Thomas Hardy's Religious Doubts

Jude the Obscure is Thomas Hardy's swan song, presenting a tragic character Jude who powerlessly struggles to enter the university in Christminster and to become a priest at a later plan, but who finally fails and commits suicide. When the novel was published in 1895, it was not only immediately strongly opposed by the critics but also fiercely criticized by the Christians. The author wondered what religious view his last novel reveals. Applying Northrop Frye's theory of archetypal criticism, the thesis attempts to analyze the reoccurring plot of a Biblical archetype of Judas Iscariot in Thomas Hardy's Jude the Obscure and to further illustrate how the victimizer image of Judas turns into a victim image of Jude. The essay concludes that the novel reveals not only Hardy's modern rebellious spirit but also his challenge on the merciful God as well as religious salvation.