English / History

[Barbara Shaw]

Just a comment on your review of Jude the Obscure. Hardy's wife Emma did not leave him after publication. They continued to live together at Max Gate<br>but they had separate rooms and became progressively more estranged.<br>She was deeply religious and found the book very disturbing and shocking as did many people at the time.

[Robert Barlow]

One must be alert to the word obscure when reading 'Jude'. What is obscure about him, what is there to be obscure about? Even the very word obscure seems, obsure.<br><br>The opening chapters give little away to the nature of obscurity. Jude is a simple boy living with his aging aunt. But Jude lives within 'accelerating' times. The world is radically changing, including one's passions. The lasting impression left to him by the departing Philloston casts an indelible stain upon the boy's consciousness. His kindness to animals soon reveal to Jude that the world is not what it is supposed to be; contradictions lie deeply embedded within society. His former teacher tells him to be kind to animals, yet his act of letting the birds briefly feed off Farmer Troutham's field soon brings the wrath of Troutham down hard upon the boy: "So it's "Eat, my dear birdies," is it, young man?... I'll tickle your breeches,".<br><br>The contradiction of life Jude has brutally become aware of at such an early age is that of humanity / profit. This is once again shown in the act of killing their only pig, Challow. Jude's conscience retains Phillostons words, and Hardy's language compounds the sentimentality of Jude's love of nature: 'A robin peered down at the preparations from the nearest tree, and, not liking the sinister look of the scene flew away, though hungry.' Hardy, never once allowing us to forget nature's need before our own. Jude has been made aware to killing the pig in such a quick manner, but the previous teaching prevents him from commiting such a bloodthirsty act of letting a pid slowly bleed to death, for the sole sake of profit. We are beginning to understand the nature of Jude's obscurity, that of him being obscure to the changing nature of the world.<br><br>But Hardy's attitude to his novel is obscure in itself. We ride upon a tide of utterly purgatorial scenes, affecting, it seems, Jude solely. Even though we are allowed to enter into the consciousness of the other characters, their motivation seems wholly selfish and contrived. Dr Vilbert soon considers Jude as his protege, yet we must consider what kind of protege Jude has become. It is of course a lie, as most of the characters seem to do, lie that is. There is no serenity in the book, no peace and no understanding. The world is moving at such a pace, that when Jude attempts to try and understand it he is left irrevocably behind, standing on a platform, just missing his connection, so to speak.<br><br>There is love in the book but -that is for my feminist reading- it so estranged that we imagine it to be a personal tragedy rather than a ficticious creation. The book created outrage upon its unabridged publication, and Hardy's wife left him soon after. But the consciousness of Hardy, through his masterly use of language, could not be appeased. This is a book which will send the reader into the bowls of hell, only to realise it was needed to see how far humanity had descended. The moral, spiritual, and emotional face of society passes the reader by, as the characters continually do in relation to Jude. There is no community, something quite obscure with regards to Hardy's previous novels, and the humour, which often delicately compliments previous Hardy novels is vacant; one would have to be brave or depraved to laugh at the degradation of a simple boy who tried to make good.