Jude the Obscure

   5 November, 2022 

     Hello dear friends, here I am writing a blog on Themes of 'Jude the Obscure'.

                      Jude the Obscure

∆ Themes of the novel 'Jude the Obscure' :

• Religion

• Marriage

• Education

• Social Class

• Disappointment

→ Religion :

     Religion plays a major role in Jude's life when he is young. While his first dreams are of going to Christminster to be a classical scholar, he eventually thinks of going there to pursue religious goals.In the end, Jude swears off religion.However, Sue, who has always disparaged religion, turns to the Church after her children are killed.

→ Marriage :

   In a way, this book is staging a whole debate on the institution of marriage. Hardy does not necessarily suggest that marriage is automatically bad, he just makes it clear that he believes people should be able to step away from a marriage if things do get dire. He also makes it clear that marriage is not necessarily linked to love in any way, so it's obvious that a decent, understanding society would accept Jude and Sue's relationship because they truly love each other, regardless of whether they are married or not. Jude and Sue are clearly a good match for each other, so Jude wants to get married. Sue, however, feels that marriage will poison the relationship. The narrator does not seem to favor either side; it is left up to readers to decide how the problems with marriage might be solved.

→ Education :

   Hardy highlights many kinds of education in Jude the Obscure. Jude teaches himself the classics, Latin, Greek, and much more in the hopes that he will one day be able to further his education in the proper setting: at college. But, the book strongly criticizes the university structure that keeps Jude from pursuing a higher education because he comes from a working-class background. Even though Jude has taught himself brilliantly, what he knows isn't as important to the colleges as where he comes from. It's a great tragedy that, despite all of Jude's dreams and hopes, he never had a chance in the first place to make it in Christminster—in this snobby world, his rural, poor background is enough to keep him down. In the novel, the level of traditional education one reaches is closely tied to the class system. 

→ Social class :

    In addition to his points about education, Hardy also criticizes the rigidity of social class more generally. Jude is limited in his career options because as a working-class man, he cannot hope to be promoted beyond a certain level, even in fields like the clergy that are supposed to be open to all. 

→ Disappointment :

    Disappointment crops up over and over again in this novel: Jude is disappointed by his career; he is disappointed in his marriage to Arabella and then his cohabitation with Sue; he is disappointed by Mr. Phillotson, who never achieved his dream of getting a university degree. Even Time's assertions that he never asked to be born suggest a certain disappointment with life. Since most of the novel's tragedies come as lost opportunities, the ways that the characters deal with disappointment contribute to their characterization. For example, Phillotson takes a relatively mature perspective when he is disappointed in his marriage to Sue, and allows her to be with Jude. Arabella, in contrast, deals with her disappointment in Cartlett by spying on Jude and scheming to get back together with him.

Thank you...