbols of major importance are Christminster and the character of Little Father Time. They are useful to discuss since the first is an instance of a successful symbol and the second an unsuccessful one.

Christminster-

Jude's idea of Christminster permeates not only his thinking but the whole novel. From his first view of it on the horizon to his hearing the sounds of the holiday there coming in his window as he lies on his deathbed, Christminster represents to him all that is desirable in life. It is by this idea that he measures everything. He encounters evidence in abundance that it is not in fact what he thinks it is in his imagination, but he will not take heed. It finally represents to him literally all that he has left in life. Of course, other characters as well are affected by Jude's idea of the place.

For Jude specifically, the city symbolizes not only knowledge, learning, and purity, but also his desire for a new life. After all, Jude grows up in a small town where his choices for the future are extremely limited. Think about his jobs along the way, before he makes the big move to the big city: he is an official, employed bird scarer (seriously—he's a living scarecrow); he works for his aunt the baker, and he picks up stonemasonry. These are all fine jobs (well, except maybe the scarecrow one), but not necessarily ideal for a young man who prizes learning above all else. It is a successful symbol because it is capable of representing what it is supposed to and it does not call attention to itself as a literary device.

'Jude the Obscure' strongly emphasizes Jude's intelligence, drive, and ambition. And it also strongly emphasizes the social forces that unfairly keep Jude out of the university and out of Christminster. As the physical symbol of the wealth and privilege that Jude seeks and fails to get, Christminster stands in for that larger, messed-up world that completely rejects Jude for daring to find ambition and hope while coming from the wrong side of the tracks.

Little Father Times-

Jude’s son with Arabella, he was born in Australia and sent to England to live with Jude years later. The boy was never named or given love, and his nickname is “Little Father Time” because he seems old beyond his years. Jude and Sue christen him “Jude,” but his old nickname sticks. Little Father Time is a world-weary, depressed child who lacks any curiosity or joy. He is portrayed as a result of the divorce, lovelessness, and bad luck in his life, and in this, he acts as a symbol as well as a character. Little Father Time ultimately takes Sue’s depressing words to heart and kills himself and Sue’s two children in order to try to free Sue and Jude from their burdens. Little Father Time, however, is a different matter. The boy's appearance, his persistent gloom, his oracular tone, and his inability ever to respond to anything as a child-all of these call attention to the fact that he is supposed to represent something. And Hardy makes the child carry more meaning than he is naturally able to. He is fate, of course, but also blighted hopes, failure, change, etc.

“Don’t tell the child when he comes in,” whispered Sue nervously. “He’ll think it has all gone on the right, and it will be better that he should not be surprised and puzzled. Of course, it is only put off for reconsideration. If we are happy as we are, what does it matter to anybody?” - Sue Bridehead

The use of irony is of course commonplace in fiction, and a number of effective instances of it in Hardy's novel are to be found. In some instances, the reader but not the character recognizes the irony; in others, both the reader and the character are aware of it. An example of the first is Jude's occupational choice of ecclesiastical stonework in medieval Gothic style at a time when medievalism in architecture is dying out or the way Arabella alienates Jude by the deception she has used to get him to marry her the first time. An example of the second is Jude's dying in Christminster, the city that has symbolized all his hopes, or the way Arabella's calling on Jude in Aldbrickham in order to reawaken his interest in her helps bring about Sue's giving herself to him.

The irony is particularly appropriate in a novel of tragic intent, in which events do not work out the way the characters expect. Certainly, it is appropriate in a novel that has the kind of theme this one does. Struggling to break free of the old, the characters experience the old sufferings and failure nonetheless.

[Word Count- 1508]