Sue Bridehead: A Woman Challenging Social Conventions

Thomas Hardy(1840-1928) is the greatest rustic novelist as well as a great poet in English literary history. His fiction has always had a strong appeal for the reading public, and keeps drawing increasing attention from the academic and critical circles in particular. Some critics even think that Hardy's standing as a novelist has grown to eclipse everyone in the nineteenth century except Dickens.Hardy's achievements in novel writing are remarkable. He is very good at the depiction of female characters. Most of the heroines in his fictions are strong, independent and have some mascuhnity, but they always have a tragic fate. Jude the Obscure is Hardy's last novel. The protaganist, Sue is a representative of " New Woman" in Victoria Age, She has evoked the most controversy of all Hardy's female characters. To some extent, Jude the Obscure represents Hardy's greatest acheivement in literature. Because in this novel, through Sue, Hardy expresses his thought againt religion, traditional moralities and codes towards women, and even against social conventions in the Victorian Age, he was strongly condemned by the Church and the public at that time after the publication of Jude. In angry response, Hardy decided to abandon hisfiction writing and concentrated on his " first love "-----poetry.Divided into three parts, this thesis offers an extensive study of Sue, the protagonist. Part One is the introduction,mainly dealing with Hardy's life and work, his philosophy and religious belief, his view on marriage, his major female characters and their characteristics, as well as the brief plot of Jude.As the main body of the paper, Part Two is the analysis. It is made up of seven chapters, each one from different angles, analysing the image of Sue. Chapter One gives a brief introduction of the historical and social background of this novel. Chapter Two analyses Sue's character in detail, it explores both the positive and negative aspects of her character modern, intellectual, unconventional, independent, emanicipated; neurotic, sensitive, sexless, self-centered, selfish, unstable, cold and relentless. It also shows their influences on herself and on other characters, like Jude and Phillotson. Chapter Three discusses Sue's love and marriage. It points out that Sue's love is a kind of " narcissism ". Her demand for love and her contribution to love are not balanced. Besides, she is considered sexless in some ways. Chapter Four gives an analysis of Sue's three marriages and dwells on the reasons of her marriages and their break-up. Chapter Five, divided into three sections, gives a detailed analysis of Sue's fate and the causes of her unfortunate fate: her character is the basic reason of her tragedy, the external forces like social conventions and other characters like Arabella and little Father Time also have some influences on her fate. Chapter Six and Seven just as the supplements to this part, focuses mainly on Sue's religious beliefand her modernity.Part Three is the conclusion in two chapters. Chapter one gives an objective and fair comment on and summary of Sue. Chapter Two highly praises the image of Sue in Hardy's literary creation.Through all the above extensive analysis, this thesis tries to reveal the various elements, direct and indirect, personal and social, which restrict the development of Sue's personality and the realization of her ideals.