On Modernistic Themes In Thomas Hardy's Jude The Obscure

Thomas Hardy (1840-1928) was a great novelist and poet in the nineteenth century. He was respected as a prestigious novelist for a long period of his life span although his literary career began and ended with poetry writing. He created altogether more than forty short novels and novels of medium length as well as fourteen long novels. Jude the Obscure, the last novel before Hardy resumed his poetry creation, especially interested critics and readers domestic and abroad.Foreign and domestic criticism for a long period of time has confined Hardy studies to the themes of "tragedy", "Wessex", and "character and environment". The charm of Hardy's novels is believed to lie in the description of rural scenery in "Wessex" which is patterned after Hardy's native land "Dorset shire" and detailed description of British country life. Although critics differ in interpretations of Hardy's different novels, there is one unanimous confirmation that Hardy is a "Victorian writer". However, Hardy goes beyond his time in his thoughts on modernistic themes in his Jude the Obscure. Just as Hardy told that the novel was fifty years ahead of time as for its theme, for which the publication of it met with numerous attacks and abuse. Nowadays, it has been more than a century since the publication of the novel, and the hidden modernistic themes are gradually brought out with the widening of critical perspectives.This thesis explores the modernistic themes comprehensively and deeply in Thomas Hardy's last novel Jude the Obscure from three aspects:the search for self-fulfillment and disillusionment, alienation and crisis of faith.The theme of self-fulfillment and disillusionment is displayed respectively through Jude Fawley and Sue Bridehead, the hero and the heroin in the novel. Jude fulfills his dream in two aspects. The first aspect is his rational pursuit—scholarly and ecclesiastical ambitions; the second aspect is his pursuit of love. Sue aspires after independence and freedom as well as love based on equal position with men. Hardy makes this novel distinctive by confronting his two protagonists with disillusionment. And the author blames the failure more on the society than on the individual. Because it is the social class that Jude belongs deprives him the chance to enter into the college in Christminster. The Christian laws, dogmas and doctrines that the individual can not change turns Sue's dream of living as an independent and free woman into nothingness.Alienation in modern literature refers to loneliness, the feeling of being discarded, emotional indifference among people as well as unbelonging in a highly materialized world. And it is reflected on Jude in three aspects—his isolation from the society and people, his rootlessness and his loneliness in a world that does not care about him. Jude is isolated from other people physically and mostly spiritually. A substantial wall separates him from those undergraduates in the wall. And an invisible wall severs him from people around him, including two women, Arabella and Sue with whom he shares intimacy. By losing his parents and the traditional culture in which his predecessors are brought up, Jude loses his root booth in blood and in culture. Isolation and loneliness altogether put Jude into a living experience beginning from childhood and ending with desperate loneliness.The theme of crisis of faith is a theme that can not be missed in the novel. As we know, Hardy himself renounced Christian faith in his adulthood and supported the theory of evolution of Darwin. And he was an allegiant follower of Victorian intellects who suffered from crisis of faith. In this autobiographic novel Jude, Hardy depicts not only the crisis of Christian faith of his characters but the existing state of people who have lost faith in life. Jude and Sue in the novel suffer greatly from a crisis of faith in Christianity at first, and lose faith in everything at last. The author of this thesis holds that it is the unfair and tragic experience in life that turns Jude into a person denouncing Christian faith. Jude undergoes the changing process from a devout Christian believer to an irreligious man. And Sue loses her Christian faith due to her rebellious and suspicious character, her critical reading, her family upbringing and the influence of the graduate in Christminster. Jude and Sue exchange their position in faith at the end of the novel—Jude dose not believe Christianity while Sue turns to God for spiritual isolation—which indicates exactly their loss of faith. Through detailed analysis, this thesis reaches the conclusion that Thomas Hardy has surpassed his time far beyond and his consideration on the modernistic themes in Jude the Obscure endows the novel with distinguishing modernistic features.