Marriage in Jude the Obscure - 1521 Words

Marriage in â€Å"Jude the Obscure† Thomas Hardy’s â€Å"Jude the Obscure† focuses on the life of a country stonemason named Jude Fawly, and his love for his cousin Sue Bridehead, a schoolteacher. From the beginning Jude knows that marriage is an ill-fated venture in his family and his great aunt Drusilla tells him so, and he believes that his love for Sue curses him doubly, because they are both members of a cursed clan. While love could be identified as a central theme in the novel, marriage is the novel’s main focus. Jude and Sue are unhappily married to other people, and then drawn by a bond that pulls them together. Their relationship is plagued with tragedy. Before all that occurs however, in the first two parts of the book, the focus is on†¦show more content†¦Intellectually, he recognizes that there is something in her quite antipathetic to that side of him which had been occupied with literary study and the magnificent Christminster dream. It had been no vestal virgin who chose that missile for opening her attack on him (Part I, Chapter 6). A few chapters later, the reader is told, he knew too well in the secret center of his brain that Arabella was not worth a great deal as a specimen of womankind (Part I, Chapter 9). Naà ¯ve and trusting, he does what he perceives to be the honorable thing and marries her, but he has married the wrong woman and thus the marriage is bound to be a disaster. Sues marriage to Phillotson is another example of a disastrous marriage of impulsiveness and thoughtlessness. Jude suspects that Sue has married Phillotson as a reaction to his own marriage as a kind of revenge or a way of asserting her own independence from him. She does not realize the gravity of the step she has taken. After the ceremony there is a frightened look in her eyes, as if she has just become aware of the rashness of her decision. Barely a month later she admits, perhaps I ought not to have married (Part III, Chapter 9). Sue is the loudest critic of matrimony in the novel—making sarcastic comments on the custom of giving away the bride, like a she-ass or she-goat or any other domestic animal (Part III, Chapter 7). When her marriage is in trouble, she criticizes the institution,Show MoreRelated Sue and Arabella in Thomas Hardys Jude the Obscure Essay1403 Words   |  6 PagesSue and Arabella in Thomas Hardys Jude the Obscure Thomas Hardys diary contains an entry that explains how he will show the world something it needs to be shown in a story about a poor, struggling young man who has to deal with ultimate failure (Howe 132). This brief description of a story has turned into Hardys phenomenal Jude the Obscure. Jude is emotionally torn between the two main women in the novel, Sue and Arabella, because each woman can only partially satisfy his urges. TheRead MoreMarriage, By Thomas Hardy1568 Words   |  7 PagesMarriage is a topic whose perceived importance is constantly changing with the passage of time, but marriage remains, and has remained, a heated topic of discussion for centuries. Thomas Hardy wrote Jude the Obscure in 1896, and used it to critique marriage, among many other things. The novel explores the implications of the state of marriage, the foolishness of the marriage of convenience, and the contractual nature of love in matrimony. Thomas Hardy s novel Jude the Obscure offers a critic al portrayalRead More References to Sues Homosexuality in Thomas Hardys Jude the Obscure992 Words   |  4 PagesReferences to Sues Homosexuality in Thomas Hardys Jude the Obscure Perhaps the most interesting character in Thomas Hardys Jude the Obscure is Susanna Florence Mary Bridehead (Sue). Throughout the novel, she is described as everything from boyish and sexless, all the way to Voltairean and just simply unconventional. 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As these themes, among others, are portrayed throughout the film, it is blatantly clear that the society in which Jude, and his cousin / wife Sue, are confined within, has their own set beliefs regarding what is right and what is wrong. These social bindings are inflicted upon Jude and Sue both individuallyRead More Middlemarch by George Eliot and Jude the Obscure by Thomas Hardy1443 Words   |  6 PagesMiddlemarch by George Eliot and Jude the Obscure by Thomas Hardy The Victorian era brought about many changes throughout Great Britain. Man was searching for new avenues of enlightenment. The quest for knowledge and understanding became an acceptable practice throughout much of the scientific community. It was becoming accepted, and in many ways expected, for people to search for knowledge. Philosophy, the search for truth, was becoming a more intricate part of educating ones self; no longer