The most terrible bit

[kev67]

If your cursor is hovering over this thread beware it contains a spoiler.


I doubt I'll ever read this book. I more or less decided that when I watched the DVD. I liked quite a lot of it, but there was a terrible scene in which Jude comes home to find his son has hanged himself and his two little sisters. I thought, come on - is that necessary? Here they are, struggling but just about scraping through. Then this happens. The rest of the story seemed naturalistic, but this bit seemed like a visitation from an angry god. I thought the remainder of the film would be about Jude being tried for murder, but in the next scene they were at the funeral and the police seem to be satisfied with the explanation. Surely a child hanging himself and his two sisters from the guilt of being a burden to his parents is implausible. I have never heard of a news story like it. It would certainly make national news if it did happen. I could believe a child committing suicide for that reason, but the killing of siblings too? Besides, if Hardy wanted to make Jude's son the cause of Sue's daughters' deaths then he could do it some other way: perhaps by passing on a disease or starting a fire. I thought it was too melodramatic. After that I marked Hardy down as an author who thinks piling on the misery makes for good writing.

[LitNetIsGreat]

It would be best perhaps to mark a ***spoiler*** warning just above your post for those who have not read it.

Jude is my favourite Hardy and also I think his best, with Tess not far behind. Your point has been made before and some people dislike Hardy for being too harsh. I wouldn't say that melodramatic is the right word to describe the scene, harsh is better I think. I don't know, I take the point but I don't think it takes away from the novel. It is after all a tragedy and punishing Hardy for writing a tragedy in this way is a little like punishing Shakespeare for writing Macbeth. It reminds me of those reviews on Amazon which mark now Tess because they thought it was going to be a lovely romance.

Childhood deaths were painfully common at the time of Hardy's writing so as tragic as the episode was, the events surrounding the affair are certainly realistic enough, why would Jude be tried for murder anyway? The scene is certainly harsh but I don't think it is too implausible to be deemed unrealistic and personally, I don't think it detracts from the novel or the writing.

[Musaeus]

I suspect, although I don't know for sure, that Hardy based this episode on a contemporary tragedy reported in the newspapers. But it does strike a lot of readers as implausible, or at any rate very abruptly introduced (not prepared for)

[kiki1982]

I think that spoiler alert would be a good idea, yes.

Indeed, that bit is harsh, very harsh. But more to the point, I think it was less realistic, although poignant, because this child, Little Father Time as they call him, looks much older and is much older mentally for his years than he should be. He is no innocent boy and thus, does not behave like one. In terms of weirdness, he is more like a Heathcliffe: he is there for a purpose, not for his person alone.
As it is, Little Father Time walks along with Jude and Sue and in the end, catches up with them. As Time kills himself and his two sisters, he indeed 'resets' time itself so there is no physical remainder left of the time Jude and Sue spent together. I can't remember what happened to the baby in her belly, but wasn't it born and died or something (it makes sense anyway)?

It is after that that Sue goes back to her husband and that Jude returns to his wife after some drinking.

I personally find Tess better than Jude, unlike Neely, but it's not because I find it too sad or too harsh. It's just because I found Tess slightly more interesting (maybe because Jude's concerns about education are a bit like mine...). As it is, Jude is very very very bleak as there is no sense or meaning to Jude's life, or the life of his children (born out of love, no doubt). It is indeed a tragedy and tragedies always get worse until the final inevitable end, but it is not their fault. I think what makes Jude even more tragic than Tess is the fact that it is just about a society and its morality. Tess is about a girl who was unlucky. Jude penetrates more into the very essence of Victorian England with its class system and morality and asks basic critical questions about the very justness of it all. That is what probably disgusted the establishment at the time of its publication and what makes us unsettled now. Because some of those things are still there, although maybe in a slightly different shape.

As I said, you can't have too much of that at one time. Better read something cheery after Tess.

[kev67]

Is there any way of changing a thread title? I did think about putting 'spoiler' in the title, but then I thought anyone who read the book would know the bit I was talking about, while anyone who hadn't would guess by the title it contained a spoiler. Just about all the threads on this site contain spoilers for people who haven't read those books yet.

[kiki1982]

Unfortunately, I think you can't change a topic title yourself. You can apply to a moderator, probably, but having an additional warning like you have now, is fine, I think.

Ok, people would know it was about an important bit, but some readers look on a forum before they have read it all and they might consider that the bit they've just read is 'the most terrible', which is not the case...

Anyway, you can also do this shorter and go '(MAJOR) SPOILER!!' and when you have done '(MAJOR) SPOILER OVER!!' (or that is what I picked up on here a few years ago. That way, people can skip, if it is part of a bigger piece (not in this case).

At any rate, I just had a thought as I was putting the washing in the machine... In the novel, Little Father Time is introduced as a boy/child, but to me, that impression faded chapter after chapter so that eventually, I started reading him as an adult and to consider him as one as well. I think that's difficult to do in a film as you are saddled with a child for the character's portrayal and visual impressions are always stronger.

I feel that a novel is easier at implausibility than film. Maybe that's why it struck you as particularly and completely balmy. To me it was more of an absolutely downright horrifying surprise. I had long forgotten that Little Father Time was a boy of about 10 (?) or something.

[kev67]

Childhood deaths were painfully common at the time of Hardy's writing so as tragic as the episode was, the events surrounding the affair are certainly realistic enough, why would Jude be tried for murder anyway? The scene is certainly harsh but I don't think it is too implausible to be deemed unrealistic and personally, I don't think it detracts from the novel or the writing.

No doubt it is explained in the book. I thought the police might suspect Jude of murder because it is so unlikely an act for a child to commit. There was a suicide note, but the police may not have believed it.

[kev67]

I feel that a novel is easier at implausibility than film. Maybe that's why it struck you as particularly and completely balmy. To me it was more of an absolutely downright horrifying surprise. I had long forgotten that Little Father Time was a boy of about 10 (?) or something.

I haven't heard that word for a long time. My grandad used to say it a lot.

[kiki1982]

No doubt it is explained in the book. I thought the police might suspect Jude of murder because it is so unlikely an act for a child to commit. There was a suicide note, but the police may not have believed it.

I thought Jude wasn't there, somehow. I may be wrong though...
The situation was (I think) that they had just returned to Christminster (Oxford), witnessed a parade of the university and then went in search of lodgings. the landlady only wanted to put up Sue and the children (after they implored her) for one night because she didn't want an immoral (merely co-habiting) couple in her house. Sue was evidently pregnant again (7 months I seem to remember) and she wasn't wearing a ring.
That's when Little Father Time decides that he and the chidren are a burden.

Jude went out though, I thought, in search of food or something, so he wasn't there when it happened.

Indeed, maybe it is kind of weird that the 19th century police wouldn't have suspected anything, but then there are some weird cases...

I haven't heard that word for a long time. My grandad used to say it a lot.

My husband uses it sometimes and he is only about 40...

That's what you get, watching and reading too much old stuff .

[LitNetIsGreat]

Is it not barmy, as in mad, balmy as in windy? It's also been used in our family as well, my grandad used it a bit.

[kiki1982]

I guess that's what I meant, yes .

I'll never forget it.


So there is a difference between the 'balmy air' and 'the barmy man'...

[kelby_lake]

I think that you can have many different interpretations. For example, you could read Little Jude as being what Jude as a boy would have done had he realised what life was really like. He "saves" his siblings from having to live in such a cruel society. A bit like Medea.

Another interpretation is that Little Jude has Arabella's spark of cruelty. As well as the horrible bit with the children, there's that awful end moment where Arabella realises Jude has died but tells a man who knocks for her asking if she wants to go to the fair that Jude is just sleeping and won't wake up for a while. In some ways, it's brutally funny but it's at this moment that we see the extent of Arabella's cruelty.

[William Foster]

I quite agree with you . I personally have done with Hardy, having read all of his books . Whenever I read one, I must say, I was plunged into deep depressive thoughts . Hardy seemed to have a HUGE chips on his shoulder ...first, about not becoming a famous scholar at Oxford, When his best friend Horace Mould, had achieved that distinction, then about his lost first love ( though this is only assumed )..you can see how Tryphena Sparks became his model for Sue ( in Jude). Hardy's main failing is that he seems to have led a life, full of sadness and regrets . I have tried to see past his obsession with providing us with novels that have sparks of hope and happiness in them, but have failed sadly ! It would have been a boon to Hardy to laugh more ...and to enjoy his life .