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Contemporary Relevance in Hardys Jude the Obscure

Ananya Mukherjee
Former Student,
Dept. of English,
University of Kalyani.
Of course no text, however hard it tries, stands free within its frame. But Jude the obscure
rejoices in its enlargement. -John Goode
A text, once in circulation, continues to exist in the cultural memory by a process which we call
reception. The reception of a work involves an active participation of the readers of ages
beyond the authors own. The ways of participating in thus rediscovering the text is overlaid with
ascribing a sense of contemporariness. The great artist is sometimes a conscious or unconscious
exponent of his Time-spirit that is the total outcome, the quintessential accretion of all
political, social, religious and scientific changes of a particular age. Hardys Jude the Obscure
can be studied as a reflection of the spirit of the age that gives birth to a new spirit for us and
helps us to think beyond a particular race and a particular epoch. It becomes a sort of
psychological approach, a supplementary and commentary on history. Thus a classic text
survives through ages and the artists creation becomes his reaction to life that gives the realistic
attitude to his creative aspect. The essence of literature lies in the individual approach of the
author, which will dominate over other influences. Undoubtedly the author is shaped by the spirit
of age, but he has also got the capabilities to mould his period.
In this paper I will try to find out the relevance of Hardys novel Jude the Obscure in this
contemporary society. It is the last novel of Hardy that was first printed in a form of a serial story
in Harpers New Monthly Magazine, from 1894 to November 1895 and its in the year 1895 that
Jude the Obscure was published as a complete novel. From its very beginning, Hardy shows how
society overpowers the lives of Jude and Sue and causes the suffering that ends in death. The
interference of the conventional society in mans life makes Hardy uncomfortable. Mans
presence, therefore, becomes the means to please social norms. Here the natural self is
overpowered by the social self. Hardy projects the Victorian conservative society that thwarts
the fulfillment of the passionate yearnings of his characters.
Patricia Ingham conceptualizes that Jude the Obscure relates three major forces of Victorian
society. (a) The awareness of woman; that their womanhood and performance forced on them by
the (b) Middle class stranglehold to achieve the passionate aim of having most prestigious
university education. patriarchal society is not the sole reason. (c) The unresolved tension
imposed by an established Christianity, had lost rational justification.
Hardys treatment of the problems does not simply address the issues of Victorian era but is
applicable to a larger extent to the modern society. Hardy succeeds in giving his message,
instead of being severely criticized by his contemporary writers and critics, for proposing the
free approach towards life. Aptly stated by Basudeb Chakraborti in his book Thomas Hardys
View of Happiness: A Study of His Major Novels and Short Stories that, Despite having to swim
against the current, Thomas Hardy was not drowned: his massage survived. () He said it by
means of art. (Chakraborti, 5)

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Hardys purpose was to portray more clearly the features that matter in those realities.
(Chakraborti, 5) These features of reality concentrates on the problems created by the class
structure. Jude the Obscure becomes the history of a worthy mans education and his failure to
achieve his aim. It has something that threatened to undermine the structure of the Victorian
society. Hardys attack is on Oxford and the class system that Oxford implied in particular. The
educational system, constructed by Victorian society was highly class oriented, therefore, social
strata and class became a priori to the educational system. Here Judes aim is doomed to failure
for his belonging to a middle class social background. Victorian society does not permit the
education of a person who is financially weak and who does not enjoy the opportunities provided
by a higher social stratum. Jude being an orphan is neglected by his aunt who fails to see the
marks of brilliance in Jude. Judes passionate love for theology and classics is undoubtedly a
matter not easily acceptable for his concerned society. Jude is exceptional who instead of his
social background concentrates in becoming a scholar of repute. His world of private study
plunged into the simpler passages from Caesar, Virgil, or Horace. (Hardy, 51)
Jude is a reader, but a reader of printed texts rather than of the signs of nature. () Judes
Christminster is created for him by words, by printed books. (Garson, 180). For him
Christminster becomes the necessary hall-mark of a man who wants to do anything in
teaching. (Hardy, 29 Its a city of light where the tree of knowledge grows in a castle
manned by scholarship and religion but for Sue its a nest of commonplace schoolmasters,
whose characteristic is timid obsequiousness to tradition. When Jude starts his journey, his
egotistic aspect is clear in him, but the college authority rejects him to be admitted as a student
for not having a family status. From this very initial stage his dream of becoming a regular
student is deferred leaving him no way except becoming a stone cutter. Hardy conceptualizes the
idea of a common mans dream unaware of the harsh reality and Hardys own reaction to the
educational system provided by Oxford. His concentration is on the Nineteenth century
educational system that was not democratized at all.
The arch egotist Jude becomes the victim of a society that interferes in his private life. As
stated by Basudeb Chakraborti that both Spencer and Hardy believe that, whenever and
wherever there is social or governmental interference in an individuals life, that life becomes
miserable.(Chakraborti, 88) in reference to his words I would like to quote some lines that
implies the same idea of social interference in a individuals life during the late nineteenth
century when the most private act of sexuality becomes a concerned matter of public with the
interference of state and law.
At the beginning of the seventeenth century certain frankness was still common it would
seem sexual practices had little need of secrecy. Words were said without undue
reticence, and things were done without too much concealment, (). It was a time of
direct gestures, shameless discourse, when anatomies were shown and intermingled at
will. () In the time of Victorian bourgeoisie sexuality was carefully confined it moved
into the home, the conjugal family took custody of it and absorbed it into the serious
function of reproduction. (Foucault, 3)
The subtitle of Jude the obscure is taken from the New Testament II Corinthians 3.6. The
letter killeth, but the spirit giveth life. the second half of this quotation, the spirit [that] giveth
life is interestingly omitted by Hardy. The Epigraph is, therefore, pointing out the familiar
opposition between spirit and letter. That transforms into the new contrast of flesh and spirit,

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it also links up to the contrast between the state of civil society and the state of nature. Therefore,
it becomes a deadly war waged between flesh and spirit. presented through Arabella and Sue.
Jude becomes infatuated with the enchanted beauty of glamorous Arabella Donn. Judes
youth is enticed with her deceitful attitude. Arabella Donn becomes the symbol of the flesh
Arabella remains uneducated, like most of the women in her class. She finds marriage as an
institution for legalizing her sexual acts and for her, marriage is in one way means to live and
earn livelihood. Love for Arabella is a strategy for getting married. She is presented here as a
practical woman with a materialistic thought process and is clearly identified with her acts. She
heartlessly kills the pig and instructs Jude to let the pig did slow for the meat must be well bled,
unless they would lose a shilling a score if the meat was red and bloody. She knows that the
poor must survive.
Arabellas insult to Jude can be studied as an outburst of her failure to achieve the economic
security from Jude. Her pretention of pregnancy can be cited as her urge for being sexually
united with Jude, here again marriage acts as a license to her sexuality. She confesses her
physical desire for a man that brings her closure to the realm of new woman heroines, for they
openly acknowledge their physical yearnings without reservation because they consider this
something very natural. D. H. Lawrence has admired Arabella for her freedom of expression,
when he says: Arabella was under all her disguise of pig fat and false hair and vulgar speech, in
character somewhat an aristocrat, she was, like Eustia amazingly lawless, even splendidly so, she
believed in herself and she was not altered by any outside opinion of herself. (Langbaum, 23)
Arabella for this similar reason remarries in Australia and leaves Jude. Jude fails to
understand Arabella during the period that he spends with her before marriage. Jude realized
Arabellas intention and her vulgarity only after getting married to her. Their separation gives
Jude another chance to get into his private world. His ego still has some hope alive instead of
being frustrated and refused. This creates the way for his Cousin Sues entrance into his life.
Jude develops a feeling towards her. That gradually forms a platonic concept of love between
them.
In a letter to Florence Henniker, August 12, 1895, Hardy exclaims that Sue is a type of
woman which has always had an attraction for me-but the difficulty of drawing the type has kept
me from attempting it till now. Thomas Hardys interest was in movements of the womans
rights. Bathsheba, Grace, Tess, sue almost all the heroines fit into the category of the Twenty-
first century concept of the independent woman. Sue has a progressive realization concerning her
independence and individuality: she has thoughts and desires of her own. But the ambiguous
nature differentiates her from the new woman heroines, for being engrossed with the
conventionalities of time.
Kathleen Blake has stated that Lloyd Fernando critiques sue in Contrast to other New-
Woman heroines of that contemporary period: Hardy shows how and why Sue Bridehead is a
free woman but a repressive personality, Sophisticated but infantile, passionate but sexless,
independent but heeding men, unconventional but conventional. (Blake, 83)
Penny Boumelha considers that Sue belongs not to the tradition of feminism as such, but to
the literary tradition of the New-Woman. (Boumelha, 53) But also has pointed out that Sue
Bridehead contradicts with the conventional New Woman idea with her presentation of

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individuality, as she consistently refuses to speak for woman as a group, posing herself always a
special case. Basudeb Chakraborti has pointed out that the hero and heroines in Jude the
Obscure are born as egotists and they die with their egotism. (Chakraborti, 114) Altruism,
therefore, becomes an alien subject to Sue also. Hardy contradicts from the Shavian idea of New
Woman, while presenting Sue without being constricted within the narrow compass of a
particular kind of woman. Sue, therefore, becomes a figure that combines some minute aspects
of woman that helps the readers to project her easily in the modern concept of woman in this
twenty-first century.
Hardys focus was especially on the late nineteenth century, a period considered to be fin de
sicle, an exciting phase of transition, enriched with many new ideas which re-evaluate the
concept of marriage as an institution. Marriage is considered to be a contract in the marriage
act. A married womans condition is to be referred as coverture, under the common law this
term signifies that the legal existence of the woman is suspended during the marriage, or at least
is incorporated and consolidated into that of the husband. Jude the Obscure can be treated as one
of Hardys contribution to the marriage question that deals marriage as a concerned problem in
the contemporary society. In a letter to Gosse, Hardy suggests that marriage is doomed to
failure, because it promises to deliver something it cannot. Sue also exclaims that:
If a marriage ceremony is a religious thing, it is possibly wrong, but if it is only a sordid
contract, based on material convenience in house holding, rating, taxing, and the
inheritance of land and money by children, making it necessary that the male parent
should be known-(...). (Hardy, 230)
For sue marriage can never become a religious ceremony, its simply a sordid contract which
evacuate the tenderness between couples. Sue exclaims that: Why cant we agree to free each
other? 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 doesnt hurt other people?
(Hardy, 243)
Hardy in his postscript 1912 to the novel has argued that: A marriage should be dissolvable
as soon as it becomes a cruelty to either of the parties-being then essentially and morally no
marriage. (Hardy, 25) Therefore, Hardy was bold enough to present a kind of human
relationship between a man and a woman which was not approved by the institutionalized
concept of marriage. In a way the relationship between sue and Jude is popularly known as
Companionate marriage in Victorian England.
This companionate marriage is based on the intuitive love between two people, believes in
free 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.. Weber has stated that The love of Jude and
Sue, with all its errors and its agony, most nearly approaches the ideal love (). (Weber, 150)
This concept has now become a need for this modern society to avoid the risks of broken
marriage.
But the conservative society doesnt permit this free union between two persons as it only
accepts the bond signed in paper that promises the endless compromise with a persons natural
self. Its a social construct of which Jude and Sue becomes the victim. The question that Hardy

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raises in the context of Victorian era is still in its process to find a proper answer. This finds its
relation with the modern concept of live together, where two persons share a home and have a
sexual relationship, without being tied into the bond of marriage. Today this concept of live-
together is gradually becoming a matter of great concern for the novelists and Film makers, as
many themes have already been produced that brings forward this concept. Some finds a sort of
tolerance with it but a great part of this patriarchal society still in this twenty-first century needs
the stamp of civil law for this intuitive love to be legalized. The unwed mother, is considered to
be socially unacceptable. Her intuitive love can be treated as adultery. The mother will be forced
to feel guilt for the work that she has innocently performed. This has became a meaningless
convention, that there is something wrong with a woman becoming pregnant unless she has
promised to live with one man forever, for better or for worse one meaningless convention gives
sustenance to another. (Chakraborti, 32)
This again becomes a conflict between social norms and natural intuition. The unwed mother
becomes a threat to patriarchy if she determines to remain unmarried, for this can diminish the
established notion of parenthood where the society names the child in the name of the father, and
the mother is considered only the nurse of that new planted seed and the parent is he who
mounts. In order to establish the object-hood of a woman her pregnancy has to be constricted
within the wedlock, society has created this rule of marriage in order to establish its interference
in a persons life. Sue becomes an unwed mother who gives birth to Judes children, but the,
Premature death of their children ultimately brings them on the verge of collapse. The
untimely death of their children has a demoralizing effect on them. Sue, with the death of
her children is confronted with a kind of intense agony. She at first tries to rationalize the
event of the death of her children but finally fails to control herself and an intense agony
overtakes her. (Chakraborti, 117)
Hardy, therefore, deals with these contemporary ideas. That was not previously being treated
as a part of a novels theme in the writings of Hardys contemporary novelists. Hardy is
considered to be the pioneer to deal with such sensitive issues. Hardy instead of having a free
approach towards life is forced to make a compromise with society when he brings Sue at a point
where after losing her children she somehow starts blaming herself as responsible for their death.
She becomes superstitious when she considers the accident as a punishment of her sin for being
an unwed mother. She somehow accepts the social construct as her destiny which takes her into
the custody of marriage. She returns to a broken relationship with Phillotson and her intuitive
love dies with the sense of disappointment. Hardy had to compromise that time for stepping
forward to liberate womans selfhood, but I think today this concept of unwed mother is
recognition of a womans independence of the freedom in taking decisions for themselves and
for their children. Its a realization of a womans self.
The relationships between Jude and Arabella, Sue and Phillotson are formed on the basis of
deception as they are devoid of the true sense of love. This brings forth the idea of New Dualism;
originated from Darwins Origin of Species. The failure in those marriages establishes Hardys
notion of duality that is an important aspect of Victorian era but the seed of broken marriage is
deeply rooted in the context of modern era. Arabellas pretention of her pregnancy, her act of
saving the egg in her breast, her materialistic approach to Jude, her failure to achieve monitory
security from Jude, and her second marriage, intensifies Arabellas deception, where as Sues

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confusing attitude towards sexual life, her platonic love for Jude, her marriage and divorce with
Phillotson, all implies the same conflict in Sue. William. R. Goetz has stated in this context,
There is yet another twist to Sues unwilling to commit an act of adultery, she is willing to
practice a deception and give the appearance of engaging in adultery. It is this appearance, as she
knows, that will move Phillotson to seek and obtain a divorce from her. (Goetz, 203)
Again Sues frank approach towards life and with the death of her children her sudden change
of mentality makes Sue a person who is herself an egotist and becomes the victim of some
meaningless problems which also involves Judes sufferings to compromise with his dreams
concerning his education and his personal life with Sue. Society makes Jude the victim of
dualism. Therefore, Hardy was bold enough to present the sense of dualism in every step of life.
Deception, therefore, is applicable not only to a particular age but has its relevance in this
contemporary society where this novel talks about those meaningless problems in the lives of
the victims who unknowingly accepts their condition and sometimes revolts against it with a
broken heart filled with disappointment. Sue and Jude thus stand at the conjuncture of class and
sexual oppression.
Sue is idealized with the qualities of a Woman of contemporary society. Hardys presentation
of Sue involves a contradiction, with New Woman, as,
The newest is beautiful, of course, in a large and haughty way, she is icily pureshe
despises the world of men, and herself, and is superbly unhappy. In spite of her purity she
is not very wholesome, she generally has a mission to solve the problems of existence
and on her erratic path through life she is helped by no sense of humor. (Novel Notes, 24)
Penny Boumelha has pointed out that, Sue Bridehead, with all her hesitations, evasions and
tentativeness, has none of this messianic sense of purpose which distinguishes her
contemporaries, (), posing herself always as a special case. (Boumelha, 55) Hardy gives his
view of Sue in response to the observation of a German viewer in Postscript 1912,
The first delineation of the woman who was coming into notice in her thousands every
year-the woman of the feminist movement the slight, pale bachelor girl the
intellectualized emancipated bundle of nerves that modern conditions were producing
mainly in the cities as yet who does not recognize the necessity for most of her sex to
follow marriage as a profession, and boast themselves as superior people because they are
licensed to be loved on the premises. (Hardy, 26)
Hardy tries to present Sue as an independent woman, of free will, deeply rooted in the modern
concept of twenty first century woman. At the end it is Sue Bridehead, the free spirit and free
thinker who re-constructs the providence of the novel, imposing a terrible restriction and law on
her behaviors and her body. This is Hardys truthfulness, as he knows that its quite impossible
to 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 of
freedom. Therefore, Hardys presentation of Jude the Obscure stands separately within the rush
of 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. Its the

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ecology of the novel and Hardys organic portrayal of Jude and Sue, makes the quest
meaningfully alive year after year in the heart of its readers.
Works Cited:
Blake, Kathleen. The woman of the feminist movement In Jude the Obscure. Ed. Harold
___Bloom, New York: Chelsea House publishers, 1987.
Boumelha, Penny. Jude the Obscure: Sexual Ideology and Narrative Form. In. Jude the
___Obscure. Ed. Penny Boumelha. London: Macmillan, 2000.
Chakraborti, Basudeb. Thomas Hardys View of Happiness: A Study of His Major Novels and
___Short Stories. Calcutta: Minerva Associates Publications Pvt. Ltd., 1997.
Foucault, Michel. The History of Sexuality. Australia: Penguin Books, 2008.
Garson, Marjorie. Jude the Obscure: What Does a Man Want?. Hardys Fables of Integrity:
___Woman, Body, Text. New York: Oxford University Press, 1991.
Goetz, R. William. The Felicity and infelicity of Marriage in Jude the Obscure. Nineteenth
___Century Fiction. Vol. 38, No.2. California: University of California Press 1983.
Goode, John. Hardys Fist In. Jude the Obscure .Ed. Penny Boumelha. London: Macmillan,
___2000.p.95
Hardy, Thomas. Jude the Obscure. New Wessex ed. London: Macmillan, 1974.
Langbaum, Robert. Thomas Hardy in Our Time. London: Macmillan, 1997.
Lawrence, D. H. The Study of Thomas Hardy and Other Essays. Cambridge: Press Syndicate of
___the University of Cambridge, 1985.
Weber, J. Carl. Hardy of Wessex. New York: Columbia University Press, 1940.

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