Jude the Obscure

This Blog-post is a response of Thinking Activity on the Novel, 'Jude the Obscure' written given by Prof, Dr.Dilip Barad Sir. To know more,CLICK HERE.

• About the Novel:

Jude the Obscure is the last written novel by Thomas Hardy. It was first published in magazine serial, December 1894 and published in book form 8n 1895. When the Novel published, it was highly criticised and negative responses that he resolved to never write another novel. 

• Brief note about the Author:

Thomas Hardy was born on 2nd June 1840

Stinsford, Dorset, England and Died on 11 January 1928 Dorchester, Dorset, England(87 aged) Hardy was an poet, novelist and Short-Story writer. Many of his novel we found that his characters are struggling against their passion for with tragic concern in between particular some social circumstances. Most of his novel are set in Wessex. To know more about the Author, here I put very interesting short video. 

• Sue Bridehead: 

As Hardy said, "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" (Collected Letters 2:99) 

She is novel's other protagonist and Jude's cousin. Her parents were divorced and she raised at London and Christminister. Who was extremely intelligent or bright in her studies who rejects Christianity and flirts with paganism, despite working as a religious artist and then teacher. Hardy portyed her character as strong, intelligent, educated as well very deep thinker woman of Victorian Era. 

• The Narcissism in her Character:

"Your wickedness was only the natural man's desire to possess the woman. Mine was not the reciprocal wish till envy stimulated me oust Arabella. I had thought in charity to let you approach me that it was damnably selfish of me to torture you as I did my other friend. But I shouldn't have given way if you hadn't broken me down by making me fear you would go back to her.... At first, I did not love you Jude; that I own. When I first knew you, I merely wanted you to love me.....and so I got to love you Jude...., it began in the selfish and cruel wish to make your heart ache for me without letting mine ache for you. (Hardy 356-57)"

This is the self-analysis from Sue. Actually it is strikingly accurate and appropriate for her particular narcissistic psyche. Firstly, her attitude towards men is cool and she causes her lovers "doubts of her love and complaints of her enigmatic nature". (Freud, On Narcissism 88) Her inborn craving demands Jude, phillotson, and the undergraduate to love her, but she would never reciprocate it, because she "harbors an exaggerated sense of his own self-importance and uniqueness". (narcissism, Columbia Encyclopedia) Although she admits that she loves Jude and goes to bed with him, it is Arabella's appearance that forces her to do so. 

Secondly, to some degree, "narcissism has the significance of a perversion that has absorbed the whole of the subject's sexual life". (Freud, Standard edition 73) Actually, Sue understands herself through her self-analysis on her sadistic impulses (Sue uses the word "torture") which may seem incompatible with the image of modern and intellectual Sue at first sight. But I think it is another example of Hardy's insight into psychological complexities.

 (Source from the research paper by  Nan Zhao and Zhiyi Ren) 

• The Concept of New Woman:

As Dr. Shikha Shukla said in her research paper, that in this particular novel, we can see her character is very strong rather than the protagonist of the Novel. Sue is a woman of 'tight strained nerves’, an epicure of emotions'

and while she hates the Gothic and is inclined to Greek joyousness she constitutionally shrinks from physical contacts. She is in fact Hardy's first unpredictable woman:

"......She was not a large figure.....she was light and slight, of the type dubbed elegant....There was nothing statuesque in her; all was nervous motion. She was mobile , living, yet a painter might not have called her handsome or beautiful."

According to me, through this female character, Hardy try to portrayed the real image of Victorian Society among the victorians who actually think but can't said. Hardy wrote their voice through Jude and Sue.