Marriages In Jude The Obscure

Thomas Hardy is a distinguished critical realist writer of the Victorian Age. In the mid-late Victorian Age, especially after the global great depression in1873, the social, political and economic prosperity faded away and sank into decline on a large scale. In addition, the rise of modern science and technology ushered in an era of the co-existence of tradition and innovation, the contradictions between theology and ethical secularization included. Hardy presents in his earlier works agricultural degeneration and industrial expansion, but Jude the Obscure, which was written in1893, launches a fierce verbal attack at Victorian morality. Hardy is preoccupied in Victorian marriage sacrament and institution which should be responsible for not only the endless pain but also the suppression and twist of humanity in matrimony. Therefore, all the disobedient behavior of characters against marriage system in the novel actually stands for the quest for survival.Under the guiding principles of biographical, social-historical criticism and psychoanalysis, the present thesis, focusing itself on Jude’s and Sue’s marriages, attempts to give an in-depth analysis of the contractual nature of the Victorian marriage and the unconventionality in the ideal marriage created by Jude Sue, in hope to reveal Hardy’s positive view of Jude and Sue’s camaraderie in marriage and of dissolvability for cruel unhappy matrimony.The first chapter aims at unveiling the contractual nature of Victorian conventional marriage. Both Jude and Sue, the protagonists, are entrapped under the force of convention, their humanity also caught in plight. Living in the big environment of masculinity, Jude becomes a victim ironically due to his failure to be a conventional standard man; Sue, on the other hand, faces much threat to her peculiar characteristic while being forced to be the "Angle in the House". The compulsiveness and contractual nature embodied in Victorian conventional marriage can hardly bring true happiness to couples not to mention the great harm it does to their humanity.The second chapter is fixed upon the features of an ideal marriage. As a confrontation to conventional marriage, the ideal marriage of Jude and Sue is based on camaraderie love, values more gender equality in conjugal life instead of male-dominance and takes children as loving responsibility other than reluctant burden. Besides, Victorian marriage seems to take more social order as the standard, regardless of couples’ real thoughts, needs or different situations. Hardy highlights his yearning of a marriage with humanity respected and consistent with the law of nature. The third chapter is divided into two parts to analyze Hardy’s concrete view about marriage which to large extent lays the foundation of the tension shown among different marriages in Jude the Obscure. In the first place, Hardy shows his proposition of camaraderie as the basis of marriage which is presented comprehensively in Jude the Obscure. The sources come from his miserable conjugal experiences with his first wife Emma and personal preference of spiritual love, or Shelleyan love. This could be seen in his depicting of the pure love between Jude and Sue and Sue’s unique personality. What follows is Hardy’s approval of dissolving an already unhappy marriage. The cruelty of his marriage is severely criticized for two things:religious marriage believes in the permanence of matrimony, which Hardy could not defeat in some sense; the divorce law, which did not provide quicker, more equal and private access for him. In the novel Hardy speaks out his helplessness and misery in Sue’s words. Such undying pain drives Hardy to dig out the suppression and twist that society mores and marriage institution do to humanity, which makes him a pioneer against temporal marriage institution.The present thesis is targeted at revelation of the contractual nature in Victorian conventional marriage, the subversiveness of ideal marriage to convention in Jude the Obscure and deep survey on Hardy’s contemplation about the importance of camaraderie love and dissolvability in marriage from biographical perspective.The concluding part reiterates briefly Hardy’s view of marriage, pointing out the tendency of fatalism. The present author argues that Hardy is ahead of his time in term of his profound meditation about marriage and his sharp perception of humanity, which exerts far-reaching influence on successive writers.