Fate plays a dominant role in Thomas Hardy’s world. However much you may
try to get on, fate can come like a brutal monster and crush you mercilessly
just when everything seems to be going well. In his last novel, Jude the
Obscure, Hardy passed the blame to society; your society can cripple
you as well as your destiny.
Jude is an orphan boy raised by an aunt. He grows up and becomes a
stonemason but has higher aspirations. He wants to study and improve the
standard of his life. But the country girl, Arabella, seduces him and tricks
him into marriage. Arabella is also someone who wants to improve the standard
of her living and when she gets a chance to go to Australia she leaves Jude.
Jude goes to Christminster [Hardy’s fictional version of Oxford] to pursue his
ambition.
Jude meets cousin Sue in Christminster and helps her find a job at
Richard Phillotson’s residence. Phillotson was a schoolmaster in Jude’s
birthplace. His academic aspirations had brought him to Christminster. Sue
marries Phillotson though the latter is much older than her. The marriage turns
sour and ends in divorce. Sue starts living with Jude though they don’t marry.
Their live-in relationship is far ahead of the times and it shocks the
Victorian moral sensibility. They have two children in the due course of time.
Arabella returns from Australia where she had married a hotel worker and
had a son. Little Father Time, Arabella’s son, looks like an old man with his
grey hairs and wrinkled skin. Jude And Sue adopt him as Arabella is more interested
in pursuing her own delights. Little Father Time remarks to Sue that he should
not have been born. Sue responds that she is expecting yet another baby. Soon
Little Father Time kills the two children before killing himself. The note he
leaves behind reads: “We are too menny.”
Sue is shocked. She thinks this is some retribution from God for her
sins. She chooses to return to Phillotson, her proper Victorian husband. Jude
returns to Arabella but does not live long. Finding him lying dead in his bed,
Arabella chooses to go and watch the boat race; the dead can wait.
Relationships aren’t quite sacred in this novel in spite of the rigid
Victorian morality that prevailed in England at that time. If the society was
different, if it allowed people to follow their heart genuinely, would life
have been better? For example, if Christminster supported Jude’s aspiration
instead of letting him down on account of his being from a lower social class,
the story would have been quite different.
Does society cripple the individuals? Of course, it does. That’s what Jude
the Obscure shows. But can we live without the society? That’s not quite
possible either. You can’t escape your fate which assaults you in the form of
the people who enter into your life. Life is a “general drama of pain,” as
Hardy wrote in another novel [The Mayor of Casterbridge] with occasional
episodes of happiness. Or as Tess of D’Urbervilles [another of Hardy’s
wonderful novels] says, the stars are worlds and most splendid but some are
blighted; we live on a blighted one.
Life is pain. Your efforts to mitigate that pain may bear fruit
occasionally but are more likely to be snuffed out by the cruel fate.
“Indifference to fate, though it often makes a villain of a man, is the basis
of his sublimity when it does not,” wrote Hardy in Far from the Madding
Crowd. Genuinely passionate people like Jude are crushed, indifferent ones
like Arabella teeter on the edge of villainy, and hardly a handful manage to
achieve sublimity. That is the human destiny. Not quite a great one.
PS. This is part of a series being written for the #BlogchatterA2ZChallenge. The previous parts are:
9. Illusions
Another interesting recommendation. Your book choices are simply wonderful and they are exposing me books which I havent read! Thanks for making my TBR rich :)
ReplyDeleteMy pleasure, Shilpa. Am happy to hear this.
DeleteThis book seems like a lot to take in. It talks of the bitter truth about the unfairness of life. What is the point of passion if fate awaits to crush us in the end? Thanks for another thought-provoking recommendation.
ReplyDeleteI am a follower of Albert Camus. Life is absurd and we have to go on just because we are here. Let Fate play its games.
DeleteVery interesting recommendation. Would definitely get my hands on this book.
ReplyDeleteGo ahead, it's another classic.
DeleteSomehow I had an inkling it would be Jude. My favourite is Tess. Having said that definitely Jude was way ahead of its time and a brave reflection of the problems of Victorian England. But just as you said society cripples. However one cannot be indifferent to its existence.
DeletePerhaps the writer who illustrated the society-individual theme best is Conrad. I wanted to bring Heart of Darkness here but Ghosh's Hungry Tide overruled.
DeleteThomas Hardy was born beofre his time, I suppose. Jude the Obscure has a tight weave of stories and characters that are laced with adultery as well as social shortcomings.
ReplyDeleteThanks for sharing this multilayered story.
Hardy quit writing novel and started writing poetry because of the opposition he faced on account of this novel.
DeleteI am a huge fan of Thomas Hardy's writing, but I haven't read Jude the Obscure yet. Tess is my favourite of the ones I have read.
ReplyDeletewww.nooranandchawla.com
Jude is his last creation. Do read.
DeleteInteresting book. And so profound... Haven't read this!
ReplyDeleteWish you a good time with Hardy.
DeleteYes for sure !
DeleteWhat an interesting subject. I must read this.
ReplyDeleteGlad to hear that.
DeleteI loved the description of this book. I haven't read this. I will add this to my reading list.
ReplyDeleteEnjoy reading Hardy.
DeleteThis one of my favourites. I had Mayor of Casterbridge for my graduation.
ReplyDeleteWhat I used to like was the twists and turns in the stories.
Yes, Hardy created excellent plots.
Delete