Reading Report on Jude the ObscureI. Author: Thomas Hardy1. His LifeThomas Hardy, (2 June 1840 – 11 January 1928) is an English poet and regional novelist, whose works depict the county "Wessex", named after the ancient kingdom of Alfred the Great. Hardy's career as writer spanned over fifty years. His earliest books appeared when Anthony Trollope (1815-82) wrote his Palliser series, and he published poetry in the decade of T.S. Eliot's The Waste Land. Hardy's work reflected his stoical pessimism and sense of tragedy in human life.Hardy was born in Upper Bockhampton, a hamlet in the parish of Stinsford to the east of Dorchester in Dorset, England in 1840. His father Thomas worked as a stonemason and local builder. His mother Jemima was well-read. She educated Thomas until he went to his first school at Bockhampton at age eight. For several years he attended Mr. Last's Academy for Young Gentlemen in Dorchester. Here he learned Latin and demonstrated academic potential. However, a family of Hardy's social position lacked the means for a university education, and his formal education ended at the age of sixteen when he became apprenticed to James Hicks, a local architect. Hardy trained as an architect in Dorchester before moving to London in 1862; there he enrolled as a student at King's College, London. He won prizes from the Royal Institute of British Architects and the Architectural Association. Hardy never felt at home in London. He was acutely conscious of class divisions and his social inferiority. However, he was interested in social reform and was familiar with the works of John Stuart Mill. He was also introduced to the works of Charles Fourier and Auguste Comte during this period by his Dorset friend, Horace Moule. Five years later, concerned about his health, he returned to Dorset and decided to dedicate himself to writing.While on an architectural mission to restore the parish church of St Juliot in Cornwall, Hardy met and fell in love with Emma Lavinia Gifford, whom he married in 1874. Although he later became estranged from his son her death in 1912 had a traumatic effect on him. After her death, Hardy made a trip to Cornwall to revisit places linked with their courtship, and his Poems 1912–13 reflect upon her death. In 1914, Hardy married his secretary Florence Emily Dugdale, who was 39 years his junior. However, he remained preoccupied with his first wife's death and tried to overcome his remorse by writing poetry.Hardy became ill with pleurisy in December 1927 and died at Max Gate just after 9 pm on 11 January 1928, having dictated his final poem to his wife on his deathbed; the cause of death was cited, on his death certificate, as "cardiac syncope", with "old age" given as a contributory factor. His funeral was on 16 January at Westminster Abbey, and it proved a controversial occasion because Hardy and his family and friends had wished for his body to be interred at Stinsford in the same grave as his first wife, Emma. However, his executor, Sir Sydney Carlyle Cockerell, insisted that he be placed in the abbey's famous Poets' Corner. A compromise was reached whereby his heart was buried at Stinsford with Emma, and his ashes in Poets' Corner.Shortly after Hardy's death, the executors of his estate burnt his letters and notebooks. Twelve records survived, one of them containing notes and extracts of newspaper stories from the 1820s. Research into these provided insight into how Hardy kept track of them and how he used them in his later work. In the year of his death Mrs. Hardy published The Early Life of Thomas Hardy,1841–1891: compiled largely from contemporary notes, letters, diaries, and biographical memoranda, as well as from oral information in conversations extending over many years.Grave of Thomas Hardy's heart at Stinsford parish churchHardy's work was admired by many writers of a younger generation including D. H. Lawrence and Virginia Woolf. In his autobiography Goodbye to All That, Robert Graves recalls meeting Hardy in Dorset in the early 1920s, and Hardy received him and his new wife warmly, and was encouraging about his work.Hardy's cottage at Bockhampton and Max Gate in Dorchester are owned by the National Trust.Thomas Hardy was bestowed many honors during his lifetime, including being nominated President of the Society of Authors in 1909; the Order of Merit from King George V in 1910; the Gold Medal from the Royal Society of Literature in 1912; an honorary degree from Cambridge University, and an honorary fellowship of Magdalene College, Cambridge.2. His Literary ThemesHardy‟s witness of the change of the Victorian society made his later works seem to be more desperate too. Life after 1870s in England became drastically different with drastic changes in mood and tenor. Science and industrialization went hand in full swing, the nation was heading to the phase of aggressive and barbaric capitalism, and millions of people found themselves struggling for mere existence. Factories straggled across the country; farms went bankrupt; and huge numbers of the poor landed in city slums. The world became increasingly more amoral. Man was no longer a free ethical being in face of the forces out of his control. He was manipulated by fate and destiny and chances, and there was nothing he could do about it. The mood of frustration, despair, and pessimism hanged over the nation, and the age of Emile Zola‟s naturalism had arrived. Although Hardy did not embrace Zola‟s naturalistic aesthetic, he was apparently affected; the spirit of determinism characteristic of the naturalistic works of the period permeated his later novels as well. Hence in this aspect and more, Hardy anticipated the coming of the modern novel in his country.Hardy criticizes certain social constraints that hindered the lives of those living in the 19th century. Considered a Victorian Realist writer, Hardy examines the social constraints that are part of the Victorian status quo, suggesting these rules hinder the lives of all involved and ultimately lead to unhappiness. In Two on a Tower, Hardy seeks to take a stand against these rules and sets up a story against the backdrop of social structure by creating a story of love that crosses the boundaries of class. The reader is forced to consider disposing of the conventions set up for love. Nineteenth-century society enforces these conventions, and societal pressure ensures conformity. Swithin St Cleeve's idealism pits him against contemporary social constraints. He is a self-willed individual set up against the coercive strictures of social rules and mores.Hardy‟s characters often enco unter crossroads, which are symbolic of a point of opportunity and transition. But the hand of fate is an important part of many of Hardy's plots. Far From the Madding Crowd tells a tale of lives that are constructed by chance. “Had Bathsheba not sent the valentine, had Fanny not missed her wedding, for example, the story would have taken an entirely different path.”[9] Hardy's main characters often seem to be in the overwhelming and overpowering grip of fate.3. His WorksNovels of Character and Environment:The Poor Man and the Lady (1867, unpublished and lost)Under the Greenwood Tree (1872)Far from the Madding Crowd (1874)The Return of the Native (1878)The Mayor of Casterbridge (1886)The Woodlanders (1887)Wessex Tales (1888, a collection of short stories)Tess of the d'Urbervilles (1891)Life's Little Ironies (1894, a collection of short stories)Jude the Obscure (1895)Romances and Fantasies:A Pair of Blue Eyes (1873)The Trumpet-Major (1880)Two on a Tower (1882)A Group of Noble Dames (1891, a collection of short stories)The Well-Beloved (1897) (first published as a serial from 1892)Novels of IngenuityDesperate Remedies (1871)The Hand of Ethelberta (1876)A Laodicean (1881)Hardy also produced a number of minor tales and a collaborative novel, The Spectre of the Real (1894). An additional short-story collection, beyond the ones mentioned above, is A Changed Man and Other Tales (1913). His works have been collected as the 24-volume Wessex Edition (1912–13) and the 37-volume Mellstock Edition (1919–20). His largely self-written biography appears under his second wife's name in two volumes from 1928–30, as The Early Life of Thomas Hardy, 1840–91 and The Later Years of Thomas Hardy, 1892–1928, now published in a critical one-volume edition as The Life and Work of Thomas Hardy, edited by Michael Millgate (1984).Short Stories (with date of first publication):"How I Built Myself A House" (1865)"Destiny and a Blue Cloak" (1874)"The Thieves Who Couldn't Stop Sneezing" (1877)"The Duchess of Hamptonshire" (1878)"The Distracted Preacher" (1879)"Fellow-Townsmen" (1880)"The Honourable Laura" (1881)"What The Shepherd Saw" (1881)"A Tradition of Eighteen Hundred and Four" (1882)"The Three Strangers" (1883)"The Romantic Adventures Of A Milkmaid" (1883)"Interlopers At The Knap" (1884)"A Mere Interlude" (1885)"A Tryst At An Ancient Earthwork" (1885)"Alicia's Diary" (1887)"The Waiting Supper" (1887–88)"The Withered Arm" (1888)"A Tragedy Of Two Ambitions" (1888)"The First Countess of Wessex" (1889)"Anna, Lady Baxby" (1890)"The Lady Icenway" (1890)"Lady Mottisfont" (1890)"The Lady Penelope" (1890)"The Marchioness of Stonehenge" (1890)"Squire Petrick's Lady" (1890)"Barbara of the House of Grebe" (1890)"The Melancholy Hussar of The German Legion" (1890) "Absent-Mindedness in a Parish Choir" (1891)"The Winters And The Palmleys" (1891)"For Conscience' Sake" (1891)"Incident in Mr. Crookhill's Life"(1891)"The Doctor's Legend" (1891)"Andrey Satchel and the Parson and Clerk" (1891)"The History of the Hardcomes" (1891)"Netty Sargent's Copyhold" (1891)"On The Western Circuit" (1891)"A Few Crusted Characters: Introduction" (1891)"The Superstitious Man's Story" (1891)"Tony Kytes, the Arch-Deceiver" (1891)"To Please His Wife" (1891)"The Son's Veto" (1891)"Old Andrey's Experience as a Musician" (1891)"Our Exploits At West Poley" (1892–93)"Master John Horseleigh, Knight" (1893)"The Fiddler of the Reels" (1893)"An Imaginative Woman" (1894)"The Spectre of the Real" (1894)"A Committee-Man of 'The Terror'" (1896)"The Duke's Reappearance" (1896)"The Grave By The Handpost" (1897)"A Changed Man" (1900)"Enter a Dragoon" (1900)"Blue Jimmy: The Horse Stealer" (1911)"Old Mrs. Chundle" (1929)"The Unconquerable"(1992)Poetry Collections:The Photograph (1890)Wessex Poems and Other Verses (1898)Poems of the Past and Present (1901)The Man He Killed (1902)Time's Laughingstocks and Other Verses (1909)The V oice (1912)Satires of Circumstance (1914)Moments of Vision (1917)Collected Poems (1919)Late Lyrics and Earlier with Many Other Verses (1923)Human Shows, Far Phantasies, Songs and Trifles (1925)Winter Words in Various Moods and Metres (1928)The Complete Poems (Macmillan, 1976)Selected Poems (Edited by Harry Thomas, Penguin, 1993)Hardy: Poems (Everyman's Library Pocket Poets, 1995)Thomas Hardy: Selected Poetry and Nonfictional Prose (St. Martin's Press, 1996)Selected Poems (Edited by Robert Mezey, Penguin, 1998)Thomas Hardy: The Complete Poems (Edited by James Gibson, Palgrave, 2001)[edit] DramaThe Dynasts (verse drama)The Dynasts, Part 1 (1904)The Dynasts, Part 2 (1906)The Dynasts, Part 3 (1908)The Famous Tragedy of the Queen of Cornwall at Tintagel in Lyonnesse (1923) (one-act play)II. The Novel Jude the ObscureJude the Obscure, published in 1895, met with overwhelming negative outcries from the Victorian public for its frank treatment of sex, and was often referred to as "Jude the Obscene". Heavily criticized for its apparent attack on the institution of marriage through the presentation of such concepts as erotolepsy (erotolepsy is a term first used by English author Thomas Hardy in his 1895 novel Jude the Obscure to describe a passionate sensual desire and longing which is more violent and urgently felt than erotomania(色情狂). It has been variously described as "love-seizure" and "sexual recklessness". The term has since made its way into more widespread common parlance, being used by such writers as American poet Susan Mitchell in her 2001 poetry collection Erotikon), the book caused further strain on Hardy's already difficult marriage because Emma Hardy was concerned that Jude the Obscure would be read as autobiographical. Some booksellers sold the novel in brown paper bags, and the Bishop of Wakefield is reputed to have burnt his copy. In his postscript of 1912, Hardy humorously referred to this incident as part of the career of the book: "After these [hostile] verdicts from the press its next misfortune was to be burnt by a bishop – probably in his despair at not being able to burn me".In Jude the Obscure, Thomas Hardy presents the characters Jude Fawley and Sue Bridehead who violate the conventions of the repressive Victorian society while attempting to follow their natural instincts. Their journey of pursuing true love has never been joyful under the pressure from the Victorian society, especially when Jude is a romantic and lower-class man who is ambitious to enter university and Sue is a so educated and wise woman. Just before they got to know clearly the love between each other, both of them had paid their marriage or freedom forpublic pressure----Jude had to marry Arabella for his first curiosity of woman and that resulted in a unhappy marriage; Sue had to promise Phillotson that she would marry him after she finished the teaching work Phillotson introduced to her. However, both of them cannot live such boring life. Finally Jude, being rejected by his dream of entering university, ran away with Sue and could at least live with his love. Though both of them were kind of suffering the pain of escaping or abandoning their former marriage, they had a relatively happy life and had two children of their own and one eldest kid from Arabella and Jude who was very peculiar and nicknamed …Father Time‟. At this time, though the family did everything to get better off, gossips always haunted them, which made Sue grow more and more depressed and doubt whether she made the wrong choice. Unfortunately, her painful words were heard by Father Time, and he thought all these sorrow and pain in life was caused by the three kids. Thus he killed the other two children and committed suicide. The huge grief of losing three kids made Sue so desperate that she turned to be another totally different woman all of sudden. She began to believe in those creeds she ever scorned and started to pray all the time in the church and considered only her former formal marriage in church to be the only accepted sacred marriage. Thus finally she went back to Phillotson as an atonement of her …crime‟, leaving Jude in frustration and hopelessness. Till the end, Jude not only did not realize his university dream, but also failed to make his true love survive in cruel Victorian society.Every reader should recognize that the failure of realizing a dream or having romantic love could never be the only thing Hardy wants to tell them. The themes of the novel consist of enormous issues, such as the struggle of the lower class people, reveal and critique of traditional Victorian values, and the struggle of female consciousness and so on. This reading report is aimed to analyze the three themes mentioned, mainly focused on the last one and taking Sue as the example.Firstly, in this novel, Jude stands for many other lower class people who were born to be poor and had to work hard to make a living. Even though Victorian Age in people eyes seems to be full of gold and luxury, what cannot be ignored is the more and more furious contradiction between the bourgeoisie and the working class. Workers have to work very hard to survive, not to mention realizing dreams. In this case, readers will never think of that in real life an ordinary worker would struggle to seize every opportunity to study on his own, dreaming one day he could go to university just like those noble students. That is what mostly makes Jude so peculiar and lovely in readers‟eyes. His persistent longing to being a university student and all his seemingly silly efforts for that has touched many readers‟ heart. Furthermore, his desperate love also arises much contemplation. When a man meets his true love, should he rushes to catch it disregarding anything else, especially when he was nobody? Actually the reason why readers conclude Jude is so special is that in real life few people pay a little attention to those common and obscure workers around them. Every worker must have their dreams just like Jude, dreams of having better life. Every worker must have their love just like Jude, love they think they could never leave behind. Both these workers and Jude live their life as every other higher class people do, only harder and tougher. But Jude in the novel Hardy depicts to readers still has something special----Jude seeks for knowledge, and entering university is a good approach. This kind of dream makes readers more surprised and more sensitive about Jude‟s experience. Thus Jude‟s similarity with other workers and his peculiarity as a seeker of education form a tension and exaggeration which lead readers to penetrate workers‟ both life and mind problems. As a result,it is a little one-sided to consider the novel as a song of failure of one man, instead taking Jude in a background where though workers have been exhausted to make a living in a very tough environment, they still have dreams and also exert all their energies to try to finish it. However, Jude does not realize his dream. Though his dream itself seems to be romantic and unpractical, the workers‟ struggle will not end for some time.Secondly, readers could easily find many Victorian values broken in this novel in not only the character‟s behaviors and words but also Hardy‟s description of sex. Generally speaking, the whole Victorian Age is a period when light and darkness, grace and dirty, saint and evil coexist with each other. What people and the society accept and praise at that time is always the good side, even if all the people are doing bad things simultaneously. Reason, moral integrity and self-restrainment become people‟s creed and at the same time the suppression of human and freedom. What is most emphasized is that marriage is sacred and couples should not have sex before they get married. However, in this background, Hardy tells readers a fresh story. The hero and heroine should abandon their respective lawful marriage and live together unmarried in church and have two children. No doubt that more and more gossips appear and linger on. And over once Hardy describes the sex boldly (in Victorian Age women should not be seen any piece of skin from head to toe). Thus it is imaginable that Jude the Obscure must be an atomic bomb at that time. However, modern readers should believe that what Jude and Sue do is not wrong and they just want to pursue the true love. What stop them are the society and the traditional value system. Even only the heroine, Sue, is a rather educated woman with wisdom. Her bold contact with a college man, her scorn toward those traditional creed and her bravery to run away with Jude, show that her mind goes far more advanced than other people, even than Jude. Nevertheless, in the end Jude and Sue‟s marriage gets broken like a bubble, Jude loses his ambition and his love and dies lonely and desperately, and Sue go away from her love and suffers the spiritual pain. At the ultimate moment, the particular couple cannot go through the pressure of the traditional values and morality.Thirdly, compared to Jude, Sue, as an smart enough woman, shows more spiritual conflict and arouses more controversy and readers‟ rethinking about women at that time. Just as what is mentioned in last paragraph, women in Victorian Age are both respected and despised. In life they should cover themselves up to teeth for protection but one man could buy any thirteen-year-old girl by 3 pounds. Women have no right to make big decisions at home and are considered by men to be the attachment to men. Women from higher class are treated like a vase, and those from lower should go out to work. Even the greatest politician at that time thinks that the vote right can destroy women‟s purity. Patriarchy is the dominant force. All these lead to many unsatisfied responses from women. Women's suffrage movement began in 1872in the United Kingdom unquestionably. As a tide-chasing writer, Hardy is deeply influenced by it. Not only in Jude the Obscure, but in his many other works can readers find his attention toward and remarkable description of women. Sue, a fresh female figure Hardy depicts, not only reads many books but also has wise brain. She looks down on those religion creeds, believes that marriage is just used to be shown to others to prove love and she never thinks that man is superior to woman so that she ever makes friends with a university student for a long time but when the schoolboy show his love to her, she thinks that is not actually what she wants and leaves him. Even when she finally lives together with Jude, she still refuses Jude‟s suggestion that they get married in church. Her passion and honesty in love, in her opinion, does not need to be proved withmarriage, or the cage of marriage could only make her love fade. Such a new female in Hardy‟s novel indeed reflects the females‟ situation at late nineteenth century: women were no longer the embodiment of innocence and obedience but became a new knowledgeable force against the patriarch society. They began to know the world and fought for themselves for freedom and rights. Sue is an example of them. She is undoubtedly learned, which astonishes Jude, and her words and behaviors show her reversal of the established rules at that time. However, she pays a lot for these so that she falls into endless guilty and identity crisis. Her faith changes and she turns to be a devout believer. She not only abandons her love, her passion but also her all definition of her life. Equality, freedom and true love have been cast away and are replaced by religion, atonement, obedience, self-restrainment dominating her later life. From here, it can be considered that Hardy could not offer a right way for women to fight a way out or he also cannot totally put women on the equal position with men. Thus Sue, and Arabella who manages to get everything she wants by any means, the two women, do not achieve real freedom and become the sacrifice of abnormal society under the pressure of traditional values in the end.。
