The Conflicts Between Hebraism And Hellenism

Thomas Hardy is another prolific "Shakespeare" in England, exposing himself to various schools of thoughts, including the contrary Christianity and Darwin's Agnosticism. The complexity of mind is also reflected in his novel Jude the Obscure, which, like the author himself, suffers great disputes. The contemporaries of Victorian Age even attacked it as an "anti-Christian" novel, leaving its opposite side "pro-Christian" tendency unstudied hitherto. Many efforts go to the archetypal research into the novel, little to the conflicts between deity and humanity in the novel. By setting the novel against the background of Victorian age's lifestyle, this thesis sets out from the textual analysis, focusing on the conflicts between deity and humanity disclosed by the characters. They are Jude's and Sue's inner conflicts and the conflicts between two supporting roles. Through the interdisciplinary way of research, the thesis further proves that the conflicts mentioned above essentially fall into the category of three main conflicts between Hebraism and Hellenism: deity-centering and humanity-centering, spirit and flesh, and strictness of consciousness and spontaneity of consciousness.