NAME : MAHIDA BHUMIKA PRAKASHBHAI
M A SEM -1
ROLL NUMBER : 5
ENROLLMENT NUMBER :3069206420200021
PAPER - 4
( LITERATURE OF THE VICTORIANS)
TOPIC: "JUDE THE OBSCURE" AS A VICTORIAN NOVEL
⚫ THOMAS HARDY ⚫
Thomas Hardy OM was an English novelist and poet. A Victorian realist in the tradition of George Eliot, he was influenced both in his novels and in his poetry by Romanticism, including the poetry of William Wordsworth.He was highly critical of much in Victorian society, especially on the declining status of rural people in Britain, such as those from his native South West England.
While Hardy wrote poetry throughout his life and regarded himself primarily as a poet, his first collection was not published until 1898. Initially, he gained fame as the author of novels such as Far from the Madding Crowd , The Mayor of Casterbridge , Tess of the d'Urbervilles, and Jude the Obscure . During his lifetime, Hardy's poetry was acclaimed by younger poets who viewed him as a mentor. After his death his poems were lauded by Ezra Pound, W. H. Auden and Philip Larkin.
Many of his novels concern tragic characters struggling against their passions and social circumstances, and they are often set in the semi-fictional region of Wessex; initially based on the medieval Anglo-Saxon kingdom, Hardy's Wessex eventually came to include the counties of Dorset, Wiltshire, Somerset, Devon, Hampshire and much of Berkshire, in southwest and south central England. Two of his novels, Tess of the d'Urbervilles and Far from the Madding Crowd, were listed in the top 50 on the BBC's survey The Big Read.
NOVELS
"Far from the madding crowd"
"Jude the obscure"
"The mayor of casterbridge"
"The returns of the native"
"Under the Greenwood tree"
"The Woodlanders"
...etc.
⚫ Jude the obscure
Summary
Jude Fawley dreams of studying at the university in Christminster, but his background as an orphan raised by his working-class aunt leads him instead into a career as a stonemason. He is inspired by the ambitions of the town schoolmaster, Richard Phillotson, who left for Christminster when Jude was a child. However, Jude falls in love with a young woman named Arabella, is tricked into marrying her, and cannot leave his home village. When their marriage goes sour and Arabella moves to Australia, Jude resolves to go to Christminster at last. However, he finds that his attempts to enroll at the university are met with little enthusiasm.
Jude meets his cousin Sue Bridehead and tries not to fall in love with her. He arranges for her to work with Phillotson in order to keep her in Christminster, but is disappointed when he discovers that the two are engaged to be married. Once they marry, Jude is not surprised to find that Sue is not happy with her situation. She can no longer tolerate the relationship and leaves her husband to live with Jude.
Summary Summary
Jude Fawley dreams of studying at the university in Christminster, but his background as an orphan raised by his working-class aunt leads him instead into a career as a stonemason. He is inspired by the ambitions of the town schoolmaster, Richard Phillotson, who left for Christminster when Jude was a child. However, Jude falls in love with a young woman named Arabella, is tricked into marrying her, and cannot leave his home village. When their marriage goes sour and Arabella moves to Australia, Jude resolves to go to Christminster at last. However, he finds that his attempts to enroll at the university are met with little enthusiasm.
Jude meets his cousin Sue Bridehead and tries not to fall in love with her. He arranges for her to work with Phillotson in order to keep her in Christminster, but is disappointed when he discovers that the two are engaged to be married. Once they marry, Jude is not surprised to find that Sue is not happy with her situation. She can no longer tolerate the relationship and leaves her husband to live with Jude.
Both Jude and Sue get divorced, but Sue does not want to remarry. Arabella reveals to Jude that they have a son in Australia, and Jude asks to take him in. Sue and Jude serve as parents to the little boy and have two children of their own. Jude falls ill, and when he recovers, he decides to return to Christminster with his family. They have trouble finding lodging because they are not married, and Jude stays in an inn separate from Sue and the children. At night Sue takes Jude's son out to look for a room, and the little boy decides that they would be better off without so many children. In the morning, Sue goes to Jude's room and eats breakfast with him. They return to the lodging house to find that Jude's son has hanged the other two children and himself. Feeling she has been punished by God for her relationship with Jude, Sue goes back to live with Phillotson, and Jude is tricked into living with Arabella again. Jude dies soon after.
Part I: At Marygreen
Everyone in Marygreen is upset because the schoolmaster, Richard Phillotson, is leaving the village for the town of Christminster, about twenty miles away. Phillotson does not know how to move his piano, or where he will store it, so an eleven-year-old boy of suggests keeping it in his aunt's fuel house. The boy, Jude Fawley, has been living with his aunt Drusilla, a baker, since his father died. Drusilla tells him that he should have asked the schoolteacher to take him to Christminster, because Jude loves books just like his cousin Sue.
Jude tires of hearing himself talked about and goes to the bakehouse to eat his breakfast. After eating he walks up to a cornfield and uses a clacker to scare crows away. However, he decides that the birds deserve to eat and stops sounding the clacker. He feels someone watching him and sees Mr. Troutham, the farmer who hired him to scare the crows away. The farmer fires him and Jude walks home to tell his aunt. She mentions Christminster again, and he asks what it is and whether he will ever be able to visit Phillotson there. She tells him that they have nothing to do with the people of Christminster. Jude goes into town and asks a man where Christminster is, and the man points to the northeast.
Jude decides to make himself more useful to his aunt and helps her with the bakery, delivering bread in a horse-drawn cart. While he drives the cart he studies Latin. At the age of sixteen, he decides to devote himself to Biblical texts and also to apprentice himself to a stonecutter for extra money. He still dreams of going to Christminster, and saves his money for this possibility. He keeps lodgings in the town of Alfredston, but returns to Marygreen each weekend. One day, when he is nineteen, he is walking to Marygreen and planning his education and his future as a bishop or archdeacon when he is struck in the ear by a piece of pig's flesh. He sees three young women washing chitterlings. He asks one of the girls to come get the piece of meat, and she introduces herself as Arabella Donn. He asks if he can see her the next day and she says yes. He thinks of studying Greek the next afternoon, but decides it would be rude not to call on Arabella as promised and takes her for a walk. He meets her family afterward and is struck by how serious they perceive his intentions to be. The next morning he goes back to where they walked together and overhears Arabella telling her friends that she wants to marry Jude. Jude finds his thoughts turning more and more to her.
Part II: At Christminster
Three years after his marriage, Jude decides to go to Christminster at last. He is motivated partly by a portrait of his cousin Sue Bridehead, who lives there. He finds lodging in a suburb called Beersheba and walks into town. He observes the colleges and quadrangles and finds himself conversing aloud with the great dead philosophers memorialized around him. The next morning he remembers that he has come to find his old schoolmaster and his cousin. His aunt sent the picture of Sue with the stipulation that Jude should not try to find her, and he decides that he must wait until he is settled to find Phillotson. He tries to find work in the colleges. He finally receives a letter from a stonemason's yard and promptly accepts employment there. He thinks of going to see Sue, despite his aunt's continuing entreaties not to see her. He walks to the shop his aunt described and sees Sue illuminating the word "Alleluja" on a scroll. He decides that he should not fall in love with her because marriage between cousins is never good, and his family in particular is cursed with tragic sadness in marriage.
Jude finds that the Christminster colleges are not welcoming toward self-educated men, and he accepts that he may not be able to study at the university after all. His propensity for drinking emerges. The episode in the pub, in which he recites Latin to a group of workmen and undergraduates, shows the juxtaposition of Jude's intellect with his outer appearance. Christminster will not accept him because he belongs to the working class, yet he is intelligent and well-read through independent study. The realization that his learning will help him only to perform in pubs sits heavily with Jude, and he is comforted only by the possibility of becoming a clergyman through apprenticeship.
Part III: At Melchester
Jude decides to follow the path recommended by the clergyman and become a low-ranking clergyman. He receives a letter from Sue saying that she is entering the Training College at Melchester, where there is also a Theological College. He decides to wait until the days are longer to travel to Melchester himself because he will have to find work there. Sue writes that she is desperately lonely and begs him to come at once, so he agrees. Jude arrives and takes Sue to dinner. She mentions that Phillotson might find her a teaching post after she graduates, and Jude expresses his anxiety about the schoolmaster's romantic interest in her. Sue at first dismisses his fears, saying Phillotson is too old, but then she confesses that she has agreed to marry Phillotson in two years, and then they plan to teach jointly at a school in a larger town.
In the meantime, Jude goes to Christminster for work. He goes to a pub and sees a familiar face: Arabella's. She tells him that she returned from Australia three months before. Jude misses his train to Alfredston and instead goes to Aldbrickham with Arabella. They spend the night together at an inn. In the morning, she says that she married a hotel manager in Sydney. Jude leaves her and unexpectedly encounters Sue. The two go to see Jude's aunt together, and Sue tells Jude that she made a mistake in marrying Phillotson. Jude takes Sue to the train and asks if he can come visit, but she says no. He devotes himself to his studies and develops an interest in music, and on the way back from a trip to see a church composer, he finds an apology and an invitation to dinner from Sue.
Part IV: At Shaston
Jude travels to Sue's school in Shaston. He finds the schoolroom empty and begins playing a tune on the piano. Sue joins him, and they discuss their friendship. Jude accuses Sue of being a flirt, and she objects. They discuss her marriage, and Sue tells Jude to come to her house the next week. Later he walks to her house and sees her through the window looking at a photograph. The next morning Sue writes saying that he should not come to dinner, and he writes back in agreement. On Easter Monday, he hears that his aunt is dying. When he arrives, she has already passed away. Sue comes to the funeral. She tells Jude she is unhappy in her marriage, but that she still must go back to Shaston on the six o'clock train. Jude convinces her to spend the night at Mrs. Edlin's house instead. He tells her that he is sorry he did not tell her not to marry Phillotson, and she suspects he still has tender feelings for her.
Back in Shaston, Phillotson is threatened with dismissal for letting his wife commit adultery. He defends himself at a meeting but falls ill. A letter reaches Sue, and she returns to him. She tells Phillotson that Jude is seeking a divorce from his wife, and Phillotson decides to attempt the same.
Part V: At Aldbrickham and Elsewhere
Summary Part V: At Aldbrickham and Elsewhere
Summary
Some months later, Jude receives word that Sue's divorce has been made official, just one month after his own divorce was similarly ratified. Jude asks Sue if she will consent to marry him after a respectable interval, but she tells him that she worries it would harm their relationship. Jude worries because Sue has still not declared her love for him. One night, Jude returns home to find that a woman has come to see him while he was away. Sue suspects it was Arabella. A knock comes on the door and Sue knows it is Arabella again. Arabella tells Jude she needs help. Sue begs him not to go see her at her lodgings, as she asks. Jude hesitates, and Sue says she will marry him immediately. Jude stays home. In the morning, Sue feels guilty about her treatment of Arabella and decides to check on her at the inn. Arabella treats Sue rudely but asks if Jude will meet her at the station. Sue and Jude postpone their wedding and one day receive a letter from Arabella. It explains that Arabella gave birth to Jude's child in Australia, and their son has been living with her parents in Australia, but they can no longer care for him. Sue says she would like to adopt him so Jude writes to Arabella. The boy arrives sooner than they expected and walks to their house on his own. Sue tells him to call her "mother."
Sue goes home and tells Jude about Arabella. He says that when he recovers he would like to go back to Christminster, though he knows the town despises him; perhaps he will die there.
Part VI: At Christminster Again
Jude and Sue return to Christminster with Little Father Time, who is now also named Jude, and the other two children they have had together. They encounter a procession and see Jude's old friends Tinker Taylor and Uncle Joe. Jude tells them he is a poor, ill man and an example of how not to live. The family goes to look for lodging, but finds that people are reluctant to take them in. One woman rents them a room for the week provided Jude stays elsewhere, though when she discovers Sue's history and tells her husband, her husband orders her to send them away. Sue puts the younger children to bed and takes little Time out to look for other lodgings, but with no success. The boy remarks that he "ought not to have been born" and grows irate when Sue tells him that she is pregnant again.
In the summer, Jude is sleeping when Arabella goes outside to observe the Remembrance Week festivities. She wants to see the boat races, but goes upstairs to check on Jude first. Finding him dead, she decides that she can afford to watch the boat races before dealing with his body. Standing before his casket two days later, she asks the Widow Edlin if Sue will be coming to the funeral. The widow says that Sue promised never to see Jude again, though she can hardly bear her legal husband. She says that Sue probably found peace, but Arabella argues that Sue will not have peace until she has joined Jude in death.
⚫"Jude the obscure" as a Victorian novel
Summary:
Published in 1895, Jude the Obscure was Thomas Hardy's last novel. With the approach of the turn-of-the-century, Victorian England experienced profound changes in its social structure. The writing of novels about oppressed women was popular in the late nineteenth century. As the narrative voice in Jude, Thomas Hardy sought to challenge the current conditions for women and men in society. His novel explores the reality of these conditions, and his characters, namely Sue Bridehead and Jude Fawley, show readers what can happen when people are unable to adapt to the laws and conventions set forth by society.
It is difficult to discuss Hardy's purpose because he was somewhat
ambivalent about Jude. During the late 1800s, until the tum-of-the-century,
Jude represented a historical structure of unfolding. J. Hillis Miller calls
Hardy's unfolding the "linguistic movement" (273). In Jude, Hardy's desire to
be heard was grounded in a conflict between Vicorian England's past
conventions and present changes. As a result, Natural Law, which encompasses
one's feelings, beliefs, and instincts, collided with Social Law, which is subject
to the changing time and ideology. In the actual novel, Hardy's characters
display behaviors that defY those that were socially acceptable during the time
in which he actually wrote, yet in some situations, these same characters,
appear to be in sync with their roles. Sue, who I will discuss later, is a perfect
representation of Hardy's ambivalence, for her actions, like Hardy's, are also
the result of conflicts between her beliefs and her reality.
On the other hand, for men, the taboo of pre-marital sex meant sexual
experience could only be obtained through prostitution or working - class
women. Rose discusses Freud who claims that men who engage in pre-marital
sex live "'the erotic life,' encouraging a split between objects of desire and
objects of respect". The female in Jude, then, is evident when he does such things as turn
away from Sue with a shy instinct when he first sees her. When Sue decides to
marry Phillotson, Jude agrees to walk her down the aisle even though he
wants to marry her himself. It is Jude's susceptibility to the chivalric code of
helpless women and protective, honorable men to which he adheres. It is his
effort to satisfy his middle-class aspirations, one of which Hardy also longed
to be a part. To peasant women like Arabella and Sue, Jude's gentleman
efforts were out of place, awkward, and therefore unmanly. We still see
Jude's efforts to be a gentleman at the end of the novel. When Sue decides to
return to Phillotson, Jude tells her that he "owes her that in penance for how
he ever over-ruled it the first time" and reflects on how selfish he was to have
spoiled one of the "highest and purest loves between man and woman".
⚫ Refferences
"Jude the obscure" as a Victorian novel http://www.victorianweb.org/authors/hardy/diniejko13.html
Novelists introduction https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_Hardy
Victorian literature https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Victorian_literature
⚫Characters
18104
⚫ words
3104
⚫ Sentences
225
⚫ Paragraphs
81
No comments:
Post a Comment