Nomadism In Hardy’s Jude The Obscure

As the most distinguished regional writer in the history of British literature, Thomas Hardy created a series of Wessex novels with passion and poetic imagination. Jude the Obscure is his last novel, and also the most controversial novel. Most critics have perceived the tragic sense of the novel, and they mainly focus on the author’s fatalism and pessimism. Few of them have interpreted the novel from the perspective of the changing space. Actually, each part of the novel is knitted by a name of place, which presents the nomadic journey of the protagonists from the pastoral space to urban space and also it unfolds the unique psychology belonging to the nomads only. Therefore, the topos of the novel is in one aspect, nomadism. The tragedy of the novel lies in that, when a new space is produced by the intensified conflict between the country and the city, the protagonists lose their control of space in the fluid space and thereby they lose their selfhood in the space and become the alienated, marginal men in the countryside and also in the city.The introduction, after introducing the present criticism of Jude the Obscure, establishes the theme of nomadism of the novel and provides feasibility of this thesis from analyzing the protagonists’nomadic experiences from spatial aspect. This part also puts forth the major points and research method of the present thesis, and points out that the loss of spatial self is the cause of their tragedy.The first chapter analyzes the reasons for the Wessex peasants’nomadic life in the pastoral space. With the expansion and intrusion of capitalism, the pastoral space is squeezed. The ancient villages lose its goodness, and accordingly the peasants lose their subjectivity in the pastoral space. Consequently, they choose to leave for the town and become nomads in the city.The second chapter is about the nomadic journey in the urban space. In the end of the nineteenth century and the beginning of the twentieth century, English society experienced capricious transformation. Trapped at the turn of two centuries, people become disoriented. The urban space is a chaotic disintegrated space. The invisible observation disciplines people’s life. The protagonists in this heterotopia struggle to survive but they cannot find a way out.The third chapter analyzes the tragic fate of the alienated nomads. They are torn by Christian belief and bewilderment. Losing their identity, they are alienated as marginal men in the country and in the city.The conclusion summarizes the pursuit and experiences of the nomads in the city. Hardy’s concern for his Wessex men is unfolded by space writing in the turbulent Victorian world. The alienated Wessex men could not find their sense of belonging and they wander from country to city. This is the perplexity of the alienated and also the perplexity of Hardy. The conclusion also points out that this is one reason for Hardy’s giving up novel writing.