Jude the Obscure Essay

Jude the Obscure or Jude the Obscene as denounced by critics upon its release is Thomas
Hardys last complete novel published in book form in 1895. It is reputed to have been
inspired by Hardys friend Horace Moules scholastic failure and suicide.

The plot anchors around Jude Fawleys an orphaned, eleven-year-old inhabitant of the
hamlet of Marygreen, housed by his aunt Dursilla, who owns a local bakery sanctified
resolution to follow in his previous schoolmasters footsteps, Mr. Richard Phillotson, of
attending a university in Christminister in hopes of becoming a scholar. However, fate wills
him to happen upon Arabella Donn, a crude, coquettish, flirtatious and superficial temptress
who decoys him into an acrimonious and tumultuous marriage on account of a fake
pregnancy, a ploy intimated by her friends Sarah and Anna.

The marriage proves ephemeral, and after it implodes, Arabella moves to Australia where
she enters a bigamous marriage, whereas Jude winds up in Christminister at last, where he
meets his cousin Sue Bridehead, whose acquaintance he makes against his aunt wishes. Jude
battles his amatory sentiments towards Sue on account of three reasons, namely his being
married, her being his cousin, and the cancerous nature of matrimony intrinsic to the Fawley
clan. Jude and Sue find mutual grounds in Mr. Phillotson, whom Sue would marry to Judes
mortal dejection. Sue, then, finds the espousal intolerable owing to her, in turn, being in love
with Jude. Subsequently, she leaves Mr. Phillotson for her cousin.

Jude and Sue wind up divorcing their significant-others, and engage in a non-marital
relationship. It happens that Arabella reveals to Jude that she begot a son from him, Little
Father Time, whom he offers to take in. Sue and Jude serve as parents to him, and as a
matter of course, have two children of their own. Jude resolves to return to Christminister,
but finding a lodging there proves to be troublesome due to Sue being technically his
concubine. Thus, Jude takes abode in an inn separate to Sues. After coming back from
breakfast one morning, they find out that Little Father Time has taken his half siblings life
along with his own. Construing the calamity as divine retribution for being involved with
Jude, Sue goes back to Mr. Phillotson, and Jude gets caught in Arabellas mesh once more,
after which he soon dies.

The tragic plot of the novel is steered and animated by five main characters; to wit Jude
Fawley who is a protagonist of ordinary, diligent, ambitious, benevolent and rather sensitive
disposition, downtrodden by a despotic social system that rendered his valiant efforts at
ameliorating his social and intellectual status improbable. As such, Hardy paints his odyssey
as a martyrdom of pyrric endeavors. Second, and akin to Jude to an uncanny extent, comes
Richard Phillotson whose moral constitution that underlies his kind, generous and forgiving
personality causes him to be vellipended by Sue, resulting in his impoverished and
disreputable downfall. Hardy, deliberately or otherwise, crafts two characters who have
more or less to the same fate to reinforce the notion that there was no place for the goodly
in the Victorian era. The third character is Arabella Donn who comes across as thoroughly
coarse, affectatious, cunning, unapologetic for her insensitivity and overall ghoulish in
executing her nefarious, selfish schemes for gaining security, financial or otherwise, be the
price as it may. In contrast to Arabella, Sue Bridehead, the fourth main character, is a
vivacious, free-spirited, tantalizing female of capacious intellectual capacity and an
unorthodox take on the prevalent notions of the Victorian society. Despite these admirable
qualities, Sue is a prejudiced towards Judes ideas that oppose hers, and repugnant of
marriage, which she dismisses as a sordid contract, and physical contact. Not only that, but
she also cowers at the first sign of a hardship, and has vagarious moods. In the a nutshell,
she is a selfish maelstrom that churns anyone and anything in her wake. Little Father time,
the fifth main character, is Jude and Arabellas offspring. Hes a world-weary child, sagacious
beyond his years, who lacks the vim and verve typical to kids his age. He is a the
quintessence of the aftermaths of divorce, and a creature deemed disposable by his own
mother.

The novels raises many an eyebrow when dealing with central themes, namely marriage,
education, social class, religion and disappointment. Hardy goes to impossible lengths to
propound that marriage is an archaic institution, uncongenial for the main characters;
therefore he calsl for its eschewal in so many words. Hardy also takes hits at how education
is discriminative and hierarchical, and that autodidactism proves a customary, mind you
futile in the long run, way of learning among pupils of Judes social class. It was social
classification that Hardy censored for its rigidity, and which proves a blessing and a curse to
the main characters; while it robs Jude of a chance at social improvement, it grants him an
unlawful amatory cohabitation with Sue with close to non-existent scrutiny for quite
sometime. Religion does not escape Hardys razor-sharp pen who was intrigued by
Christianity; He slowly but surely turns Jude from a devout Christian to an infidel, using
curious, impartial Sue as a catalyst for this metamorphosis. Disappointment proves to be a
recurring theme throughout the novels, for Jude endures many a disappointment:
disappointment in his career, disappointment in his marriage, disappointment and
Phillotsons and his inability to realize his aspiration.